CARACAS- Venezuela's state security agencies have detected plans of a destabilization process in the country to be set in motion if opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales remains without a prayer to win the December 3 elections.

The revelation came in a commentary in the Vea newspaper, and also assures that extra measures have been taken to protect the life of President Hugo Chavez.

"A new element has been added: a possible connection with the sophisticated Israeli secret service, Mossad, capable of doing absolutely anything," assured the journalist.

Chavez warned Saturday that US President George W. Bush had ordered his assassination after the Venezuelan president's speech at the UN General Assembly last Wednesday. In his address, Chavez dubbed Bush as the "devil."

BERLIN -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has told the media that Syrian people "want to make peace with Israel", instead of striving to "wipe the Jewish nation off the map."

In an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel magazine released on Monday, Assad said that Syria welcomed the U.S. intervention in the Middle East, but Washington must "listen to" the aspirations of the people in the region.

A Jewish rabbi living in the West Bank has called on the Israeli government to use their troops to kill all Palestinian males more than 13 years old in a bid to end Palestinian presence on this earth.

Extremist rabbi Yousef Falay, who dwells at the Yitzhar settlement on illegally seized Palestinian land in the northern part of the West Bank, wrote an article in a Zionist magazine under the title "Ways of War", in which he called for the killing of all Palestinian males refusing to flee their country, describing his idea as the practical way to ensure the non-existence of the Palestinian race.

Tactical nuclear weapons would be required to penetrate the defenses Iran has constructed around its nuclear facilities, according to Col. (res.) Shlomo Mofaz, an international consultant on terrorism and intelligence and a research fellow at the Institute of Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Mofaz argued that any preemptive action - not necessarily launched by Israel - against Iran's nuclear facilities would need to employ tactical nuclear weapons.

"The Iranians have invested a lot of money to hide their weapons and infrastructure underground. The most sensitive items are below the surface," he said.

"American experts have said they are not sure that conventional weapons would be able to infiltrate these sites," he said. "Based on information from public sources, any attack should use tactical nuclear weapons."

As reported in Time magazine on Monday, a recent Pentagon report outlining US military options to the Iranian threat mentions the difficulty of locating all targets. It also states that Iran's reinforced facilities constitute a strategic challenge to any military action. The report suggests that repeated air strikes using laser and satellite guided missiles would be necessary.

Mofaz added that the Iranians have studied US and Israeli techniques for destroying infrastructure and weapons stores, and therefore have built these bunkers as a response.

As the UN Security Council begins the process of bringing potential sanctions against Iran to a vote, Mofaz stressed that the Iranian strategy in relation to the UN was one of foot-dragging, an attempt to buy time while the nuclear drive advances.

"The Iranian administration is gaining more time to push forward to finish its program," said Mofaz, adding that the sanction moves had come too late.

According to Mofaz, there are two essential aspects to an Israeli response to the threat from Iran: The need to deploy the Arrow antimissile system - which would be effective only if Teheran were to employ a small number of missiles, but not against larger volleys - and to develop a second-strike capability.

"Second-strike capabilities are based on the assumption that Israel has nuclear weapons," he noted, "something which has not been confirmed by the Israeli government."

Regarding a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, Mofaz said that according to the principles of the IDF, as first set out by David Ben-Gurion, "Israel must have full capability to defend itself; there must be a program and plan to deal with the Iranian threat... The IDF needs to have the capability to eliminate this threat."

Mofaz warned, however, that both the appropriate timing for such a strike and whether the IDF was capable of destroying Iran's nuclear program were unknown.

"The difficulty of such a strike stems from the possibility that there are many unidentified nuclear development sites and the limited usefulness of conventional air strikes against nuclear facilities," he said.

Shell and BP were facing legal wrangles and upheaval in Russia last night, raising doubts about the involvement of foreign companies in the country's oil and gas sector. Government approval for Shell's $20bn Sakhalin project was withdrawn and state-owned Gazprom was reported to be trying to buy half of the TNK-BP joint venture.

Russia's Natural Resources ministry said it had revoked the environmental approval for the major Sakhalin-2 scheme in the far east of Russia to "satisfy the arguments of the prosecutor's office" leaving the future of the scheme in doubt.

The prosecutor general's office alleged at the weekend that permission to develop the second phase of the Sakhalin island gas project had been granted illegally, but Shell insisted last night that it had done nothing wrong.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed that the five million Palestinian refugees scattered around the world be allowed to return to historic Palestine to take part in a referendum, in which Jews would participate, to determine a system of government for both people.

"Our position toward the Palestinian question is clear: We say that a nation has been displaced from its own land. Palestinian people are killed in their own lands, by those who are not original inhabitants, and they have come from far areas of the world and have occupied those homes.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed that the five million Palestinian refugees scattered around the world be allowed to return to historic Palestine to take part in a referendum, in which Jews would participate, to determine a system of government for both people.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros compared the Bush administration to socialist and communist regimes Thursday while criticizing America's war on terror.

The liberal political activist said the U.S. strategy of fighting a "war" against terrorism is "false" and a "dismal and disheartening situation." Critics say Soros is only trying to hurt Republicans' chances in the November elections and warn that he is undermining efforts to protect Americans from terrorists.

Soros told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "We are working with a very false frame when we talk about a 'war on terror,' and yet it is universally accepted.

Dr David Kelly

In 2003 Dr David Kelly was found dead in the woods. Caught in a political vortex, Dr Kelly had been forced to appear before a televised government committee investigating whether he had accused British government figures of planting in a dossier the questionable claim that WMDs could be unleashed from Iraq in 45 minutes. The Hutton Inquiry concluded that Dr Kelly took his own life. But did he? The KELLY INVESTIGATION GROUP takes a closer look....

Jerusalem, Israel - Senior Syrian government official have accused the US of being behind Tuesday's assault on its own embassy in downtown Damascus.

A Baath party official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told WorldNetDaily, "We in the government are 100 percent sure America was behind this attack, which is not the same as other attacks by Islamic groups."

He explained, "Only the Americans can succeed in carrying out an attack just 200 meters from President [Bashar] Assad's residence in the most heavily guarded section of Syria."

On Tuesday, Syrian officials foiled an attack on the American embassy in Damascus. Three of the attackers were shot and killed, while another was captured by Syria. Three Syrian security agents were wounded, along with ten civilians and a Chinese diplomat.

Syria has initially fingered a little-known group called Jund al-Sham, an organization that reportedly has ties to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

In evaluating an event such as the failed attack on the US embassy in Damascus, it is necessary first of all to ask the question, "Who benefits?"-or, in this case, "Who would have benefited?"