US President Barack Obama nominates Robert Ford as Washington's first ambassador to Syria in five years as Damascus emerges an influential peacemaker in the Middle East.

Washington recalled its envoy after Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in early 2005 in a bombing the West blamed on Syria.

Obama's choice now awaits the Senate's approval to become the diplomat to formally launch the resumption of diplomatic ties between the US and Syria.

The White House announcement comes a day before top State Department official William Burns went to Syria as part of Washington's efforts to expand dialogue with Damascus on "all aspects" of a strained relationship.

Obama has recently turned to Syria for help with mediating between Palestinians and Israel after his tantalizing first year in office saw no breakthrough out of the current deadlock in the Middle East peace process.

Jerusalem - The Israeli foreign minister said today there was no reason to assume that Mossad assassinated a Hamas military commander in a Dubai hotel room, even as suspicions mounted that the spy agency made the hit using the identities of Israelis with European passports.

While few people are privy to the cloak-and-dagger operations of Mossad, senior Israeli security officials not directly involved with the affair said they were convinced it was a Mossad operation because of the motive and the use of Israeli identities.

The officials characterised it as a significant Mossad bungle.

British authorities are investigating how six British nationals apparently had their identities stolen by suspected Mossad agents on a mission to assassinate a Hamas leader in Dubai.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that the identities used by six members of the 11-strong hit squad were those of real British passport holders living in Israel. "We believe the passports used were fraudulent, and have begun our own investigation," a spokesman said.

Authorities are considering the possibility that British passport details were copied from the originals by hotel or immigration staff while the holders were travelling.

While the names, passport numbers and dates of birth on the fraudulent passports matched the originals, the photographs and signatures differed.

China has urged the US to immediately withdraw a decision on a meeting between American President Barack Obama and exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama.

China Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ma Zhaoxu on Friday fiercely protested against the planned meeting.

"China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders' contacting with him," Xinhua quoted Ma as saying.

"We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, honor its commitment to recognizing Tibet as part of China and opposing "Tibet independence."

Senior officials in Beijing have warned Washington against the meeting. The US has ignored Beijing's warnings, saying Obama will meet the Dalai Lama next week.

Israel is a young nation, yet its intelligence apparatus has a long and sordid history. From staging Muslim terror attacks in Egypt in 1954, to orchestrating 'Arab' terrorist hijackings in 1976, to directing 'al-Qaeda' terror attacks in 2006, there seems little that the Mossad will not do in an effort to give legitimacy to the Israeli government's slow genocide of the Palestinian people and bolster the American government's phony 'war on terror'.

That the Mossad eagerly assassinates all enemies of Israel (real, imagined and fabricated) is generally accepted, if not condoned, but the details of precisely how agents go about their dirty work has remained sketchy to say the least, with the revelations of former agents like Victor Ostrovsky the most reliable reference. The recent murder of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel, however, gives a never-before seen inside look at the extent to which the Mossad operates 'by way of deception'.

It's not unique, but it's certainly not often that foreign spies are caught redhanded in New Zealand, let alone arrested, imprisoned and deported. We are a long way away from the world's major battlefields. As former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, so pithily put it: "New Zealand is a dagger aimed at the heart of Antarctica". It has happened before, primarily during the good old Cold War when there were various incidents involving Soviet diplomats, up to the rank of Ambassador, usually accused of being in cahoots with officials of the former pro-Soviet Socialist Unity Party. None of those diplomats was ever charged with anything; as they all held diplomatic immunity, they were simply told to leave the country. The most famous "spy scandal" involving the Russians led to the infamous 1970s' arrest, trial and acquittal of famous NZ economist and high ranking public official, the late Dr Bill Sutch. He was the only New Zealander ever prosecuted under the espionage provisions of the former Official Secrets Act, and his case represented one of the many nadirs in the half century of our glorious Security Intelligence Service (SIS).

Cases involving foreign spies from "friendly" countries are even more rare. It is a given that the US, Britain and Australia have Intelligence officers operating here, usually under diplomatic cover. But nothing has ever been done about them, even when there have been demonstrable instances of meddling in NZ's internal political affairs, most notably by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Our "friends" the French went too far with the 1985 fatal bombing, in Auckland Harbour, of the Rainbow Warrior by its agents. Routine Police work and the sheer nosiness of ordinary Kiwis led to two of those agents being arrested, tried and imprisoned (and released in an indecently short time, as a result of crude political pressure applied by France). But that was the only previous occasion where foreign spies (not to mention bombers and killers) have been actually prosecuted.

Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, has been hit with new allegations that its agents use Canadian passports to conduct foreign covert operations.

The allegations surfaced yesterday in a courtroom in Auckland, New Zealand.

The court heard that one of two men charged with participating in an organized crime group to obtain a false passport had earlier travelled into the country with a Canadian passport.

Urie Zoshe Kelman, 30, entered the country with Canadian documentation five years ago, on Feb. 2, 1999, the court heard. His stay lasted eight weeks and he left the country, headed for Melbourne, Australia, using a temporary replacement Canadian passport obtained while in New Zealand.

Senior government officials in New Zealand have told reporters there that Mr. Kelman and Eli Cara, his 50-year-old co-accused, are agents of Mossad, the Israeli foreign spy service.

The prime minister of New Zealand angrily denounced Israel and imposed diplomatic sanctions on it after two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months for trying on false grounds to obtain a New Zealand passport.

The plot, which involved obtaining a passport in the name of a tetraplegic man who had not spoken in years, provoked a furious reaction yesterday.

"The breach of New Zealand laws and sovereignty by agents of the Israeli government has seriously strained our relationship with Israel," said the prime minister, Helen Clark.

"This type of behaviour is unacceptable internationally by any country. It is a sorry indictment of Israel that it has again taken such actions against a country with which it has friendly relations."

High-level visits between the two countries will be cancelled, visa restrictions imposed for Israeli officials, and an expected visit to New Zealand by Moshe Katsov, the Israeli president, later this year has been cancelled.

The American public has not been informed by the US news media about highly newsworthy statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday February 12.

He said the era of nuclear weapons is over, suggesting Iran has no plans to build "inhumane" A-bombs. Ahmadinejad called for a world free of nuclear arms in an interview with Russia's NTV channel.

"We believe that not only the Middle East but also the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons because we see such weapons as inhumane," he said.

"Today, no one can use a nuclear weapon and we believe that the US is taking a wrong move by stockpiling nuclear weapons," he added. "Those who claim that they are against nuclear weapons should dismantle their nuclear weapons first to prove that they are honest."

Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.

Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel's Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging assassinations across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

The current spate of killings began in December when a "tourist bus" carrying Iranian officials and Hamas members exploded outside Damascus. The official report by Syria claimed that a tyre had exploded but photographs surfaced showing the charred remains of the vehicle - prompting speculation that a much larger explosion had taken place.