News, Prophecy and other

[Soldier4Christ]

 Cars burn as anger at Fatah poll defeat turns to violence

Cars were set alight and buildings vandalised in Gaza yesterday as thousands of mainly young members of Fatah angrily denounced the party's leadership for this week's spectacular electoral defeat by Hamas.

In the worst outbreak of violence since Wednesday's election a mob converged on the local Gaza outpost of the Palestinian parliament, led by gunmen firing in the air, calling for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, to resign and rejecting any coalition with Hamas.

"We don't want to join the Hamas government. We don't want corrupt leadership. We want reform and we want to fire all the corrupt," one group chanted.

Yesterday's protest was aimed at the discredited old guard of Fatah, whom the youth blame for their party's electoral defeat.

Later in the day clashes were reported leaving several wounded in three different areas between groups of Hamas and Fatah supporters, feuling fears that the two groups, both of which have well-armed military factions, may round on each other.

As election officials struggled to come up with definitive results, Mr Abbas confirmed Hamas's victory and invited the leadership of the militant Islamist movement to form a government.

Senior Hamas leaders met in secret to try to choose a cabinet and prime minister in the face of a growing international chorus demanding that the movement denounce violence and commit itself exclusively to peaceful negotiation. America announced it was reviewing all financial assistance to the Palestinians following the victory by Hamas. The US and European Union both say Hamas is a terror group.

"We do not provide money to terrorist organisations," said Sean McCormack, US State Department spokesman.

Hopes that the election victory might have tempered the group's rhetoric were dashed when a senior Hamas leader, exiled in Syria, reiterated that the group had not given up its armed struggle against Israel.

"As long as there is occupation and so long as our people's rights are usurped, our stand will remain as it is," said Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the Hamas movement. "We would resist the [Israeli] occupation to restore our rights." Hamas refuses to recognise the right of Israel to exist.

The scale and immediacy of the problems faced by the new Palestinian government were reflected by economic data that showed the government would run out of money to pay government salaries within a few weeks.

Israel has threatened to withhold taxes that it collects and pays back to the Palestinian Authority in line with long-standing agreements.

The enmity poses another problem for the Hamas leadership as any government it forms is unlikely to be allowed to travel freely between Gaza and the West Bank through Israeli territory.

Israeli security forces would arrest any Hamas member inside Israeli jurisdiction.

[Soldier4Christ]

Tehran fast-tracking bomb
with North Korea purchase?
Pyongyang's growing plutonium cache
attracting Iranian interest, U.S. concern
Posted: January 29, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

While the U.S. and E.U. nations are scrambling to convince Iran to abandon its program of uranium enrichment and debating bringing the Islamic Republic before the U.N. Security Council, Tehran may be in the process of directly purchasing the plutonium it needs to make a bomb from North Korea, intelligence sources say.

As WorldNetDaily reported, North Korea made 30 pounds of plutonium last summer – during the six-party talks hosted by China to end their weapons program – by reprocessing 8,000 nuclear fuel rods. Beijing is currently working to restart a reactor capable of producing enough plutonium to manufacture 10 atomic bombs a year.

For the first time since the nuclear crisis began in 1994, reports the London Times, North Korea has sufficient fissile material to sell some to its ally while retaining enough for its own purposes. Recent reports of Iran offering North Korea oil for nuclear technology has U.S. intelligence experts concerned that a deal is being put together by the two nations for the "surplus" plutonium.

In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered North Korea had sold 1.7 tons of uranium to Libya, demonstrating how difficult trade in nuclear weapons-related materials is to detect and stop.

While constructing a weapon from plutonium is more complicated, only 15 to 20 pounds of the material is needed to make each nuclear bomb – a relatively small amount of material to transport between the two countries. Already, Iran is believed to be sharing results from its missile tests with North Korea in exchange for nuclear technology and, according to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Iran is building a research reactor "optimal for the production of weapons-grade plutonium."

Tehran sources say Iran's Revolutionary Guards has established its own links with North Korea, bypassing standard diplomatic channels. "Whatever they're up to, it's probably done through the Revolutionary Guards," said a western diplomat.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Iran's new hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad placed Iran's nuclear program under the control of militant commanders of the Revolutionary Guard shortly after taking office. Jalaleddin Namini Mianji, Iran's ambassador to North Korea who was appointed by the previous "reformist" government, is reportedly being recalled and his successor can be expected to be someone who will facilitate whatever nuclear deals the two countries are making.

The U.S. is sufficiently concerned the evidence points to a pending plutonium sale it has mounted a diplomatic offensive through China and South Korea to convey the message that transferring plutonium between the two nations would cross a "political red line."

[Soldier4Christ]

Iran crisis 'could drive oil over $90'

Prices climb ahead of critical week as nuclear row escalates. Opec says it won't increase quotas to cover for production shutdown

Heather Stewart, economics correspondent
Sunday January 29, 2006
The Observer

Oil markets are braced for a nail-biting week, as world leaders demand action against Iran over its nuclear ambitions, and analysts warn that crude prices could reach $90 a barrel if the oil-rich state retaliates by blocking supplies.

The International Atomic Energy Agency meets on Thursday to decide whether to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has threatened to respond to any punitive action by cutting off the 2.6 million barrels of oil a day it pumps into the markets - 5 per cent of the world's supply.

Jittery investors sent the price of Brent crude to $67.76 a barrel in New York on Friday night, as fears about the Iranian crisis and rebel attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria rocked confidence in an already tight market.

Kona Haque, commodities editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the worst case scenario of a shutdown of supplies from Iran would be 'absolutely devastating ... I wouldn't be surprised to see the price go over $90 a barrel'. She said fears about Iran are already adding a $10 risk premium to oil prices, which could remain in place for months as the crisis escalates. Davoud Danesh-Jafari, Iran's oil minister, has warned that the result of punitive action against his country would be 'the unleashing of a crisis in the oil sector'.

'The resumption of nuclear research by Iran is currently the market's largest preoccupation,' said BNP Paribas oil analyst Eoin O'Callaghan. He has pushed up his forecast for average oil prices this year to $65 a barrel because of geopolitical risk. He points out that the oil price rose more than 60 per cent in the run-up to the Iraq war; a similar increase now would take prices to $94.

Haque said that with little spare capacity in the market, prices are much more vulnerable to political shocks: 'We need a lot more supply capacity to have a cushion; it's going to take another couple of years until that happens.'

The oil producers' organisation Opec meets in Vienna on Tuesday amid calls from some members, including Iran, to cut back production and push up prices further. But most analysts believe production quotas will be left unchanged. 'There's no pressure on Opec to do anything,' said Rob Laughlin, oil analyst at Man Financial.

He said the Nigerian situation could potentially be worse for oil prices than fears about a supply squeeze from Iran. Production levels in Nigeria have already been lowered by 200,000 barrels a day in an effort to protect facilities from the rebels, who have deliberately targeted foreign oil companies. 'Nigeria is probably as big a problem as Iran for us. We're pretty politically squeezed, between the Nigerian rebels and the Iranian president,' said Laughlin.

The president of Opec, Nigeria's Edmund Daukoru, fuelled market fears on Friday when he told Reuters that his organisation was unlikely to step in with extra supplies if the Iranian crisis worsened. 'If Iran decides to stop production, or is forced to stop production because of a sanction, I don't think Opec necessarily has a role to play there,' he said.

Crude peaked at just over $70 a barrel last autumn after hurricane Katrina, but demand from fast-growing economies such as China and India, together with supply shortages in a number of producing countries, has prevented prices from dropping much below $60.

Investment in Russian oil production has been weak since President Putin's tax raid on the oil giant Yukos, and Iraqi output is well below the levels Washington hoped for before coalition tanks rolled into Baghdad. A cold snap in the US, which has so far had an unusually warm winter, could push prices up further in the weeks ahead. 'Should cold weather return to the US, then we'll really be in trouble,' said Laughlin.

[Soldier4Christ]

Rice Rules Out Aid to Hamas Government

 BY ANNE GEARAN

AP Diplomatic Writer LONDON U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday ruled out any American financial aid to a Hamas government in the Palestinian territories and said Washington wants Arab nations and others to cut off money as well.

Humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, many of whom are poor and unemployed, is likely on a "case-by-case basis," Rice said. She indicated that the Bush administration would follow through on aid promised to the current, U.S.-backed Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

 "The United States is not prepared to fund an organization that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses its obligations," under an international framework for eventual Mideast peace, Rice said.

Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, won a decisive majority in last week's Palestinian legislative elections. The group, which has political and militant wings, will now take a large role in governing the Palestinians. The makeup of the new government is not clear.

The Islamic militants, who carried out dozens of suicide bombings and seek Israel's destruction, have said they oppose peace talks and will not disarm. Israel refuses to deal with Hamas.

Hamas' unexpected electoral victory raised questions about the future of the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel, and how the United States can influence such efforts or help impoverished Palestinians.

"We're going to review all of our assistance programs, but the bedrock principle here is we can't have funding for an organization that holds those views just because it is in government," Rice said.

The top U.S. diplomat spoke to reporters as she flew to London for a Mideast strategy session with European and Russian leaders and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Rice also will meet separately with other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to discuss Iran and an upcoming vote on whether to refer the Tehran government to the council over its nuclear program.

Rice was more definitive than President Bush and other administration officials have been about the future of U.S. aid now that Palestinians have voted in Hamas.

The U.S., Europe and Israel list Hamas as a terrorist organization; various Arab governments have contact with the group.

"It is important that Hamas now will have to confront the implications of its covenant if it wishes to govern," Rice said. "That becomes a primary consideration in anything that we do."

It is not clear that all European nations or the United Nations would cut off aid, let alone Arab governments that do not recognize Israel.

"I just think that anyone who is devoted to trying to bring Middle East peace between two states has an obligation now to make sure that anybody that is going to be supported is going to have that same" goal, Rice said.

Some in Israel and in the administration would like to isolate and impoverish the new Hamas leadership in hopes of either forcing the group to moderate its policies or hastening disillusionment with the incoming government among Palestinians.

U.S. aid is a small part of the $1.6 billion annual budget of the Palestinian Authority.

About $1 billion comes from overseas donors _ more than half of that from European nations. The rest is a mix of funds from international donor agencies, Arab and Asian governments, and the U.S., which gave $70 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority last year.

Separately, the U.S. spent $225 million for humanitarian projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, and gave $88 million for refugee assistance.

In the past, USAID money has gone for such projects as sprucing up the Ramallah auditorium where Palestinian leaders hold press conferences.

Rice suggested that only the most pressing needs would be considered now.

Earlier Sunday, with Hamas' victory discussed on the U.S. talk shows, a Republican senator said cutting U.S. aid to the Hamas-run government could push the Palestinians closer to Iran and create further chaos in the Middle East.

Yet governing changes in the region could allow diplomatic efforts by the Bush administration to move "in some quiet ways," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, a top member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"I think we're moving in the right direction, working with our allies, working with the United Nations, finding ways, with Hamas, to see where they're going to go here in the next few weeks, to see if there's something that we could do to influence that direction," said Hagel, R-Neb.

[Shammu]

Bombs Strike Christian Targets in Iraq

By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer Sun Jan 29, 7:52 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Car bombs exploded in quick succession Sunday near four Christian churches and the office of the Vatican envoy, killing three people and raising new concerns about sectarian tensions. At least 17 other people were killed in other violence around the country.

No group claimed responsibility for the bombings, which occurred within a half hour near two churches in Baghdad and two in Kirkuk, 180 miles to the north. The fifth bomb exploded about 50 yards from the Vatican mission in the capital.

Suspicion fell on Islamic extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq — led by Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — that have been responsible for massive car bombings and suicide attacks against Iraqi Shiite civilians.

Meanwhile, ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured Sunday when the Iraqi army vehicle they were traveling in was hit by a roadside bomb and small arms fire near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad.

Both suffered serious head injuries and underwent surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Balad, ABC News said.

The U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad on Saturday. At least 2,241 U.S. military personnel have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count.

The attacks on Christian sites came at a time of rising sectarian tensions, including reprisal killings and raids, that threaten to complicate efforts to form a broad-based government following the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

"This was a reaction from the al-Zarqawi people against Christians who they believe support the U.S. military in Iraq," senior Shiite lawmaker Ali al-Adeeb said. "Such acts are rejected by Shiites and Sunnis alike who have been living together with our Christian brothers in Iraq throughout history."

A prominent Sunni Arab politician, Naseer al-Ani, called the bombings "terrorist acts."

Three people died in the bombing at the Church of the Virgin in Kirkuk, police said. At least nine people were injured in the bombings, which caused little damage to the Christian buildings.

Despite the relatively low casualty toll, the bombings are expected to raise fears among the country's small Christian minority — about 3 percent of Iraq's 27 million people. At least 12 people were killed in a series of church bombings in 2004.

Vatican officials had no immediate comment.

U.S. officials are pressing the Iraqis to agree on a government that can win the trust of the Sunni Arabs, the minority community that forms the backbone of the insurgency. Such a government is considered essential if the United States and its international partners are to begin bringing their troops home this year.

However, neither the majority Shiites nor the minority Sunnis appear ready for major concessions in coalition talks. On Sunday, a key Sunni Arab politician accused Shiite-led security forces of pursuing a strategy of sectarian "cleansing" in Baghdad.

"Mosques and houses are empty because clerics and ordinary men are being chased as if there was a sectarian cleansing in Baghdad," gotcha98 al-Dulaimi told reporters. "Violence only breeds more violence. I demand that this sectarian sedition be stopped."

Al-Dulaimi, leader of the main Sunni bloc in the next parliament, also said he would oppose awarding the vital interior and defense ministries, which control state security forces, to Shiite religious parties.

Al-Dulaimi's comments followed a series of raids last week by Interior Ministry commandos into majority Sunni Arab neighborhoods in the capital. The government insists the raids are directed against insurgents who have targeted Shiite civilians as well as U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and police.

On Saturday, the head of the Badr Brigade Shiite militia said Shiite religious parties will "never surrender" the interior and defense ministries. An alliance of Shiite parties won 128 of the 275 parliament seats last month — the largest single bloc.

On Sunday, bombings and ambushes killed eight policemen and a medic in attacks across Baghdad and in the northern cities of Baqouba and Beiji.

A massive car bomb killed four Iraqi soldiers and wounded six more in Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Uja, about 75 miles north of Baghdad. It was unclear whether the attacks was linked to Saddam's trial, which resumed Sunday.

A former high-ranking general in Saddam's disbanded army, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Idham, was assassinated near Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, police said. The motive for the attack was unclear.

U.S. soldiers shot dead three men wearing Iraqi police uniforms and captured a fourth during a gunfight in Kirkuk. No police identity cards were found, and Iraqi police Brig. Serhad Qadir said they were suspected insurgents disguised as policemen.

Bombs Strike Christian Targets in Iraq

[Shammu]

70 Trapped After Fire in Canada Mine

56 minutes ago

ESTERHAZY, Saskatchewan - Fire broke out Sunday in a mine in central Canada, forcing some 70 miners trapped underground to retreat to emergency refuge rooms stocked with oxygen and supplies, a mine official said.

Late Sunday, a rescue team reached one of the rooms, made sure everyone was safe, then closed them back inside until the air inside the mine could be cleared of toxic gases, said Marshall Hamilton, a spokesman for Mosaic Company, the Minneapolis-based firm that operates the potash mine.

"In those refuge stations, they can seal themselves off and there's oxygen, food and water," Hamilton told CBC Radio. "And they can stay in there for at least 36 hours."

Hamilton said the fire broke out around 3 a.m. nearly a mile underground in the province of Saskatchewan. The miners reported smoke and quickly headed for the safe refuge rooms.

Hamilton said company officials could not establish a radio link with 30 of the miners but a team was able to enter one of the refuge rooms late Sunday and talk to the workers.

"I won't kid you, there was a lot of relief in that," Hamilton said.

He said the rescue team took a roll call of all the miners, checked their health and then helped them seal up the room again before leaving.

Hamilton said they believed they had found the source of the smoke and were working on extinguishing the fire. He said the mine would be cleared of smoke and toxic gas before miners were evacuated, adding "we'd rather do this safely than quickly."

"We'll go get them when we're absolutely confident that the fire is out and the smoke and the toxic gases that are associated with fires have left our operations and the air is safe for them to breathe," he said. "They're safe where they are, they're safe in there for many, many hours, potentially even days."

He said that some of the miners' families had gathered at the mine.

"They're a little bit tired. They're a little bit anxious. They have confidence that we've going to safely bring them up," he said. "Nevertheless, they'd like to see them sooner rather than later."

Potash is a pinkish-grey mineral used in the production of agricultural fertilizer.

The mine, which was Saskatchewan's first potash operation when it opened in 1962, is located near Esterhazy, about 130 miles northeast of Regina.

70 Trapped After Fire in Canada Mine

[Shammu]

 Asefi: Iran never killing time in negotiations
Tehran, Jan 29, IRNA

Iran-Nuclear-Asefi
Iran will never kill time in the process of talks, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi here on Sunday.

"Iran is determined to remove ambiguities, continue talks and win its rights," said Asefi in his weekly press conference.

Asefi said return of Europeans to the negotiation table is a sign of Iran's right stances.

"Iran has in talks over the past two years proved its goodwill but Europeans failed to be logical enough; and now we are witnessing their declaration of interest in continuing talks," said Asefi.

Asked about the reason(s) Iran was absent from the Davos meeting in Switzerland, Asefi said the priorities of Tehran's foreign and economic policies were different with that of the session; therefore it did not take part in it.

"Wherever there are discussions on Iran, it is not needed to be present there, rather stances can be announced through these press conferences," said Asefi.

On a question about the London meeting on reconstruction of Afghanistan, Asefi said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will represent Iran at the meeting and conduct negotiations with certain other countries.

Commenting on German proposal on economic sanctions against Iran, he said that economic sanctions will put Europe under pressure before they can force Iran.

Calling the emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors on February 2 as 'politically motivated and not technical', Asefi said, "The IAEA Director General has himself said he cannot present a complete report to the meeting." The Islamic Republic of Iran uses its utmost capacity in that concern and talks with different countries and one should wait and see what would be the result, added Assefi.

Asked about recent terrorist bombing in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz (Khuzestan province), Asefi said security forces have announced they have evidence at hand which points to a special country.

"The evidence will be known in the coming days; we will not allow any country to launch sabotage operations in Iran," he added.

He said Tehran is both patient and prudent in that concern.

Asked whether he meant Britain, Asefi said since the question referred to no name he did not present any name.

To a question about the possibility of China's contribution to Russian project, Asefi said the project is still limited to Russia and Iran and Russians have in their talks with Iran's top nuclear negotiator said two formulas can be defined: one for Iran and Russia and the other for contribution of other countries.

Also asked whether the reason for a halt in export of gas to Turkey was political or technical, Asefi said, "As Iranian officials have announced, the barriers are technical and whenever the obstacles are removed gas exports will begin to rise."
About recent events in Palestine and victory of Hamas in the elections, Asefi said, "Palestine is in a sensitive juncture and we think recent elections showed Palestinian people have chosen the path of resistance and Intifada."
Referring to the phone conversation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the head of Hamas political office Khalid Mashal on Saturday, Asefi said Palestinians should be watchful because some people want to play down the victory of Hamas.

Assassination of Hamas leaders and the Palestinian people by the Zionist regime bore fruits because the regime thought it can check Intifada by martyring one of them but the result was something else and not in favor of the Zionist regime, he added.

Also referring to recent statements by the EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana that public votes are not enough for legitimacy, Asefi said, "These are the new things that we hear from Europeans and I think (the definition of) democracy should be defined and drafted once again."
He said that the consequences of Hamas victory are more important than the victory itself.

Asked to comment on the consecutive visits of Arab heads of state to Iran, Asefi said expansion of cooperation with the regional, neighboring and Muslim states is given priority by the government and the visits are based on this very reason.

Asefi stressed that stronger ties with neighboring states will help security and peace in the region.

Calling the outcome of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's visit to South Africa as 'important', Asefi said that based on the talks held with the Non-Aligned Movement troika, the statement of the meeting stresses the right of all the member countries, including Iran, to attain peaceful nuclear technology.

On the US President George W. Bush's claim to offer all-out assistance to anti-Iran groups, Asefi said, "If that's correct, I think Bush had made a big mistake."
If Bush reviews his words once again, he will get to know that his words are in total contradiction with all international principles, he added.

If Bush has made such a claim, he has hence stirred chaos in the international relations, said Asefi.

Pointing to Iranian people's all-out support for the Islamic Republic of Iran's system, Asefi said, the US will fail again as it did 27 years ago.

On certain European media's desecration of Muslims' sanctities, Asefi said, "We hope Europeans will get to know their grave blunder and extend apology for it."
Europeans will suffer more from such moves because hatred of millions of Muslims in Europe will later on create problems for them, making them feel sorry for their action in course of time, he concluded.

Asefi: Iran never killing time in negotiations

[Soldier4Christ]

Hamas hints long-term truce,
demanding Israel change flag
Terror group claiming blue stripes
on banner symbols of 'occupation'
Posted: January 30, 2006

JERUSALEM – Hamas, which catapulted to power in last week's Palestinian elections, might soon offer Israel a long-term cease fire but will not recognize Israel's right to exist, the terror group's chief Mahmoud al-Zahar told WorldNetDaily yesterday after earlier demanding the Jewish state change it's official flag.

Al-Zahar's comments follow a WND exclusive interview in which a top Hamas leader said his group will soon make public a "peace initiative" in which it will offer to trade strategic land with Israel, cease attempts to capture parts of Jerusalem, and sign a 10-year renewable truce with the Jewish state with the aim of later destroying Israel.

"I am not ruling out a long truce period with Israel during which we will hold back armed confrontation as long as the Israeli soldiers respect the truce and do not commit violence against the Palestinian people," said al-Zahar, speaking to WND by cell phone from the Gaza Strip.

Israel routinely conducts operations against terror groups in Gaza and the West Bank aimed at halting suicide bombings, shooting attacks and rocket firing. Hamas openly targets Israeli civilians.

Al-Zahar deflected a question about whether he will modify Hamas' official charter, which calls for jihad against Israel "by assaulting and killing."

Earlier he demanded Israel "remove the two blue stripes from its national flag. The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel's borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile."

Israel's national flag, adopted from a previously used Zionist movement flag, features a star of David within two blue stripes. The stripes signify the Talit, or Jewish prayer shawl, which is traditionally striped.

Al-Zahar's statements regarding a possible long-term ceasefire coincide with a top Hamas leader's outline to WND of a "peace initiative," which the leader justified using Islamic tradition and said is a temporary machination to ease international and U.S. hostility toward his group in hopes of receiving financial assistance.

"We will be ready for a long interim agreement based on a period of cease-fire that can go to 10 or even 15 years like it was done by the prophet Muhammad with the enemies of the Muslims," said the senior Hamas official, who spoke on condition his name be withheld, since he said he was "revealing confidential operative information."

Hamas leaders, including overall Hamas chief Khaled Meshal, who resides in Syria, formulated a "peace proposal" they agreed would be acceptable to their group in which the Palestinians would offer to trade certain lands with Israel, the top Hamas official revealed.

"With the territories we will be ready to discuss the possibility that the three big settlement compounds will remain under the power of the occupation (Israel), and in exchange we will receive territories for the Palestinian independent state," said the Hamas leader.

The leader told WND the "three settlements" he was referring to are Ariel and Gush Etzion, two large regions in the West Bank that contain many of the area's major Jewish communities, and western and peripheral sections of Jerusalem, which he said Hamas considers "Israeli settlements." Jews have resided in Jerusalem, which is mentioned more than 800 times in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, for over 3,000 years.

Hamas, in exchange for the three areas, would want the eastern sections of Jerusalem, the parts of the southern Israeli Negev desert that border the Gaza Strip and the Jordan Valley, which extends from outside Jerusalem toward Jordan and encompasses most of Israel's major water supplies.

The Hamas official indicated his group may be willing to compromise on its territorial demands.

"We are most interested in Jerusalem and the Negev," the leader said.

The leader then justified the Hamas "peace plan" using Islamic history.

"The Muslim hero Saladin gave up land when he gave Acco to the Crusaders in order to keep Jerusalem. Therefore, I say that the possibility of the exchange of territories existed already in the history of Islam and it cohabitates with our principle that all of Palestine is a dedicated land from Allah, may he be blessed to the Muslims, and no one has the right to give up any part of it," said the leader.

There have been concerns that when it assumes control, Hamas may impose hard-line Islamic law on the Palestinians. Yesterday, Hamas gunmen placed the group's flag on the Palestinian parliament building in Ramallah and reportedly announced Hamas will soon rule the area by shariah law. Hamas reportedly has banned Western music events and established hard-line Islamic courts. Israel says the group has an "Anti-Corruption Unit" that enforces Islamic rules.

But the Hamas official told WND his terror organization will not impose Islamic law, "in order to reduce the hostility of the international community and the government of Israel [toward Hamas]. We will not take any initiative to change the way of life of the Palestinian people. ... I tell you we will surprise everyone with our new attitude."

The leader explained his group will create a governing coalition it feels will help garner financial assistance from European countries, including allowing another party to hold the foreign affairs and internal security portfolios and likely keeping the PA's current minister of finance, Salaem Fayyad, who largely is acceptable to the international community.

The Hamas leader said his group will not abandon its goal of destroying Israel.

"When I speak about a long cease-fire and a temporary agreement, it means that we do not recognize the right of the state of the occupation on our lands, but we will accept its existence temporarily," said the leader.

The leader insisted the policies are based on the formulation Hamas will not be able to defeat Israel in the near future, but he said his group is confident it ultimately will be "victorious."

"I do not see the Palestinian people and Islamic nation succeeding to liberate this blessed land of Palestine in the very near future," he said. "This is an Islamic land and the Jews are invited to live in Palestine and the Muslims will guaranty their safety and honor. ... But we will never give up our right for the whole of Palestine. We should be realistic to admit that the mission for the liberation of Palestine will pass on to the coming generations."

[Soldier4Christ]

Rice Says Allies Oppose Aid to Hamas Gov't
By ANNE GEARAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON (AP) -

The United States and its European allies have similar views about aid for a Hamas-led Palestinian government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday as she tried to persuade other nations to cut off assistance to a government led by the hard-line group.

"Everybody is saying exactly the same thing," Rice said amid meetings with other diplomats on Hamas' startling election victory last week and its impact on Middle East peacemaking efforts. "There has got to be a peaceful road ahead. ... You cannot be on one hand dedicated to peace and on the other dedicated to violence. Those two things are irreconcilable."

Rice was meeting other members of the so-called Quartet of would-be Mideast peacemakers Monday. The group, which includes the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, is already on record as saying "there is a fundamental contradiction between armed group and militia activities and the building of a democratic state."

"To say a Palestinian government must be committed to peace with Israel is at the core," Rice said. "You have to recognize Israel's right to exist."

Rice has ruled out any U.S. financial assistance to a government led by Hamas, which has carried out terrorist attacks against Israel and does not recognize its right to exist.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday called on Hamas to recognize the state of Israel, renounce violence and disarm. While EU officials are barred from contact with the Islamic militant group, which it considers a terrorist organization, the EU statement made clear that the EU would keep diplomatic channels open with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is not a member of Hamas.

On Sunday, Rice said humanitarian help to the Palestinians, many of whom are poor and unemployed, is likely on a "case-by-case basis." She indicated that the administration would follow through on aid promised to the current, U.S.-backed Palestinian government led by Abbas.

In Gaza meanwhile, a Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, called on the international community to continue funding the Palestinian Authority.

"We assure you that all the revenues will be spent on salaries, daily life and infrastructure," he said at a news conference, addressing international concerns that aid would be used to fund violence.

Rice also will meet separately with other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to discuss Iran and an upcoming vote on whether to refer the Tehran government to the council over its nuclear program.

Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, won a decisive majority in last week's Palestinian legislative elections. The group, which has political and militant wings, will now take a large role in governing the Palestinians. The makeup of the new government is not clear.

The Islamic militants, who carried out dozens of suicide bombings and seek Israel's destruction, have said they oppose peace talks and will not disarm. Israel refuses to deal with Hamas.

Hamas' unexpected electoral victory raised questions about the future of the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel, and how the United States can influence such efforts or help impoverished Palestinians.

"We're going to review all of our assistance programs, but the bedrock principle here is we can't have funding for an organization that holds those views just because it is in government," Rice said.

The U.S., Europe and Israel list Hamas as a terrorist organization; various Arab governments have contact with the group.

"It is important that Hamas now will have to confront the implications of its covenant if it wishes to govern," Rice said. "That becomes a primary consideration in anything that we do."

It is not clear that all European nations or the United Nations would cut off aid, let alone Arab governments that do not recognize Israel.

"I just think that anyone who is devoted to trying to bring Middle East peace between two states has an obligation now to make sure that anybody that is going to be supported is going to have that same" goal, Rice said.

U.S. aid is a small part of the $1.6 billion annual budget of the Palestinian Authority.

About $1 billion comes from overseas donors - more than half of that from European nations. The rest is a mix of funds from international donor agencies, Arab and Asian governments, and the U.S., which gave $70 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority last year.

Separately, the U.S. spent $225 million for humanitarian projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, and gave $88 million for refugee assistance.

[Soldier4Christ]

Congress Racing to Isolate a Hamas Regime

By MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 30, 2006

WASHINGTON - Congress is moving quickly in the face of Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections to slash American funding for the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations and ensure that America moves to isolate the new regime.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida, will introduce House legislation this week to slash American funding to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations; designate the Palestinian Authority as a "terrorist sanctuary," and close down some Palestinian Authority offices in America as part of a reduction of Palestinian-American diplomatic ties.

The bill would be the first official move in Washington toward cutting funding to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority, as concern about the terrorist organization's electoral victory has prompted increasingly vocal calls on Capitol Hill to stop aid to the Palestinian Arabs.

The bill is expected to be introduced tomorrow when the House reconvenes for President Bush's State of the Union address, and will start in the House International Relations Committee. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen is chairwoman of the committee's Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, which has congressional jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority.

"Abu Mazen and the PA leadership were given numerous opportunities to prove what they're made of - to prove that they're committed to peace and security," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said yesterday of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah Party, also known as Abu Mazen. "They showed their stripes. Even after Israel withdrew from Gaza, they refused to disarm Hamas and other terrorists, and they allowed them to gain strength.

"We must ensure that taxpayer funds are not used to assist, directly or indirectly, those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who allow these attacks to continue by doing nothing to combat terror," the congresswoman said.

According to senior congressional staff familiar with the legislation, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's bill is a comprehensive crackdown on American aid to and interactions with a terrorist-controlled Palestinian Authority or Palestinian Legislative Council. The bill would "prohibit direct assistance to the PA, the PLC, municipalities, and other constituent elements that are 'governed' by individuals associated with Hamas or other terrorist entities," according to a "Dear Colleague" letter obtained by The New York Sun that will begin circulating in Congress today as an invitation to potential co-sponsors. America is contributing about $150 million in aid to the Palestinian government this year.

The legislation would also "audit all committees, offices, and commissions focused on the Palestinian agenda at the United Nations and recommend for their elimination," according to the letter. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's bill would slash American U.N. contributions proportional to the amount spent by the United Nations on aid to Palestinian Arabs, and on Palestinian Authority-related programs. The Sun reported last week that the U.N. spends about $3.5 million a year on such activities; America shoulders about 22% of the U.N.'s operating costs.

Requests for comment yesterday from the United Nations about the proposed funding cut were not responded to immediately.

According to staff, the House legislation also would reduce America's ties to and interactions with a Hamasled Palestinian Authority, in order both to signal America's unwillingness to deal with terrorists and to protect America from possible terrorist activity conducted under the guise of official Palestinian Authority business here.

The bill would, for example, prohibit the State Department from issuing visas to all members or agents of foreign terrorist organizations, eliminating loopholes that might allow Hamas leaders to enter America to conduct diplomatic business as elected officials. The bill also would call for a reduction in America's diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, and call for its diplomatic offices in Washington to be shut down, urging that American diplomatic business be conducted either in the Palestinian territories or through the Palestinian U.N. mission in New York.

In addition to slashing aid and severing some diplomatic connections, the bill would designate the Palestinian Authority a "terrorist sanctuary," under the terms of the 2004 "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act." The act, pursuant to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, adds to the State Department's state sponsors of terrorism list a separate designation for countries that knowingly harbor terrorists. "Terrorist sanctuaries" are subjected to sanctions applied against state sponsors of terrorism, in cluding prohibitions against foreign aid and restrictions on trade and financial transactions.

"You are either with us or against us on the war on terror," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said yesterday. "I think the response of Abu Mazen and the PA leadership relating to Hamas clearly shows where they are."

A New York Democrat who has long advocated de-funding the Palestinian Authority, Rep. Anthony Weiner, told the Sun yesterday that he thought some of the measures articulated by Ms. Ros-Lehtinen would enjoy broad, bipartisan support in Congress as more lawmakers come to recognize that America's "propping up" the PA has been "wrongheaded."

"The only thing surprising about this is how unsurprising this is - that we're in the problem with this aid," Mr. Weiner said. "It has been based on the wrong foundation ever since it started back in the days of Oslo. It hasn't brought us a more pro-U.S. state of mind there. It hasn't brought us a more peaceful region. It hasn't brought us, arguably, improved services to the Palestinian people."

Yet Mr. Weiner cautioned that while support for cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority is high on Capitol Hill, it is uncertain whether the authority to slash diplomatic aid and ties rest with Congress as part of its power of the purse, or with the White House as part of the executive's power to set foreign policy.

"At the end of the day, the State Department has to come around on this stuff," Mr. Weiner said. The congressman added that he has begun circulating a letter to Mr. Bush requesting that his budget proposal next month exclude any funding for the Palestinian Authority.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and Mr. Weiner have been joined in their calls by Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican of New York, who last week urged America to stop funding the Palestinian Arabs until Hamas pledges to disarm its militant wing. And yesterday, in a series of statements on political talk shows and in other press outlets, Republican Senators Hagel and Frist, of Nebraska and Tennessee, and Senator Obama, a Democrat of Illinois, all said American aid to the Palestinian Arabs should be cut until and unless Hamas disarms and ceases its support for the destruction of Israel.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, too, said Mr. Bush should be supported in reducing aid. The president has indicated that American assistance to the Palestinian Authority should be withheld after last week's elections, in which Hamas won 76 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, until the terrorist organization disarms.

A scholar of Israel and the Middle East, and a former board member of the United States Institute of Peace, Daniel Pipes, said yesterday that while it is important for America to cut funding both to protect taxpayer money and signal its unwillingness to recognize terrorist authority, he doubts that any withholding measures by the federal government will affect the Palestinian Arabs' anti-Israel mind-set.

"I'm skeptical that given the type of momentum that exists, that it will make much difference," Mr. Pipes, who also writes a column for the Sun, said. "I see the Palestinian body politic as deeply radicalized, deeply hostile, and deeply problematic. I note, for example, that virtually every delegate elected to the legislative council rejects the existence of Israel."

"There are more fundamental shifts that need to take place. And I see a hiccup here," Mr. Pipes said of the calls to slash aid. "I don't see a fundamental shift."

[Shammu]

UN unveils plan to release untapped wealth of...$7 trillion (and solve the world's problems at a stroke)
 By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 30 January 2006

The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.

The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.

In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate.

It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century.

If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment.

At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit. Top of the list is a challenge to the United States to join an international pollution permit trading system which, the UN claims, could deliver $3.64trn of global wealth.

Inge Kaul, a special adviser at the UNDP, said: "The way we run our economies today is vastly expensive and inefficient because we don't manage risk well and we don't prevent crises." She downplayed concerns over up-front costs and interest payments for the new-fangled financial devices. "The gains in terms of development would outweigh those costs. Money is wasted because we dribble aid, and the costs of not solving the problems are much, much higher than what we would have to pay for getting the financial markets to lend the money."

The UNDP is determined to ensure globalisation, which has generated vast wealth for multinational companies, benefits the poorest in society.

It urges politicians to embrace some groundbreaking schemes put in place in the past 12 months to tackle global warning, poverty and disease, based on working with the global markets to share out the risk.

These include a pilot international finance facility (IFF) to "front load" $4bn of cash for vaccines by borrowing money against pledges of future government aid.

The scheme, which is backed by the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was born out of a proposal by Gordon Brown for a larger scheme to double the total aid budget to $100bn a year.

In an endorsement of the report, Mr Brown said: "This shows how we can equip people and countries for a new global economy that combined greater prosperity and fairness both within and across nations."

The UNDP says rich countries should build on this and go further. It proposes six schemes to harness the power of the markets:

* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through pollution permit trading; net gain $3.64trn.

* Cutting poor countries' borrowing costs by securing the debts against the income from stable parts of their economies; net gain $2.90trn.

* Reducing government debt costs by linking payments to the country's economic output; net gain $600bn.

* An enlarged version of the vaccine scheme; net gain (including benefits of lower mortality) $47bn.

* Using the vast flow of money from migrants back to their home country to guarantee; net gain $31bn.

* Aid agencies underwriting loans to market investors to lower interest rates; net gain $22bn.

Professor Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank and a staunch critic of the way globalisation harms the poor, said: "Globalisation has meant the closer integration of countries, and that in turn has meant a greater need for collective action.

"One of the most important areas of failure is the environment. Without government intervention, firms and households have no incentive to limit their pollution." He said a global public finance system would force countries to acknowledge the external damage their policies had, "the most important being global climate change".

Solving the environmental crisis tops the UN's $7trn wish-list. It calls for an international market to trade pollution permits that would encourage rich countries to cut pollution and hit their targets under the Kyoto protocol.

But - and the UN admits it is a big "but" - the US would have to sign up to Kyoto and carbon trading to achieve the $3.64trn that it believes the system would deliver over time.

"We are dealing with a global problem as pollution can only be dealt with internationally," Ms Kaul said. Richard Sandor, the head of the Chicago Climate Exchange, added: "Many encouraging signs are emerging. When the business case is clear, private entrepreneurs step forward."

But, the proposal is unlikely to get support from some green groups who believe that action to curb consumption, rather than market incentives, are the way to reduce carbon emissions.

Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation, said it left unanswered questions over how these markets would be managed and how the benefits and costs would be distributed. "We have nothing against markets so it would be missing the point to get into a pro- or anti-market stance. The point is how you distribute the benefits."

He said the Nineties, the zenith decade for globalisation, had seen just 60 cents out of every $100 worth of growth reach the poorest in society, compared with the $2.20 in the Eighties.

He said a pollution trading regime had the potential to deliver "enormous" benefits to poor countries, but said the UN report failed to show a detailed plan.

"Our view is that you have to cap pollution, allocate permits and then you can trade. But it depends on how it is set up. Because you are dealing with a global commons of the atmosphere, the danger is that you could be effectively dealing in stolen goods."

He said a system set up now to trade in pollution permits could end up permanently depriving poor countries that joined the system further down the road.

International problems - and solutions

PANDEMIC DISEASES

Millions of people across the developing world have died from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed investment.


SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to buy $3bn (£1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Vaccines are needed but more should be done in the meantime. Extra aid is needed for simple tools such as mosquito nets that would curb spread of malaria.

PARIAH STATES

Big business and global money ignore countries where they see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.

SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans to conflict-torn states.

SAVING: $22bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.

Hitting a commitment made in the 1960s of 0.7 per cent of GDP would unlock $140bn a year.

NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

Once great nations such as Brazil and Argentina were reduced to the status of beggars after poor economic policy combined with debts with national and international lenders.

SOLUTION: A system to enable countries to take loans linked to their average economic growth rate to ensure that they do not have to cut public spending to raise the money to borrow needed funds during the hard times.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: A system to allow countries to seek protection from their creditors in the same way that US companies can take so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Cont'd next post.

[Shammu]

SPECULATIVE INVESTORS

Poor countries suffer most from swings in investment tastes by the big global investors that means money can leave as soon as it arrives.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to buy "insurance policies" against big swings in growth that would ensure that they did not have to cut public spending every time. In 1997 it wreaked havoc across South-east Asia.

SAVING: $2,900bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Curb speculative investment by imposing a tax on foreign exchange transactions aimed at destabilising a currency. It could directly raise funds for development while preventing the worst excesses of the markets.

GLOBAL WARMING

Scientists believe human activity has led to climate change and disappearing Arctic ice. The world's poor also have to live with lethal storms and floods.

UN SOLUTION: A system of international trading in permits to allow pollution that would encourage countries to cut their emission of greenhouse gases so they can sell their "right to pollute" to other states. UNDP says it is more effective than just setting targets.

SAVING: $3,620bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international approach is needed but one that prevents people from causing harm by setting pollution targets rather than trying to bribe them not to. Also agree global airline tax.

BRAIN DRAIN

Millions of skilled workers leave their home countries every year in search of a better life in the West. In some states nine out 10 professionals have left.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to borrow on the open markets against the money workers send home. The capital would be used to invest in the country to build infrastructure that would discourage people from leaving.

SAVING: $31bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international code of ethical guidelines overseen by bodies such as the World Health Organisation (for doctors and nurses) to monitor the harm that migration of professionals causes.

The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.

The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.

In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate.

It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century.

If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment.

At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit. Top of the list is a challenge to the United States to join an international pollution permit trading system which, the UN claims, could deliver $3.64trn of global wealth.

Inge Kaul, a special adviser at the UNDP, said: "The way we run our economies today is vastly expensive and inefficient because we don't manage risk well and we don't prevent crises." She downplayed concerns over up-front costs and interest payments for the new-fangled financial devices. "The gains in terms of development would outweigh those costs. Money is wasted because we dribble aid, and the costs of not solving the problems are much, much higher than what we would have to pay for getting the financial markets to lend the money."

The UNDP is determined to ensure globalisation, which has generated vast wealth for multinational companies, benefits the poorest in society.

It urges politicians to embrace some groundbreaking schemes put in place in the past 12 months to tackle global warning, poverty and disease, based on working with the global markets to share out the risk.

These include a pilot international finance facility (IFF) to "front load" $4bn of cash for vaccines by borrowing money against pledges of future government aid.

The scheme, which is backed by the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was born out of a proposal by Gordon Brown for a larger scheme to double the total aid budget to $100bn a year.

In an endorsement of the report, Mr Brown said: "This shows how we can equip people and countries for a new global economy that combined greater prosperity and fairness both within and across nations."

The UNDP says rich countries should build on this and go further. It proposes six schemes to harness the power of the markets:

* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through pollution permit trading; net gain $3.64trn.

* Cutting poor countries' borrowing costs by securing the debts against the income from stable parts of their economies; net gain $2.90trn.

* Reducing government debt costs by linking payments to the country's economic output; net gain $600bn.

* An enlarged version of the vaccine scheme; net gain (including benefits of lower mortality) $47bn.

* Using the vast flow of money from migrants back to their home country to guarantee; net gain $31bn.

* Aid agencies underwriting loans to market investors to lower interest rates; net gain $22bn.

Professor Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank and a staunch critic of the way globalisation harms the poor, said: "Globalisation has meant the closer integration of countries, and that in turn has meant a greater need for collective action.

"One of the most important areas of failure is the environment. Without government intervention, firms and households have no incentive to limit their pollution." He said a global public finance system would force countries to acknowledge the external damage their policies had, "the most important being global climate change".

Solving the environmental crisis tops the UN's $7trn wish-list. It calls for an international market to trade pollution permits that would encourage rich countries to cut pollution and hit their targets under the Kyoto protocol.

But - and the UN admits it is a big "but" - the US would have to sign up to Kyoto and carbon trading to achieve the $3.64trn that it believes the system would deliver over time.

"We are dealing with a global problem as pollution can only be dealt with internationally," Ms Kaul said. Richard Sandor, the head of the Chicago Climate Exchange, added: "Many encouraging signs are emerging. When the business case is clear, private entrepreneurs step forward."

But, the proposal is unlikely to get support from some green groups who believe that action to curb consumption, rather than market incentives, are the way to reduce carbon emissions.

Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation, said it left unanswered questions over how these markets would be managed and how the benefits and costs would be distributed. "We have nothing against markets so it would be missing the point to get into a pro- or anti-market stance. The point is how you distribute the benefits."

cONT'D NEXT POST.

[Shammu]

He said the Nineties, the zenith decade for globalisation, had seen just 60 cents out of every $100 worth of growth reach the poorest in society, compared with the $2.20 in the Eighties.

He said a pollution trading regime had the potential to deliver "enormous" benefits to poor countries, but said the UN report failed to show a detailed plan.

"Our view is that you have to cap pollution, allocate permits and then you can trade. But it depends on how it is set up. Because you are dealing with a global commons of the atmosphere, the danger is that you could be effectively dealing in stolen goods."

He said a system set up now to trade in pollution permits could end up permanently depriving poor countries that joined the system further down the road.

International problems - and solutions

PANDEMIC DISEASES

Millions of people across the developing world have died from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed investment.

SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to buy $3bn (£1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Vaccines are needed but more should be done in the meantime. Extra aid is needed for simple tools such as mosquito nets that would curb spread of malaria.

PARIAH STATES

Big business and global money ignore countries where they see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.

SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans to conflict-torn states.

SAVING: $22bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.

Hitting a commitment made in the 1960s of 0.7 per cent of GDP would unlock $140bn a year.

NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

Once great nations such as Brazil and Argentina were reduced to the status of beggars after poor economic policy combined with debts with national and international lenders.

SOLUTION: A system to enable countries to take loans linked to their average economic growth rate to ensure that they do not have to cut public spending to raise the money to borrow needed funds during the hard times.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: A system to allow countries to seek protection from their creditors in the same way that US companies can take so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

SPECULATIVE INVESTORS

Poor countries suffer most from swings in investment tastes by the big global investors that means money can leave as soon as it arrives.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to buy "insurance policies" against big swings in growth that would ensure that they did not have to cut public spending every time. In 1997 it wreaked havoc across South-east Asia.

SAVING: $2,900bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Curb speculative investment by imposing a tax on foreign exchange transactions aimed at destabilising a currency. It could directly raise funds for development while preventing the worst excesses of the markets.

GLOBAL WARMING

Scientists believe human activity has led to climate change and disappearing Arctic ice. The world's poor also have to live with lethal storms and floods.

UN SOLUTION: A system of international trading in permits to allow pollution that would encourage countries to cut their emission of greenhouse gases so they can sell their "right to pollute" to other states. UNDP says it is more effective than just setting targets.

SAVING: $3,620bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international approach is needed but one that prevents people from causing harm by setting pollution targets rather than trying to bribe them not to. Also agree global airline tax.

BRAIN DRAIN

Millions of skilled workers leave their home countries every year in search of a better life in the West. In some states nine out 10 professionals have left.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to borrow on the open markets against the money workers send home. The capital would be used to invest in the country to build infrastructure that would discourage people from leaving.

SAVING: $31bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international code of ethical guidelines overseen by bodies such as the World Health Organisation (for doctors and nurses) to monitor the harm that migration of professionals causes.

UN unveils plan to release untapped wealth of...$7 trillion

[Shammu]

Permanent five say IAEA must report Iran to U.N.
Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:12 PM ET163

LONDON (Reuters) - The permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council agreed on Tuesday that this week's meeting of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog should report Iran to the Council over its nuclear programs, said a statement from the five.

"(Ministers) agreed that this week's extraordinary IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Board meeting should report to the Security Council its decision on the steps required of Iran," said a joint statement after the meeting between the foreign ministers of China, Russia, the United States, France and Britain as well as Germany and the European Union's foreign policy chief.

A senior U.S. official said the statement meant Russia and China were on board with the United States and the European powers that there must be strong action taken by the IAEA on Thursday or Friday against Iran to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear bomb.

"This is the most powerful message we could have hoped for," said a senior U.S. official, who read out the statement after the four-hour dinner at which the ministers agreed to report Iran to the Council.

The statement said the ministers agreed that the U.N. Security Council should await the IAEA director general's report to a March IAEA meeting before deciding what further action to take.

The Council could ultimately impose sanctions against Iran but there are many steps before this could happen.

"(The ministers) call on Iran to restore in full the suspension of (uranium) enrichment-related activity, including research and development under the supervision of the IAEA," said the statement.

The statement added that they should all continue their resolve to work for a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Earlier on Monday, Iran put forward its ideas to European officials in Brussels who said the talks had yielded nothing new but that negotiations with the Europeans could be reopened if Tehran complied with IAEA requests.

Permanent five say IAEA must report Iran to U.N.

[Shammu]

Killer bees join list of hazards of Florida living

By Robert P. King
The Associated Press
Posted January 28 2006, 11:29 AM EST
 
WEST PALM BEACH -- As if hurricanes, roaches, sea lice and insurance bills weren't bad enough, Floridians can add a new menace to their list of worries. Killer bees are here.

And they're going to change your life. After decades of hype and cheesy disaster movies, Africanized honeybees have established a foothold in Florida, bringing a hair-trigger temper that makes them a threat to farmworkers, landscapers, meter readers, firefighters and basically everyone who ventures outdoors.

In St. Lucie County, thousands of bees nesting below ground near water meters swarmed onto unlucky utility workers late last year, though not fatally. Separate attacks killed two dogs near Miami and Sarasota, along with a horse near LaBelle west of Lake Okeechobee.

Africanized bee colonies have turned up in ports throughout the state, including Fort Pierce and the Port of Palm Beach, and have been suspected at tourist attractions such as Busch Gardens and Downtown Disney. Nobody knows how to stop them.

So Floridians will just have to adapt just as they've learned to nail plywood before hurricanes and scan lawns for fire ant mounds. That means residents should "bee-proof" their homes, sealing any openings that could allow the insects to turn attics and walls into killer-bee condos, experts say.

People also should look out before starting lawn mowers, whose noise can provoke the bees, or opening potential nesting sites such as sheds and barbecue grills.

Those are already realities from Texas to California, where the bees showed up in the 1990s after a decades-long march from Brazil to Mexico. California firefighters receive training in rescuing bee victims, while Arizona educators have drawn up bee lesson plans for children as young as kindergarten age. (One tip for handling a bee attack: "RUN! RUN! RUN!)

But experts say the bees are just one more potential hazard in a state teeming with them. They say people are more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by bees.

"We live in a state that has fire ants that actually kill people," said Jerry Hayes, assistant chief of apiary inspection for the Florida Agriculture Department, which is including bee brochures in its display at the South Florida Fair. "We have scorpions and spiders and boa constrictors and all those scary things."

David Barnes, a bee technician for the department, said he already has had to placate panicked callers, including a landscaper's wife.

"I told her he has more to worry about about yellow jackets."

So far, the Africanized bees haven't killed anyone in Florida, the department says. They have killed roughly 1,000 people in the Americas, including at least 14 in the United States, since the bees' ancestors escaped from a Brazilian lab in 1957.

Unlike Hollywood's fictional killer bees, the real-life ones don't roam the countryside looking for people to kill. They're slightly smaller and no more venomous than the docile European strains prized by beekeepers.

But what the Africanized bees lack in size, they make up with a severe lack of anger management. All honeybees defend their hives, but the Africanized bees erupt against disturbances that European bees might shrug off -- a noisy leaf-blower or nosy dog, for example. And they attack in much greater numbers.

"People end up with 300, 400, a thousand stings," said Bob van der Herchen, who runs a bee removal service in Englewood, south of Sarasota. Five hundred stings might be enough to kill a child, federal experts say.

Hayes said the deaths that have occurred "have been horrific," noting that the bees' favorite stinging targets include the nostrils and the mouth.

"It's a very gruesome way to die."

Once angered, the Africanized bees stay agitated for as long as 24 hours, posing a continuing hazard, Barnes said.

In September, a swarm of Africanized bees trapped three residents in their Miami Gardens home and attacked several firefighters, three dogs and two television journalists after someone tried to move the log where the bees were living, The Miami Herald reported at the time. One dog died.

Near LaBelle in Hendry County, Imogene Risner said her niece was washing a horse near their home last year when a cloud of bees attacked, besieging the animal's head and face. The horse died that night after suffering about 2,000 stings, she said.

Hayes' department then performed DNA tests on hives that Risner's husband, an amateur beekeeper, was tending nearby. She said the state workers killed all 40 hives with soapy water after several of those tests came back positive for Africanized genes a result she disputes.

"Bees are temperamental," Risner said, adding that after the execution, "We had a mess all summer. The honey was run out and the flies was coming from all directions."

Other incidents are less clear-cut. Last month, Palm Beach County sheriff's officials said bees attacked nine deputies, three burglary suspects and a dog during a chase through woods west of Lantana, putting three deputies in the hospital.

But nobody saved any samples, so the state couldn't determine whether they were Africanized bees, European bees or even yellow jackets.

Bee removal expert Ronnie Sharpton, owner of Palm City-based Alpine Farms, said not all mass bee attacks involve Africanized bees.

"The only time we run into aggressive bees is when someone else has been aggravating bees by throwing rocks or spraying them," he said. He urged people to leave all bees alone and let professionals handle them.

Hayes' agency continues to try to slow the Africanized bees' spread by maintaining hundreds of baited traps at ports and other key locations. But now that the bees are here, education will be a major strategy.

"We can be safe," Barnes said. "Maybe this is one more thing to pay attention to."

Killer bees join list of hazards of Florida living