During the night, police arrested a number of people in London after a counter-terrorist operation they said had lasted several months.

Security at all airports in the UK has been tightened and delays are expected.

Scotland Yard said in a statement: "We would like to reassure the public that this operation was carried out with public safety uppermost in our minds.

"This is a major operation which inevitably will be lengthy and complex."

The Department for Transport set out the details of the security measures at UK airports.

Passengers will not be allowed to take any hand luggage on to any flights in the UK, the department said.

Only the barest essentials - including passports and wallets - will be allowed to be carried on board in transparent plastic bags.

"We hope that these measures, which are being kept under review by the government, will need to be in place for a limited period only," the statement said.

BBC journalist Joe Lynam encountered the increased security measures at Gatwick airport.

"I was handed a piece of paper saying that pretty much nothing could be taken on board the plane," he said.

"Everything had to be checked in and that includes mobile phones, ipods, wallets - even spectacle cases had to be checked in."

ISRAEL
Israel sees this war as another part of its long effort to establish itself in the region. It has treaties with Egypt and Jordan and would like one with Lebanon.

However this war has put that prospect off, possibly for many years given the level of casualties in Lebanon. In the meantime, Israel wants Hezbollah removed as a threat since Hezbollah is hostile to Israel's existence.

Israel says the Lebanese government should do this but it is prepared to enforce what it identifies as its own interests anyway.

Israel sees the hand of mainly Iran but also Syria behind Hezbollah, especially in the supply of the thousands of rockets Hezbollah has acquired. One strategic Israeli aim in the war and one shared by the United States is to weaken those links and so weaken the influence of Iran and Syria in Lebanon and the region.

On the other hand, Israel itself will suffer a loss of power and prestige if it cannot show a clear victory.

LEBANON
The government fears that the Israeli onslaught will put all the progress Lebanon has made in recent years at risk and that there could be a return to civil war and strife and a return of Syrian influence.

Lebanon therefore wants an immediate end to the fighting and says that a political agreement should come afterwards, based on Security Council resolution 1559. Passed in September 2004, this called on all militias in Lebanon to be disbanded and the authority of the government extended to the border. Easier said than done, has proved to be the experience.

The Lebanese coalition government was formed after the Cedar Revolution of 2004 which led to the removal of Syrian forces from the country. Hezbollah has two seats in the cabinet even though it opposed the Cedar Revolution. However, Hezbollah feels it can act unilaterally, hence its cross-border raid to capture two Israeli solders. The conflict will help determine its future status in Lebanon.

HEZBOLLAH
Hezbollah, the Shia 'Party of God' in Lebanon, is determined to come out of the conflict in a stronger position. It also seeks wider support in Lebanon, which will make it harder for the Lebanese government to bring it under closer control afterwards.

Hezbollah sees itself as in the vanguard of the opposition to the state of Israel, which it regards as a Zionist intrusion into Muslim lands. It was instrumental in making Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000 and sees in this war a chance for it to diminish Israeli power.

Hezbollah's fate will affect the future influence of Iran and Syria in Lebanon and the region. It is closely supported by Iran, which holds similar views about Israel and which has supplied missiles to its Shia brethren. Syria's interests are more to do with trying to maintain an influence in Lebanon and in supporting an opponent of Israel.

IRAN
Iran's President Ahmadinejad has said that the "elimination" of Israel is the solution to the Middle East's problems so clearly Iran would like to see Israel (and through Israel, the United States) diminished by the conflict and Hezbollah strengthened.

In that way, its own influence would grow not just in Lebanon but also in the region and among the Middle East's Shia population. Some think that Iran sees in the conflict a welcome distraction from its own nuclear programme. However that issue will return.

Equally, if Hezbollah's power is eventually reduced, so too will Iran's, since Iran is Hezbollah's principal backer.

SYRIA
Syria lost out in Lebanon during the Cedar Revolution and probably knows that it cannot return to its former position, even though at heart it regards Lebanon, for historical reasons, as basically part of Syria and certainly part of its sphere of influence. However it probably sees an opportunity to regain some influence through Hezbollah if Hezbollah emerged intact.

It would like the US to recognise it as a power-broker in the area but so far Washington has refused to do so.

Syria does not want to get drawn into a war, even a limited encounter with Israel. It could not win. It prefers to play a very long game.

PALESTINIANS
The Palestinians never quite know how Israel's battles and deals with others will affect them. Over the years they have concluded that they will have to make their own arrangements so when the dust has settled from this war, their own struggle will come to the fore again though of course it has not gone away.

A key issue for them is whether the Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's plan to leave further parts of the West Bank and consolidate in others will now be abandoned.

The prospect for the Palestinians is that despite the international talk of resolving the fundamental issue of who owns which part of the land, nothing much will be done in practice.

UNITED STATES
The Bush administration sees the battle against Hezbollah in the wider context of its effort to promote what President Bush called in 2003 a "Forward Strategy of Freedom to Promote Democracy in the Middle East".

This means that it wants Hezbollah to be destroyed as a military force. It would see this as an important milestone in its "war on terror".

The risk for the US is that its efforts are seen as aggressive by some and might be counter-productive in that they could provoke more opposition to US policy.

The US wants to see Iranian and Syrian influence reduced as well. Iran, with its nuclear programme at issue, is seen by the US as a potential threat and anything that undermines Iran is useful in American eyes. However, Israel's own strategic relations with the US might also come under close examination if the conflict ends without Israel achieving its stated aims.

FRANCE AND BRITAIN
France has emerged with increased influence. It has capitalised on its traditional links with Lebanon and has taken a leading role in the negotiations for ceasefire. It has also maintained its philosophical opposition to the Bush administration while forcing the US to take it seriously.

Britain has generally followed US policy. It has thereby attracted criticism but hopes to recoup some of it losses if a long-term agreements can be made.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is expected to call for an immediate ceasefire. The leaders are also likely to back an international force for Lebanon.

The presidents of Iran and Indonesia and the prime ministers of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Azerbaijan are among the representatives of 18 Islamic countries at the emergency one-day summit, which was called last week.

'Outrage'

"Until now, unfortunately, the international community is in paralysis," said Malaysian premier Abdullah Badawi, the current OIC chairman, in a speech opening the talks.

"The Security Council could not even muster the moral courage to condemn Israel for the attack on Qana or the killing of UN observers at Khiam," he said.

He also urged Muslim nations to offer troops for a multinational stabilisation force for Lebanon.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the failure to halt the violence was "adding to popular anger" and could have "incalculable consequences for long-term peace" in the Middle East.

He also called for all prisoners in the conflict - Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli - to be returned.

The OIC's Secretary General, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said the Islamic world is "outraged" over international "double standards" on the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

"I am afraid that the anger of the Muslim masses is being transformed into permanent hatred against the aggressors and their implicit and explicit protectors," he said.

Malaysia is also seeking support for an international commission to investigate what it describes as Israeli "war crimes".

In addition, last year there were 7,937 abortions for non-residents of England and Wales, mostly women from Ireland, which takes the overall total for the year to 194,353. The great majority of abortions, 89%, were carried out before 13 weeks gestation; 67% were before 10 weeks. There were 137 abortions carried out for pregnancies beyond the 24th week.

Overall, the abortion rate was 17.8 per 1,000 resident women aged 15-44. In terms of age distribution the abortion rate was highest, at 32.0 per 1,000, for women in the 20-24 age group.

The government, through the National Health Service, paid for 84% of abortions carried out in 2005. The majority, 79%, were carried out on single women, a proportion that has been on the rise since 1995, when it was at about two-thirds.

"The high percentage of abortions -- 66% -- within the first nine weeks of pregnancy is clear evidence, if any were needed, that abortion is provided on demand in the UK," said Julia Millington of the ProLife Alliance. "And the marked increase in the number of early abortions make[s] it difficult to regard this as anything other than abortion being treated as a method of contraception," she added in her reaction to the data in a press release July 4.

Another concern raised over the figures regards abortions carried out on young girls. In 2005 there were 1,083 abortions performed on girls under age 15. The Department of Health grouped together the statistics for the last three years regarding abortions on girls under age 14. In 2003-2005, there were 33 abortions performed on girls under age 13, and 409 abortions on girls aged 13.

"It is shameful that the government should promote secret abortions for girls under the age of consent and insist that their parents aren't told," said John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection for Unborn Children (SPUC).

In the meantime, efforts by activists to use some of the more graphic tactics common in other countries to protest abortion have run into legal obstacles. Edward Atkinson, a 74-year-old pro-life campaigner was jailed for four weeks after sending "offensive" pictures of mutilated fetuses through the mail, reported the Independent newspaper on May 8. The photos showed severed limbs and a fetus without its head.

The target of the photos, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, also punished Atkinson, by removing him from a waiting list for a hip replacement. Showing people the graphic results of laws that allow the killing of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies is, it seems, too much for British sensibilities.

The Shijian-8, a recoverable satellite, will be launched at the beginning of September aboard a Long March 2C rocket.

The two-week mission will expose 2,000 seeds to cosmic radiation and micro-gravity.

The space seed experiments come as the nation seeks ways to feed its 1.3 billion people amid a rapid decline in farm land due to swift industrialisation.

Sun Laiyan, head of the China National Space Administration, said the "seed satellite" would enable scientists to try to cultivate high-yield and high-quality plants.

Exposed to special environment such as cosmic radiation and micro-gravity, it is hoped that some seeds will mutate to such an extent that they may produce much higher yields and improved quality.

Nine categories of seeds, including grains, cash crops and forage plants will be aboard the satellite.

Vitamin content

China has been experimenting with space-bred seeds for years, with rice and wheat exposed to the atmosphere resulting in increased yields.

Space-bred tomato and green peppers seeds have resulted in harvests between 10% and 20% larger than ordinary seeds, while vegetables grown from space-bred seeds have a higher vitamin content.

The satellite will be the first dedicated specifically for seeds.

The nation already produces genetically modified tomatoes, soy beans and corn, and is considering plans to approve the production of genetically modified rice.

( These two letters give an insight as to what is happening in the new Europe, which recieves little attention in the media. Ed)

Sir George Soros is undoubtedly very sharp-eyed when dealing with financial markets (Soros attacks EU for failure to stand up to America, 16/17 July). But when he looks at the European Union, he seems to put on rose-tinted spectacles, as he says The European Union has a mission: the spread of peace, freedom and democracy. What do we mean by "freedom and democracy?

There is one conception of freedom and democracy which, alongside one-person-one-vote, includes habeas corpus and trial by independent jury and other legal safeguards against arbitrary and wrongful arrest and imprisonment, but this is limited to the English-speaking nations. We English-speakers consider these safeguards to be part of our bedrock, core values.

In the other conception, which prevails on the European continent, there is a career judiciary that controls every phase of criminal investigation, prosecution, arrest, trial, verdict and sentence, and a suspect can spend months on end, or even longer, in prison, being interrogated in secret hearings, and waiting while the prosecutors try to build a case against him.

The lack of habeas corpus means that a suspect has no right to an immediate public hearing after arrest, and there is no obligation on the prosecution to exhibit any evidence against him, before he actually comes up for the trial proper, which can be months or years later. In this system the prosecutors are colleagues of the judges, who also control the verdict, and who have never acted as defenders, whereas the defenders belong to a completely separate professional body. Hardly anyone in Britain is aware of these radical differences, since there are no university chairs of comparative law that study comparative criminal law and procedure.

The European Commission's project for an embryo criminal code, corpus juris, planned for all Europe including the British Isles, is based entirely on this continental inquisitorial system. It will introduce a European Public Prosecutor, with fearsome powers, and will explicitly scrap our habeas corpus and trial by jury rights. At the seminar in Spain where this project was presented by the Commission in 1997, I asked why they had made this choice, rather than say, adopting habeas corpus and trial by jury and introducing them to the continent. There was no answer; those present simply changed the subject.

The Commission has asked the member states to relinquish the veto on Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), the British government has said it is open to considering this possibility, and in September a decision will be taken. Up to now corpus juris has been kept at bay by a British pledge, made in December 1998 by Kate Hoey, Home Office Minister at the time, to veto it if it were ever presented formally. There can be no doubt that once the veto is gone, the tarpaulin will be taken off and corpus juris will be wheeled out again in all its glory, and rammed down our throats.

With JHA becoming an EU competence, the EU will have taken the power to put people in prison, and thereby will have become to all intents and purposes, a state, since only a state can wield this power. Europol will surely be beefed up too, and we shall see armed foreign policemen in funny uniforms, controlled from Brussels, on our streets, to enforce the new laws on us (armed because all continental police forces have always carried guns).

When Soros asks, Are they doing as much as they could to change the world? The answer is yes. But when and if they succeed in this particular project, it will not feel like an extension of freedom and democracy to us Brits. Nor will it appear as such to the Americans who, for all their faults, do share these basic values with us.

Doubtless Mr Soros, like the vast majority of people in Britain, is completely unaware of all this, and yet as someone born in Hungary who sought refuge in US citizenship, he will surely appreciate the safeguards we enjoy against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

Could someone please tell him about the EU plans to take them away from us?

Torquil Dick-Erikson,
Rome, Italy
info@iEnglish.co.uk

Sir, It appears that George Soros is under an illusion in his thinking that the European Union is about peace, freedom and democracy. It is not, it only says it is. In spite of two major countries democratically rejecting the proposed EU Constitution, the EU has decided to incorporate certain parts of that constitution as well as new agencies, which, without the constitution, some do not have the correct legal base".

The EU is not about freedom: our freedom went out of the window when it was proposed that ID cards were to be introduced. We were promised freedom to go from one country to another (open borders) but many people have been penalised for not carrying or being able to produce ID Cards when asked to do so. So much for freedom. Peace? Because of the EU and its policies, its takeover against the people's wishes, there is more likelihood of war (civil and otherwise) more so now than for the past 30-odd years we have been in the EU. We have seen in the recent past what happens when people just stand by and watch while others are taken away to be imprisoned without trial or evidence, particularly when Britain is a country that had habeas corpus against such a procedure. Just saying a wrong word, perhaps thoughtless word, can bring a prosecution. They will not stand by forever.

The EU Constitution ended the illusion that the EU is simply nation states working together, as we here in the UK have been told so often. The EU wants to become one state in its own right, that dream of it's founders has gone, shattered beyond repair. We have our own Constitution and it is to that our politicians, who were once trusted with the guardianship of, will have to answer to one day.

Anne Palmer
Cannock Road ,Westcroft
Wolverhampton

One of the makers of the technology, Micro Librarian Systems (MLS), say they have sold about 1,000 systems to schools in the UK and abroad.

One mother from London told BBC News Online she was horrified when her son came home and told her he had been finger-printed at his primary school.

She said: "I consider that this was an infringement of my son's civil rights and a breach of trust on the part of the school.

"This should not have been done at all, and certainly not without our consent, or indeed knowledge.

"If my child had been arrested, I believe the police would not have a right to take fingerprints without our consent and access to a solicitor."

She said the new system may have been mentioned in a newsletter when her son was off sick, but she was never asked for consent.

The school has now removed her son's details from the system and says it will respect the wishes of other parents who want it to do the same.

Simon Davies, of the campaign group Privacy International says the practice of finger-printing children in this way is "dangerous, illegal and unnecessary".

He says the use of the technology should be banned in schools.

"It de-humanises our children and degrades their human rights," he said.

"Such a process has the effect of softening children up for such initiatives as ID cards and DNA testing.

"It's clearly a case of 'get them while they're young'.

"They are seen as a soft target for this technology".

Encrypted

Manufacturers MLS say it would be very difficult for a third party to access the prints and make use of them.

The company's technology director Stephen Phillips said: "The system does not store the actual fingerprint, but a map of it which takes in the print's key features.

"The image is then compressed and encrypted, so it would take a lot of effort to use it.

"People who have nothing to hide - why would they worry?"

Mr Phillips said the company advised schools to consult or inform parents before they used the technology.

He said only two parents had complained about the use of the technology to the company.

Privacy International says it expects there to be legal challenges to the use of the technology in schools.

But the government's information commissioner does not believe the system is breaking any laws or conventions.

Assistant to the commissioner, Phil Boyd said: "It is not in breach of the data protection act and it does not contravene the human rights act."

He said officials had been to check the system and thought it was impressive in terms of the security of the data.

"If it was being used to track pupils it would be different, but this use of the technology is fine," he said.

Officials at the Department for Education said the matter was one for head teachers and governing bodies, who had to ensure they stayed within the law.

The move will have little practical effect for church-going Methodists, a denomination that split from Anglicanism.

Benedict is also seeking more cooperation with the Orthodox churches, the eastern Christians who split from Rome in the 11th century, and will visit their Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul in November.

"We welcome this agreement with great joy... It is our deep hope that in the near future we shall also be able to enter into closer relationships with Lutherans and the Roman Catholic Church," the World Methodist Council said in a statement.

"Today is one of the most significant dates in the history of our churches," Walter Kasper, Vatican cardinal in charge of the 1.1 billion-strong Catholic Church's relations with other Christian churches, said in Seoul before a signing event on Sunday.

Methodist leaders unanimously passed the resolution to join the Catholic-Lutheran agreement last week during a global conference in Seoul.

"The three parties commit themselves to strive together for the deepening of their common understanding of justification in theological study, teaching and preaching," the statement said.

The issue of justification, simply put, what Christians must do to get to Heaven -- was the central dispute in the Reformation that split western Christianity and plunged Europe into the Thirty Years' War.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict played a key role in drawing up the Catholic-Lutheran declaration that revoked heresy charges against reformer Martin Luther and said disputes that led to the Reformation over four centuries ago were null and void.

Luther, a German monk who posted his famous 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg in 1517, held people could be saved not by faith and good works, but by faith alone.

Luther was angered by the Catholic Church's teaching that good works could also lead to salvation, a view that was corrupted into the practice of selling indulgences to those seeking absolution for their sins.

The 1999 statement satisfied both Lutherans and Catholics, saying that salvation is achieved through God's grace and this is reflected in the good works a person does.

The signing does not mean that Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist churches are moving towards any kind of reunification, a step that deep historical divisions make highly unlikely.

But it could encourage them to take more common positions on issues of concern to Christians.

This week, for example, the Vatican supported an Orthodox project on protecting the world environment, saying believers should unite "to safeguard the habitat that the Creator prepared for mankind".

There is no justification for abducting the soldiers, said Solana. Our goal is to see an end to this bloodshed.

Livni reaffirmed that Israel is fighting to protect its citizens as it seeks to eliminate the threat of terror from the region.

Israel intends to work with the international community based on principles outlined in the statement issued by the G-8 on July 16, said Livni. It is our mutual interest to ensure a safe future for the peoples of the region.

In a separate meeting, Vice Premier Shimon Peres added that Israel is a country that stands firm against terrorism and we have not requested from any country to send soldiers to defend us. Israel is right, strong and steadfast in its steps.

The advert appeared in the Diversity supplement of the Independent newspaper on 29 June, two days ahead of the Europride gay and lesbian parade in London.

Public complaint

It stated: "In the last 12 months, the GPA has recorded a 74% increase in homophobic incidents, where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator."

The GPA was formed in 1990 and has members in all 52 UK police forces.

Scotland Yard said the inquiry was prompted by a complaint by a member of the public.

A GPA spokesman said they were aware police have received a complaint in relation to the advert.

"Until that investigation has been completed we're unable to comment further on this matter," said a spokesman.

A newspaper advertisement taken out by the GPA coincided with London's Europride event a fortnight ago.

The ad featured a Bible next to a pool of blood under the heading "in the name of the father", and claimed that religion was the sole or primary motivation behind most of the homophobic incidents logged by the GPA's staff helpline.

A minister, Reverend George Hargreaves, complained about the advert and said its claim was nonsense.

He also called the GPA "Christianphobic", prompting a Met Police investigation into whether the advert constituted a faith crime.

But far from backing down, members of the GPA say their colleagues in the Christian Police Association are themselves guilty of breaking police equal opportunities rules which outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexuality.

The GPA's national coordinator Vic Codling told BBC News they are in dispute with the CPA after a gay, Christian police officer was refused membership of the CPA unless he agreed to become celibate.

Evangelical Alliance

"Black or female police officers wouldn't be asked to be "less black" or "less female" in order to join staff associations, so why should gay or lesbian officers?" said Mr Codling.

The unnamed Metropolitan Police officer sought the help of the GPA, who referred the complaint to the Police Federation. When the GPA complained about the case of the gay officer, the CPA sent them their "position paper" on homosexuality which is based on a report by the Evangelical Alliance.

It states it rejects homophobia, but doesn't regard religious criticism of gay lifestyles as discriminatory.

The CPA's Executive Director Don Axcell, told BBC News that his organisation was trying to be conciliatory, but the GPA were being uncooperative.

"They published a vitriolic article in Police Review magazine about faith-based homophobia. We've been trying to work through conciliation, but we keep coming up against conflict."

'In the mind'

And Mr Axcell disputes the GPA's allegation that religion is a motivator of homophobia. "They say their helpline dealt with 14 cases of faith-based homophobia last year - but not all of that was Christian.
"Fourteen cases is minuscule if you consider the thousands of police officers in Britain. And what's considered to be homophobia is in the mind of the complainant."

Mr Axcell denies that his members are homophobic. And he points out that although some CPA branches do some of their work on police time, the GPA he says, receives thousands of pounds of funding from the government.

The case concerning the Met officer was due to be discussed on Friday, with the Police Federation's chairman Jan Berry acting as mediator, but the meeting was cancelled because of a planned rail strike.

The Police Federation said it did not want to comment on the case at the moment.

Mr Codling says he's not anti-Christian but he doesn't want people's faith interfering with their job, or encouraging them to discriminate.
"Some homophobes look around for excuses and see the CPA's position and it gives them support. But many of them don't have a practising religious background themselves."

Mr Codling thinks that some of the problem lies with senior officers either being practising Christians, or members of the CPA itself, which Mr Codling says raises questions about how willing they are to confront work-based prejudice.

"The police wouldn't accommodate the discriminatory values of the BNP, so why are they accommodating the values of the CPA, simply because they're based on faith?"

And referring to the police investigation of the GPA's advert, he says it wasn't badly received by all Christians.

"A police chaplain told me he wasn't offended and wanted to put the ad on his notice board because the issue needed to be discussed."

Nearly three weeks later, the Iranian- and Syrian-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, entered Israel, killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others. The terror group then launched over 1,400 rockets into Israel during the first five days of the conflict and even struck an Israeli ship with a missile ? showing more capability than experts assumed.

The European Union urged Israel to show restraint, expressing great concern "about the disproportionate use of force by Israel in Lebanon in response to attacks by Hezbollah on Israel." France's President Jacques Chirac said, "One may well ask if there isn't today a kind of wish to destroy Lebanon. ... I find honestly ? as all Europeans do ? that the current reactions are totally disproportionate." The Vatican issued a statement saying, " ... [T]he Holy See deplores right now the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation. ..."

Restraint? Hezbollah threatens to exterminate Israel and to defeat America. Hamas accuses the Israelis of "stealing" the Palestinians' land. The Hamas Covenant, Article 3, describes the duty of all Muslims: "... [To] fear Allah and raise the banner of jihad in the face of the oppressors." Article 11 clarifies their belief "that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [property that generates revenue for mosques and religious schools] consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day." Article 13 flatly states, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad."

WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah, an Arab-American, years ago wrote a column titled "The Jews took no one's land." The Holy Land, writes Farah, was described as a vast wasteland in the 19th century. Beginning in the mid-1800s, Jews were the majority ? often an overwhelming majority, especially around Jerusalem. When Jews began to return to their "promised land" early in the 20th century, the desert literally began to bloom under their industry. Arabs followed, coming in large numbers for the jobs and prosperity. In 1948, when the United Nations partitioned the land into separate Arab and Jewish states, the surrounding Arab states immediately declared war. The Jews urged the Arabs to stay and live peacefully. Many Arabs chose to leave, to be rejected, used and virtually imprisoned by Arab power brokers.

Joan Peters, in "From Time Immemorial," a wonderful book about the history of the Israeli/Arab conflict over Palestine, quotes Khaled Al-Azm, Syria's prime minister after the 1948 war. Years later, Al-Azm wrote, "Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees ... while it is we who made them leave. ... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave. ... We have rendered them dispossessed. ... We have accustomed them to begging. ... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level. ... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children ? all this in the service of political purposes. ..."

Peters also quotes King Hussein of Jordan, who, in 1960, said: "Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner. ... They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal."

Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon in 2000 and pulled completely out of Gaza in August 2005. Following the withdrawal from Gaza, Israel weathered some 700 rocket attacks launched from the former occupied territory. So much for the notion that this crisis turns on the withdrawal from "occupied" territory.

Bombay. Bali. Madrid. London. Cairo. Washington, D.C. And New York, and New York again. Spanish authorities foiled a terrorist attack on its National Court, Spain's center for prosecuting terrorists, after the Spaniards agreed to withdraw from Iraq following Madrid's train bombings. Much of the world, and unfortunately, much of America, refuses to get it. This is World War III.

Islamofascism seeks our destruction ? not accommodation, not conciliation, but complete and total destruction. Islamofascism does not end with the "recapture" of "historic Palestine." Our very existence ? democracy, freedom, religious tolerance and gender equality ? threaten Islamofascism.

If the Europeans don't get it, at least some of the so-called "moderate" Arab states do. In a dramatic departure from the past, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and several Gulf states blame Hezbollah, not Israel, for starting the war. Former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu notes that the terrorists call Israel "little Satan," and America the "great Satan." But, Netanyahu warns, sooner or later the Europeans will realize that terrorists consider them the "middle Satan."

Nothing short of civilization is at stake.

Why does this war break out this week, all of sudden with little warning? Because this is the exact week the Jewish people are trying to decide whether the gay pride parade should take place in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv," Pinchas Winston, a noted author, rabbi and lecturer based in Jerusalem told WND.

Winston is one of many rabbinic leaders here to blast the World Pride Parade, a mass international gathering of homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people scheduled Aug. 6-12.

The week-long homosexual celebration will feature a parade down the streets of central Jerusalem, a beach party, health conference and a "Youth Day" to take place in the Knesset, Israel's main legislative government building.

The festival is being run by an organization called World Pride, which seeks to promote an atmosphere of "love without borders," according to group's website.

Yet many religious leaders believe the Israeli government's decision to allow a world homosexual parade in Jerusalem is having real-life consequences.

"This [parade] is an attack against God himself," Winston said. "God has told the Jewish people, 'If you are not going to fight for my honor, you will be forced to fight for your own honor.'"

Winston points to the clashes that broke out after Hezbollah staged a raid last week in which two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and eight more soldiers were killed. Israel has been retaliating inside Lebanon while the Lebanese terror group has fired hundreds of deadly Katyusha rockets at northern Israeli population centers, killing 18 civilians and wounding hundreds, some seriously.

On a second battlefront, Israel also recently sent ground troops into Gaza following the kidnapping by Hamas of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Hamas and other Gaza-based Palestinian Arab terror groups have launched hundreds of rockets into Jewish communities near Gaza, including Ashkelon, home to Israel's major power stations and strategic oil and gas pipelines.

Lazer Brody, an author and dean of the Breslov Rabbinical College in Ashdod, Israel, concurred with Winston.

"When God's presence is in the camp, nothing can happen to the Jewish people," Brody stated. "But If the Jewish people bring impurity into the camp of Israel, this chases away God's presence."

Brody contends the "removal of God's presence" led to the recent violence here, but he said he still feels the Jewish state is being protected.

"Over 1,000 Katyusha rockets have been fired thus far, and the damage has been equivalent to scratches," Brody said.

Before becoming a rabbi, Brody served for many years in the Israeli army, where he fought in combat missions in Beirut during Israel's incursion into Lebanon in the early 1980's. He said the public display of homosexuality in Jerusalem "soils the camp of Israel with impurity, and pushes away the divine presence and protection."

He cites Deuteronomy, [23:13-15]: "For the Lord, your God, goes along in the midst of your camp, to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you. [Therefore,] your camp shall be holy, so that He should not see anything unseemly among you and would turn away from you."

"The Torah is the ultimate book of human rights, giving each individual the right to free choice," said Brody. "What a person does behind closed doors is at one's own risk; but to partake of that behavior in public spreads the impurity to the entire camp."

The Rabbinical Congress for Peace, a worldwide coalition of over 1200 rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis released a statement this week asking Israelis to "increase the holiness" of the country while it was at war by praying and among other thing cancelling the World Pride event.

The World Pride event previously was held in 2000 in Rome, where it attracted about a quarter of a million participants. Images of the Rome festivities, featured on various homosexual websites, show throngs of shirtless men in shorts and bikini briefs congregated on the streets, some of them holding hands.

Earlier this year, the Israeli Supreme Court granted tacit support for the event. The Israeli police department has thus far supported the parade, although some security officials have stated an upsurge in national violence can bog down police forces and force the event to cancel.

The police also are worried about violent protesters at any Jerusalem homosexual parade. Last year, at a smaller, local homosexual pride parade, three males were stabbed shortly after fellow paraders were seen kissing outside Jerusalem's Great Synagogue.

Despite Judicial support, a recent poll shows that nearly 70 percent of all Jerusalemites oppose the march. Mayor Uri Lupolianski, an orthodox Jew, has filed a petition to prevent the event from taking place. About half of the Knesset's 120 legislatures signed a petition against holding a homosexual parade in Jerusalem.

But activists from World Pride claim the event will "bring a new inner-faith message of equality and tolerance" to Israel's populace. Event organizers say the parade in Jerusalem has been suited to the city's nature in respect to the local religious population.

Hagai El-Ad, Executive Director of Jerusalem Open House, the main organizer of World Pride, is upset by attempts to move or cancel the weeklong event.

"An orchestrated campaign to sabotage Jerusalem World Pride has been launched by those who propagate the fallacy that only they have a right to claim faith as their mantle," El-Ad said.

"This campaign will fail, as it has in previous years," El-Ad stated, "but the news that the mayor of Jerusalem has signed a petition calling for the cancellation of World Pride, accompanied by reports that extremist Jewish preacher Amnon Yitzhak is planning a so-called 'humility march' in opposition of World Pride, should be troubling to anyone who believes in Jerusalem as a welcoming city for all people."

Meanwhile, Yehuda Levin, a member of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, has come to Israel specifically to prevent the homosexual celebration from taking place. He said a homosexual parade is akin to a parade of "prostitutes promoting prostitution, or adulterers encouraging others to try adultery at least once in their life."

"Israel is the Holy Land, not the homo-land," Levin told WND.

Levin has been posting signs across Jerusalem urging citizens, politicians and Israel's chief rabbinate to use all legal means to prevent the festival.

"We'll use our bodies if we have to," Levin says.

Sharon Kleinbaum, North American co-chair of the Jerusalem World Pride event, stated in response to Levin's activities, "I am both outraged and saddened by American Rabbi Yehuda Levin's efforts to undermine and threaten World Pride, its organizers and participants."

Kleinbaum said, "Levin's use of religion as a weapon of bigotry and violence is offensive to all who care about God and religion and morality. He blasphemes God's name when he says that Jerusalem does not belong to all of us.

"Jerusalem was chosen as the site for World Pride because it represents a center of tolerance, pluralism and love for all humanity," Kleinbaum added. "The thousands of World Pride participants, from Israel and all over the world and of diverse faiths will be the best answer to Levin' display of intolerance and unholy values."

World Pride organizers also are concerned about the current violence between Israel and Lebanon. A statement on the organization' website reads, "Our hearts go to all the people affected by the violence, as we continue to hope that peace will prevail. As Jerusalemites, we are acutely aware of the complexities of the reality that we face in our city and in the region. We feel that these days optimistic messages speaking for tolerance and against violence, as are indeed the core messages of the Jerusalem World Pride events, are even more significant than during calmer times."

Like some other rabbis here, Levin believes that there is a direct correlation between the homosexual parade scheduled to take place in Jerusalem and the recent onslaught of rockets raining from Lebanon and Gaza.

Citing Leviticus [18:22-28], Levin said the Torah relates to Israel' current conflict.

Leviticus states, "You shall not lie down with a male, as with a woman: this is an abomination. For the nations, whom I am sending away from before you, have defiled themselves with all these things. And the land became defiled, and I visited its sin upon it, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. ? For the people of the land who preceded you, did all of these abominations, and the land became defiled. And let the land not vomit you out for having defiled it, as it vomited out the nation that preceded you.'"

Said Levin, "The terrorists, the leaders of Israel's enemies are working for the destruction of Israel, to wipe the Jewish people off the map."

Levin believes their efforts are succeeding due to what he calls sexual promiscuity in the land of Israel.

"Lebanon is a part of biblical Israel, and we were forced to evacuate there," he said. "Gaza is a part of biblical Israel, and last summer the land spit out over 8,000 Jewish residents."

Levin notes that holding a gay pride parade in Israel is not a new idea.

"For years, local gay parades were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem," he said. "This is like boiling water in a pot. First the water starts to simmer, and eventually it boils over."

Last summer, according to Levin, the pot did indeed boil over. In August 2005, the international World Pride organization sought to hold its yearly event in Jerusalem. After giving initial approval, Israeli police were forced to cancel the event due to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. Israeli police would have been unable to carry out the forced expulsion of Jewish residents from the 21 communities of Gush Katif and at the same time provide the required protection for the tens of thousands of participants scheduled to take part in the Jerusalem parade.

Levin said the part of the event he finds most despicable is the "Youth Day," which he charges is intended to present homosexuality as a viable life option to kids and young adults.

"Last time I checked, sexual contact of any nature with a minor under the age of 18 is illegal," Levin stated.

"Homosexuality is wrong," Levin said. "This is something every school kid knows."

The letter reproduces in an annex the words the Pope spoke last Sunday at the Angelus. The archbishop recalled that the [Pontiff] prayed for the victims and reminded "political leaders of the need and urgency to return to the path of reason and dialogue."

Echoing the Pontiff's words, the letter appeals to local Churches to pray that "the Lord will illuminate spirits so that concord and peace will reign in this region of the world rent by injustice and hatred."

He concluded assuring that "the universal Church joins our Church in the Holy Land to implore the Lord's help in this very difficult moment."

"In the coming five years, China will on the basis of its Moon probes actively plan deep space exploration, focusing on lunar and Mars exploration," Xinhua said in a brief report.

China expects to launch its first lunar probe next year, state media has said. It will spend a year orbiting the moon to collect three-dimensional images and data on the moon's surface and environment.

The satellite, which Xinhua said has a budget of 1.4 billion yuan ($175 million), is part of a three-stage project first approved in 2004 that includes a lunar vehicle by 2012 and a module to collect rock samples by 2017.

President Bush in 2004 unveiled plans for a human mission back to the moon by 2020 and an eventual trip to Mars and other planets in the solar system.

China's space program has prompted worries in some quarters about a possible arms race in space, but Beijing insists its plans are peaceful.

China became the third country to successfully send a man into space in 2003 and regularly sends up research satellites as part of an ambitious space program.