The Assembly Line Begins on Marco Polo Bridge and Continues to Beijing Friendship Hospital

The former policeman, Sun Liyong, said that he enrolled in the Beijing Police Academy in 1979 and after gradation was assigned to the Dongcheng Police Department in Beijing, where he worked until1987. There were 650 students who graduated with him and they were assigned to various public security and legal organizations in Beijing, including enforcement teams responsible for executing prisoners. Classmates kept in touch with each other and exchanged information.

One of Sun Liyong's classmates worked in the organization responsible for executing prisoners. That's how Sun Liyong was able to find out that, back then, Beijing Friendship Hospital was the only hospital in Beijing that could obtain organs from executed prisoners. The process was as follows: Beijing Police Department would first confirm the date of a prisoner's execution and then inform both Beijing Friendship Hospital and the courts. The hospital staff would go to the detention centre to carry out blood tests before the prisoner was executed in order to find compatible organs. The No 7 section of the Beijing Police Department was responsible for this.

Vehicles from the police department, law courts and Friendship Hospital would arrive at the scene of the execution. A red cross sign was hung on the hospital's vehicle and the people inside couldn't leave. An operating table, knives and scissors would all be ready in the vehicle.

The execution site for carrying out death sentences in Beijing is usually at the Marco Polo Bridge. The prisoner would kneel in a hole dug in the ground and would be shot through the head. Because his organs would be removed, he couldn't be shot in the heart.

After the prisoner was shot, he would collapse forward into the dug out hole. The coroner would check that he was dead and then place his body in a large plastic bag, tie it up and dump it in the vehicle with the red cross sign.

Staff in the vehicle would immediately begin removing the organs as the vehicle drove back to the hospital. At the same time, the organ recipient would be in the hospital, anaesthetized, and ready for the transplant operation.

Sun Liyong said that, as far as he knew, people who have been sentenced to death have their organs taken regardless of whether they consented or not. There is no choice when the Chinese Communist regime is involved to them, harvesting people's organs is perfectly justified.

Safavi, continuing his other-worldly perspective on global events, taunted Israel with promises of "disgraceful defeat" if that nation persists in defending itself against terrorist attacks by Hezbollah, which is a terrorist organization supported by Iran and Syria.

"The problem of the usurper regime of Israel is that it is facing a powerful and invisible army called the Islamic resistance Hezbollah of Lebanon. It is better if the Zionists end their attacks on the Gaza Strip and against Lebanon and release Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners to reach a ceasefire before they face a disgraceful defeat", Safavi said.

Safavi also accused the United States of giving permission to Israel to carry out its military attacks against Lebanon, claiming "the U.S. created this event to cover up its defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq."

"We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year," Hezbollah spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli told Reuters yesterday. "They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America's interests. We are only waiting for the supreme leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War III we welcome it."

The "supreme leader" is Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei.

Hezbollah and Iranian officials are known for their hyperbolic rhetoric, but U.S. officials say it would be a mistake to dismiss them categorically.

FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed earlier this spring that Hezbollah agents were caught trying to enter the country illegally through the Mexican border.

Likewise, James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February that "Ahmadinejad who is close to Hezbollah, says that he knows of the 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and the West, which he has spied out and is ready to attack in order to, quote: 'End Anglo-Saxon civilization."

In May long before the recent escalation of conflict with Israel more than 100 "martyrdom-seeking volunteers" affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps gathered to warn the U.S. they would blow up American interests around the world if their country's nuclear installations came under attack.

Mohammad-Ali Samadi, spokesman for a government-orchestrated campaign to recruit suicide bombers, said more than 55,000 volunteers had been registered, according to Iran Focus.

The group called the Headquarters to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement was established in 2004 to carry out suicide attacks against three targets: "The infidels occupying Iraq," Israel and author Salman Rushdie.

In February, it launched a new recruitment drive to fight "global blasphemy."

Iran estimated then that Israel would strike Tehran's nuclear facilities within a year and has been planning retaliatory attacks against Israeli, American and British interests, according to senior Lebanese political sources who spoke to WorldNetDaily on condition of anonymity.

The sources said while Iran is expecting lone Israeli military action, Iranian intelligence estimates the Jewish state is coordinating a planned attack with the U.S.

The recent attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel -- with the active political, financial and military support of Iran and Syria -- are just the latest acts in this war. It is a war that pits civilization and the rule of law against the dictatorships of Iran and Syria and the terrorist groups of Hezbollah and Hamas that they support. It is also a war that pits civilized nations against Islamic terrorist groups around the world, including, most significantly (but not exclusively), the al Qaeda network.

In the United States, we refer to this struggle as the "Global War on Terror". Yet, I believe this label fails to capture the nature and scale of the threat faced by civilization.

The nature of the threat -- with Iran at the epicenter -- is at its core ideological. The threat to the United States is an ideological wing of Islam that is irreconcilable to modern civilization as we know it throughout most of the world. The United States and her allies face a long war with this irreconcilable wing of Islam.

While I have addressed the nature of this threat before, I believe the deadly attacks that have recently been carried out across the globe and the plots of mass murder that have been uncovered recently in our own country and abroad reflect a scale of challenge much larger than we currently recognize. So much so that I think an analogy to the two world wars of the last century more accurately explains where we find ourselves today.

The Iran-Syrian-Hezbollah-Hamas Terrorist Alliance

It is necessary to connect the dots to understand the scale of the challenge we face. These are not isolated events: Whether operationally connected or not, these attackers and plotters are connected in their ultimate aim to destroy the values of freedom, security and religious liberty that sustain civilization in the modern age.

Here's a list of the attacks, provocative acts and uncovered plots that have occurred in just the past seven weeks:

-An Iran-Syrian-Hezbollah-Hamas terrorist alliance is waging war against Israel in both southern Lebanon and Gaza. Hezbollah has launched more than 1,000 rockets into northern Israel in the past few days alone.
-Seven bombings in Mumbai, India, killed more than 200 people.
-North Korea, which is in public contact with Iran, launched seven missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the West coast of the continental United States, in deliberate contempt of repeated warnings from the American and Japanese governments and the United Nations Security Council.
-Seven Americans were seen on video tape in Miami pledging allegiance to al Qaeda.
-A plot to bomb New York City subways and tunnels was discovered.
-Eighteen Canadians, plotting terror, were arrested with twice the explosive force used in the Oklahoma City bombing and a plan to blow up the Canadian parliament.
-The British government reported that it has uncovered more than 20 "major conspiracies" by Islamic terrorists, and as many as 1,200 potential terrorists now live in the United Kingdom.
This is only a recent list. It is in addition to the deadly bombings we witness on an almost daily basis in Baghdad, and previous attacks in New York, Washington, London, Madrid, Bali, Beslan, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Sharm-el-Sheikh, New Delhi, Amman and many other cities.

Are We For Civilization or Appeasement?

Some actions are clarifying because they force people -- and nations -- to choose sides. The increasing number of attacks, provocations, and plots of this Third World War similarly force us to make a decision. We must have a national debate -- indeed, a worldwide debate -- between those of us who believe we're in a war to defend civilization (and therefore must defeat terrorists and their state sponsors) and those who are made uncomfortable by the price of defeating terrorists and their state sponsors.

This is a fundamental choice upon which will hinge our future liberties and possibly our very lives. New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin described the war like this:

"While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. ... Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun."

So which are we for? Defending civilization and America? Or making excuses for those who threaten us and burying our heads in the sand?

"The mission will have to be far more specific and clearer, and the force employed will have to be far greater," he told reporters at the end of the Group of Eight summit of world leaders on Monday.

"This will obviously take time to put together," he said, warning that the force "cannot operate except in conditions where there has been a cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

The final hours of the G8 summit of wealthy nations were supposed to focus on Africa and global trade talks, but minds were still very much on the Middle East and the fear of all-out war.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the United Nations needed time and space "to make sure we have the troops -- well-trained, well-equipped troops -- to go in quite quickly."

He said a UN team in the region would report to the Security Council toward the end of the week.

The current UN monitoring force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, was set up in 1978 to oversee an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon that finally took place 22 years later.

It is made up of 2,000 soldiers from China, France, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy and Poland but is largely powerless militarily.

Israel reacted cautiously to the idea of an international force. "At this moment it is too early to discuss this possibility," foreign ministry official Yigal Palmor told AFP.

"First of all we need to implement the United Nation resolutions and the G8 decisions."

Annan flew to Saint Petersburg a day after the G8 group -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, host Russia and the United States -- proposed the deployment of a force.

The G8 group also called jointly for a halt to "extremist" attacks on the Jewish state, an end to Israel's military operations in Lebanon and Gaza, and the release of captured soldiers and detained Palestinian ministers.

Israeli forces have been relentlessly pounding targets in Lebanon since the middle of last week after Hezbollah captured two soldiers, while the militant movement has retaliated with rocket attacks on Israeli cities.

Some 200 people, according to an AFP count -- more than 170 in Lebanon and 24 Israelis -- have been killed in the violence, which has brought widespread appeals for restraint.

US President George W. Bush said shortly before flying out of here that the G8 statement would help restore "calm," adding that "for the first time we've really begun to address with clarity the root causes of the conflict."

"I'm most pleased that the leaders came together to say, 'Look, we condemn violence, we honor innocent life'."

Later, however, Bush was caught on an open microphone giving his succinct assessment of who he thought was to blame for the violence.

Chatting with Blair over lunch, he said that "the irony is, what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over," without specifying who "they" are.

The US leader also suggested that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to the Middle East "pretty soon".

While the crisis has dominated the entire agenda of the summit in Russia's second city, Monday was meant to focus on trade talks between the eight powers and leaders from five emerging market economies -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

The consultations come two weeks after ministers failed to agree on how to reduce barriers to enable the developing world to taste the benefits of free trade.

Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva offered hope that deadlocked negotiations could be salvaged, saying his government was prepared to "show flexibility."

He said the Doha Round of trade talks, launched in 2001, was facing "a political crisis. It is a crisis due to the lack of leadership

Most of these are relatively short-range systems, generically known as Katyushas, capable of striking targets out to about 25km (16 miles).

But the Hezbollah missile strikes on Israel's northern port city of Haifa demonstrate that it also has an unknown quantity of longer-range systems in its arsenal.

Most of these are Iranian-manufactured systems like the Fajr-3, with a 45-km range; the Fajr-5, with a range of some 75km; and the more potent Zelzal-2 with a range of up to 200km.

This would bring much of Tel Aviv - Israel's largest population centre - within range.

None of these are guided or accurate systems but if the target is an urban area, accuracy is not needed.

In addition, as the successful attack on an Israeli naval vessel demonstrates (an Egyptian freighter was also hit and abandoned by its crew), Hezbollah also has relatively sophisticated Iranian-supplied anti-shipping missiles at its disposal.

Air war limitations

This missile build-up has worried the Israeli military for some time.
No surprise then that Israeli leaders have taken the opportunity of the Hezbollah raid which captured two of their men, to set about the full-scale weakening of Hezbollah's infrastructure.

Headquarters, television stations, and missile storage bunkers have all been hit.
But the Israelis have also sought to blockade Lebanon - closing Beirut's airport, striking the Beirut-Damascus highway, and hitting various key transport links, especially bridges.

The Israelis explain all this by saying that they are acting to prevent Hezbollah bringing in or moving up additional missiles to the border. Inevitably, such attacks, however precise, cause civilian casualties.

Israel's long-term goals are obvious. It wants to end the cross-border missile threat to its towns and cities by applying a blunt lesson in deterrence.

It would like to see Hezbollah disarm and the Lebanese Army extend its control down to the international frontier. That is what UN Security Council Resolution 1559, of 2004, also demands - but it is hard to see how it can be enacted.

Israel's tactics are to some extent puzzling. The bludgeoning of Lebanon's transport infrastructure will hinder, but will probably not stop, missile movements.

Indeed, Hezbollah has shown remarkable resilience, and the rockets are still flying across Israel's northern border. It is very hard to deliver a body blow to Hezbollah from the air.

So is this all a prelude to some significant Israeli incursion on the ground?

On the face of things Israel has not yet mobilised sufficient troops for such an operation. And a comprehensive assault on Hezbollah would require a move into the strategically important Bekaa Valley, a step that would send alarm bells ringing in Syria, risking an even wider confrontation.

Dangers of complacency

Israel's own military performance raises several questions.
Even Israeli commentators have pointed to the fact that the capture of Israeli soldiers, first by Palestinian militants and now Hezbollah, shows clear signs of laxness and a lack of vigilance on the part of the reserve units involved.

Hezbollah has clearly signalled its desire to carry out such operations and it has attempted similar things in the past. Has reserve training been reduced too far? Has a certain complacency set in?

The attack on the Israeli missile boat - one of its most sophisticated warships, a Saar-5 class corvette - also raises many questions. It was hit by a Chinese-made, radar-guided C-802 missile. Did Israeli intelligence not know that these anti-shipping missiles had been given to Hezbollah by Iran?

Israel's naval electronics and defensive systems are among the best in the world, defensive systems intended to counter just such a threat. Some reports suggest that they were not even operating on board the vessel that was hit.

Proportionality

But most of all there is the question of the new Israeli government's relationship with the military.

Much has been made of the limited military experience of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

Mr Olmert is in a tight spot. He has to act to protect Israel's citizens. But ask a general what action can be taken in response to a threat and he will generally supply a long list of targets.

Israel seems to be working through just such a list. But the real strategic calculation is to weigh up military advantage against wider political and diplomatic considerations.

Has Israel got the balance right?

Clearly there are many views. But the overwhelming international consensus - not least from the G8 summit in St Petersburg - is that disproportionate military force has been used.

President George W Bush - who has strongly backed Israeli action - nonetheless put this point rather neatly.

"Defend yourself," he said, "but be mindful of the consequences."

Even though the Discovery mission suggested that Nasa had finally licked the fuel tank problems which triggered the 2003 Columbia accident, the shuttles' days are numbered.

After 16 scheduled missions to complete construction of the $100bn ISS, Nasa plans a 2010 retirement date for the space shuttle fleet.

Russian Soyuz and Progress ships will continue flying to the station, as they have been since the programme began. The capsules and cargo vessels were the only vehicles to fly to and from the station during the years Nasa grounded its shuttle fleet for post-Columbia safety upgrades.

But next year, if all goes as planned, there will be a new vehicle on the orbital scene.

The European Space Agency's (Esa) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is scheduled for a debut flight to the station.

Restraining hole

In all, Esa has promised five ATV cargo ships to the space station project through to 2015.

With the shuttles' retirement, that may not be enough. Nasa already is looking into transferring cargo originally earmarked for the shuttle to other carriers, including the ATV, which was designed to dock at the station's Russian ports.

Japan also is building a space station cargo carrier called the H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV).

"We're figuring out how to integrate the ATV and the HTV into our plans," said Joy Bryant, the space station programme manager for Boeing, Nasa's prime contractor on the project.
The ATV can haul about 7,000kg (15,000 pounds) of cargo to the ISS, but payloads are largely limited to items that go inside the station.

They must be small enough to pass through its hatch, which is a bit bigger than shoulder-width. Some items earmarked for addition to the outside of the station could fly on the ATV, but they would have to be taken out through an airlock during spacewalks, adding time and complexity during what already is among the busiest times of station operations.

Nasa plans to use ATVs, HTVs and possibly even commercial vessels well before the shuttles' retirement.

And Columbus, too

Nasa consolidated its shuttle manifest to reduce the number of station assembly flights as much as possible, with the intention of finishing construction by the time the shuttles retire.

There are no other vehicles that can carry to orbit and assemble the station's trusses, power modules and laboratories.

As a result, there is little room to spare on most flights for carrying spare parts and extra cargo to the outpost, a need Nasa hopes to fill by buying rides on other spaceships.
The ATV's biggest contribution is likely to be fuel. The shuttle cannot carry propellants used by the station to maintain itself in orbit, so it is solely reliant on Russian Progress ships for resupply.

Once ATV is operational, the partners will have a choice of using a Progress or an ATV for deliveries.

Though Nasa plans an extensive and extended checkout before allowing an ATV to dock, cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, who is scheduled to begin a six-month station mission in September, expects no problems with the vehicle.

"I think people make too much [of it]. The [system] is much safer than what people would expect. The motion control system is made of proven technology. I have no concerns," Tyurin said in an interview.

Europe has another station debut planned next year as well. The Columbus laboratory module is scheduled for launch aboard the shuttle shortly after the ATV's first mission.

If that doesn't give investors enough to worry about, here is one more thing. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to appear before congressional committees on Wednesday and Thursday to testify about the Fed's semiannual monetary policy report.

Two major U.S. economic reports, notably the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index for June, will be released this week, along with the minutes of the Fed's most recent policy-setting meeting. Economists polled by Reuters expect that the PPI and the CPI rose in June, in the overall figures and the core indexes, excluding food and energy.

Wall Street will watch the PPI and CPI reports for signs of whether the pace of inflation is picking up, and comb through the Fed's minutes for clues on when the central bank might take a break from raising interest rates.

The violence in the Middle East, though, will keep Wall Street on edge.

"The real concern is not so much Israel going to Lebanon, but it's whether Israel is going to threaten Syria," said Steve Goldman, a market strategist at Weeden & Co. in Greenwich, Connecticut.

"With Iran's backing of Syria, that would bring up a whole new issue. It's this lingering concern, which makes it tougher for stocks to rebound at this juncture."

Last week, Israel launched a military assault against targets in Lebanon after two of its soldiers were seized and eight killed.

The assault drove the price of crude oil up on Friday to a record $78.40 a barrel in electronic trading, fueling concerns that U.S. consumers may cut spending as their gasoline bills soar.

For the past week, the Dow Jones industrial average (DJI) dropped 3.1 percent, while the S&P 500 index (SPX) shed 2.3 percent, while the Nasdaq (IXIC) lost 4.4 percent.

HOPING FOR A Ceasefire
Analysts said if there were any signs over the weekend that the Middle East tensions might ease, then earnings will take center stage in the week ahead. That could give the market a catalyst to crawl back up out of its slump.

"The geopolitical risks are a stiff headwind," said Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at Banc of America Capital Management in New York.

"Over the weekend," he said, "we do need to see a ceasefire ... Hopefully the G8 can craft some kind of deal that lowers the temperature," he added, referring to the Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations, which meets through Monday in St. Petersburg, Russia.

But "if things continue to boil, oil prices could break through $80 a barrel, and that would weigh on the stock market early on Monday.

How did the current crisis start?

The Hezbollah raid into Israel, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were captured, was a stunning and provocative attack.

Some have argued that Hezbollah wanted to test new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is an unknown quantity as far as military crises go.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah has said that the soldiers were captured to pressure Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails.

The raid is clearly a gesture of solidarity towards the Palestinian militants in Gaza who have been holding an Israeli soldier since 25 June.

Hezbollah may also have had an eye on its own situation in Lebanon where there has been increasing pressure for it to disarm.

How has Israel reacted?

The result of the raid is that Israel is fighting on two fronts. Israeli officials have cast the Hezbollah raid as an act of war and responded with air strikes, shelling and a sea blockade, threatening operations that will "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years".

The aim seems to be, as in Gaza, to build up massive pressure on the Lebanese government and the Lebanese population. Civilian casualties in Lebanon have been high and the damage to civilian infrastructure wide-ranging.

The Israeli strikes on targets other that Hezbollah installations are at least in part punitive - power installations, roads and the international airport have been hit.

This has drawn some international criticism and calls for restraint, but Israel is unlikely to care too much about the criticism while Israelis are being killed by Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel.

What can the Lebanese government do about the situation?

Ordinary Lebanese may well be the main victims. The country is dealing with an Israeli land invasion for the first time since 2000, when Israel ended a 22-year occupation of the south.

Israel has made it absolutely clear that it holds the Lebanese government responsible for the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah.

Many analysts see this as unfair.

Even though Hezbollah is operating from Lebanese territory and the militant group has two ministers in the Lebanese government, central government is almost powerless to influence the militant group.

It is the Hezbollah militia that is deployed in southern Lebanon, not the Lebanese army.

The group is also very popular in Lebanon and highly respected for its political activities, social services and its military record against Israel.

Most Lebanese may believe that Hezbollah's capture of the two Israeli soldiers is deeply irresponsible. There is anger that the country is again being pitched towards war, but this is unlikely to translate into widespread anger towards Hezbollah.

Is there any way out of this crisis?

Israeli officials have insisted that there will be no direct negotiation with Hezbollah or Hamas over the return of its soldiers, and no Palestinian prisoner releases.

In the past, Israel has negotiated with Hezbollah and released hundreds of prisoners, but Israeli officials are now talking about a changed situation and new rules.

In both Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli military appears to be taking advantage of the crisis to damage Hezbollah and Hamas as military organisations.

All sides are for now taking hardline positions, but it's difficult to see how the Israelis are going to get their soldiers back without some kind of ceasefire followed by negotiations that will almost certainly involve prisoner releases.

Will the conflict spread?

We're not yet at the stage of a regional conflict.

Much will depend on whether Israel extends its military operations to take in Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's sponsors and supporters. Officials have already laid much of the blame for the escalating crisis on Damascus and Tehran.

Iran and Syria are also the states that can influence Hezbollah more than anyone else.

Inevitably the role of the US, in restraining Israel and pushing the various parties towards some kind of ceasefire may at some later date be crucial.

Washington's stance in its "war on terror" may mean that its contacts with Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah, and its ability to influence them, may be limited.

The first signs of an international diplomatic intervention emerged when the UN's Kofi Annan and British PM Tony Blair called for the deployment of an international force in Lebanon.

But this may be some way off, if it gets off the ground at all.

Meanwhile, questions surrounding the disarmament of Hezbollah, as demanded by the UN Security Council, have been pushed way into the background for now. As are Mr Olmert's big plans for disengaging from parts of the West Bank.

It now has an important presence in the Lebanese parliament and has built broad support by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar.

But, it still has a militia that refuses to demilitarise, despite UN resolution 1559, passed in 2004, which called for the disarming of militias as well as the withdrawal of foreign (i.e about 14,000 Syrian) forces from Lebanon.

As long ago as 2000, after Israel's withdrawal, Hezbollah was under pressure to integrate its forces into the Lebanese army and focus on its political and social operations.

But, while it capitalised on its political gains, it continued to describe itself as a force of resistance not only for Lebanon, but for the region.

Syria

The Islamic Resistance is still active on the Israel-Lebanon border. Tension is focused on an area known as the Shebaa Farms, although clashes with Israeli troops occur elsewhere.

Hezbollah, with broad Lebanese political support, says the Shebaa Farms area is occupied Lebanese territory - but Israel, backed by the UN, says the farms are on the Syrian side of the border and so are part of the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Another casus belli cited by Hezbollah is the continued detention of prisoners from Lebanon in Israeli jails.
The movement long operated with neighbouring Syria's blessing, protecting its interests in Lebanon and serving as a card for Damascus to play in its own confrontation with Israel over the occupation of the Golan Heights.

But the withdrawal of Syrian troops in Lebanon last year - following huge anti-Syrian protests in the wake of Lebanese ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination - changed the balance of power.

Hezbollah became the most powerful military force in Lebanon in its own right and increased its political clout, gaining a seat in the Lebanese cabinet.

Analysts say Hezbollah has adopted a cautious policy since the Hariri assassination crisis erupted on 14 February 2005 - an event widely blamed on Syria, but which Damascus has vigorously denied.

Hezbollah leaders have continued to profess its support for Syria, while not criticising the Lebanese opposition. They have also stressed Lebanese unity by arguing against "Western interference" in the country.

Starting out

Hezbollah was conceived in 1982 by a group of Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

It was close to a contingent of some 2,000 Iranian Revolutionary guards, based in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which had been sent to the country to aid the resistance against Israel.
Hezbollah was formed primarily to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation.

It also dreamed of transforming Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state, although this idea was later abandoned in favour of a more inclusive approach that has survived to this day.

The party's rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It regards the whole of Palestine as occupied Muslim land and it argues that Israel has no right to exist.

The party was long supported by Iran, which provided it with arms and money.

Passionate and demanding

Hezbollah also adopted the tactic of taking Western hostages, through a number of freelance hostage taking cells.

In 1983, militants who went on to join Hezbollah ranks carried out a suicide bombing attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut.

Hezbollah has always sought to further an Islamic way of life. In the early days, its leaders imposed strict codes of Islamic behaviour on towns and villages in the south of the country - a move that was not universally popular with the region's citizens.

But the party emphasises that its Islamic vision should not be interpreted as an intention to impose an Islamic society on the Lebanese.

During the Synod debate the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, told participants that bishops had a special leadership role in the Church, and that just because it had women priests, it did not mean that women bishops were legitimate, the BBC reported. In the end the vote was 288 in favor of women bishops and 119 against.

The vote in favor of women bishops came shortly after data revealed the increasing presence of women clergy. Fourteen years after the go-ahead for women priests in the U.K., 283 women were recommended for the seminary last year, compared with 295 men, reported the London-based Times newspaper, June 24.

The experience of the Anglican Church in Britain was recently analyzed by Hilary De Lyon, chief executive of the Royal College of General Practitioners. She contributed a chapter to the study "Production Values: futures for professionalism," published June 22 by the U.K. think-tank Demos.

The first women deacons were ordained in 1987, and women were permitted to enter the full priesthood in 1994, explained De Lyon. Although it has been only 12 years since women were first ordained, they already make up over 20% of clergy, and hold 50% of the unpaid posts held by priests. In addition, they hold only one in six of the paid posts and one in five of the chaplaincy posts.

Two-tier church

The latest vote comes after a long period of tensions in the Anglican church. Shortly before the Synod meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that all the national churches would be asked to sign a covenant declaring they believed in the basic biblical tenets of Anglican doctrine, reported the Times newspaper, June 28.

Williams threatened that those who refuse to sign the declaration would be excluded from full membership of the Church and would instead become "associates." The proposal will be discussed by the Anglicans at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

Anglican disunity is not the only threat; ecumenical relations are also in doubt. Before last weekend's vote Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, warned that allowing women to be ordained bishops would further complicate attempts to achieve unity.

In comments reported by the Times, June 7, the cardinal said that as it was, the ordination of women as priests had led to a "cooling off" in the relations between the two churches. The advent of women bishops would cause a "serious and long-lasting chill." He also warned that: "Without identity, no society, least of all a church, can continue to survive."

American divisions

On the other side of the Atlantic, the American branch of the Anglican Church, the Episcopalians, continues to be riven by disputes. In May, Episcopalians in San Francisco did avoid electing a homosexual as local bishop, reported the Washington Post, May 7. Instead they chose Mark Handley Andrus, currently the bishop suffragan from the diocese of Alabama.
Andrus ran against six other candidates, three of whom live openly with same-sex partners, according to the Post article.

But the following month controversy arose over the election by the Episcopal General Convention of Nevada bishop, Jefferts Schori, as its leader in America. She is the first woman to head a national grouping of the Anglican Communion, reported the Washington Post, June 19.

Her election immediately raised concerns. Schori had backed the election of a declared homosexual, V. Gene Robertson, as a bishop in 2003. Before this, no openly homosexual bishop had ever been consecrated in the history of the Anglican Church. Moreover, the same meeting of American Episcopalians that elected Schori refused to impose a moratorium on the election of additional homosexual bishops, reported Reuters, June 20.

Reacting to the election of Schori, the Bishop of Rochester, England, Michael Nazir-Ali, said that divisions between liberals and conservatives were so profound that a compromise was no longer possible. His comments came in an interview published June 19 by the British newspaper, the Telegraph.

"Anglicans are used to fudging things sometimes, but I think this is a matter of such seriousness that fudge won't do," said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

Nigeria's Anglican bishops had even stronger words, saying that the U.S. branch is "a cancerous lump" that should be "excised," reported the BBC on July 4.

Doubts over where Schori will lead Episcopalians were raised by her statements in the days following the election. In a sermon shortly after her election she referred to "our mother Jesus," reported the Times, June 22.

Then, in an interview published in the July 17 issue of Time magazine, Schori was asked: "What will be your focus as head of the U.S. church?" She replied saying: "Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus."

Meltdown

The sort of priorities outlined by Shori were strongly criticized by Charlotte Allen, Catholicism editor for Beliefnet, in an opinion article published July 9 by the Los Angeles Times. The fragmentation of Anglicanism, she explained, is not just due to doctrinal disputes. "It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity," she said.

Liberal Christianity was hailed as the future of the Christian Church, but Allen observed, all the churches and movements within churches that have "blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating."

"When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members" argued Allen. As recently as 1960 churches such as the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today the number has plummeted to around 12%.

Allen cited data from the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, showing that in 1965 there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million.

Her comments echoed the thesis of the book, "Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity," (Sentinel) published last year. According to author Dave Shiflett, Americans are leaving liberal denominations for churches that preach strict moral norms and uphold traditional beliefs.

Liberal theologians and bishops get plenty of media coverage, observes Shiflett. But the average churchgoer wants to attend a church where they can get something not obtainable elsewhere, which doesn't include trendy opinions on current topics. "They want the Good News, not the minister's political views or intellectual coaching."

Shiflett explained that data from the Glenmary Research Center on church membership showed that conservative congregations are growing fastest. This includes the Southern Baptist Convention, up 5% in the decade 1990-2000; and Pentecostal groups such as the Assemblies of God, and the Church of God, up 18.5% and 40% respectively, in the same period.

As a general observation, churches that adhere to traditional teaching, offer transcendent truth and demand a high commitment from their members are those that enjoy growth. Following the latest liberal trends, on the other hand, leads to decline. Something for all Christians to consider.

"We need to have the militancy that says 'We're not going to lose a city,' " Gingrich said. He talks about the need to recognize World War III as important for military strategy and political strategy.

Gingrich said in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly, and to the Administration, about the need to recognize that America is in World War III.

He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, this week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III. He said Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and "connect all the dots" for Americans.

He said the reluctance to put those pieces together and see one global conflict is hurting America's interests. He said people, including some in the Bush Administration, who urge a restrained response from Israel are wrong "because they haven't crossed the bridge of realizing this is a war."

"This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away:
"Israel wouldn't leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts."

There is a public relations value, too. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is "'OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

The United States asked Merkel to speak to Israeli officials and she told them Lebanon was in a fragile state and should not be destabilised, the magazine said, in a preview of its latest weekly edition.

Merkel's office and the foreign ministry were not immediately available for comment. Merkel hosted U.S. President George W. Bush during a visit to Germany on Thursday.

The German government said Merkel spoke with Jordan's King Abdullah on Saturday afternoon from St. Petersburg, where she is attending a Group of Eight summit.

"The German chancellor and the foreign minister, along with their counterparts from other EU countries, are having numerous conversations, including with representatives of Israel and the Arab countries," the statement said.

"The conversations are aimed at contributing to a de-escalation of the situation and stabilising the Lebanese government," it said.

Germany has acted as a mediator between Israel and Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hizbollah in the past.

Steinmeier said in a statement he had spoken by telephone with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Saturday and the two had agreed that all efforts must be directed towards an easing of the situation.

Steinmeier said he had been in intensive talks in recent days with officials in the region, including the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt and Syria.

Israel launched an offensive against Lebanon after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in St Petersburg)

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds".

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. "For a start, the expected deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending on health care than to changing demographics," he said.

"This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much of short-sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more pressing."