A senior Palestinian Authority official from the Fatah party told WND today "Gaza has fallen. It's now Hamas land. We (Fatah) have lost." The official said Hamas seeks to create an "Islamic caliphate" in Gaza and that it is expected to put former Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar in control of the terror group's reign in Gaza.

Israeli security officials said they were "gravely concerned" about Iran's influence over the territory Hamas now controls. An announcer on a Hamas radio station said today the group's offensive would proceed to the Ansar Compound and the National Security Forces, where the U.S. has the past few months delivered large quantities of weaponry to Fatah purportedly to aid it in clashes against Hamas. The U.S. recently designated $4 million in taxpayer funds to refurbish Ansar.

Hamas said if the Fatah security forces don't turn over their weapons, including U.S. arms, by 7 p.m. Friday, they will take the weapons by force. The terror group has surrounded Ansar. At least 27 Palestinians, including a U.N. relief worker, have been killed today. In several spots in Gaza, thousands of local Palestinians rallied against the violence, but Hamas gunmen reportedly shot live ammunition into the crowds, killing two protestors at two different locations.

The U.S. in the past year has given large quantities of weapons to bolster Fatah in clashes against Hamas. Hamas officials repeatedly told WND they would seize any American weaponry provided to Fatah in Gaza.

Hamas' Al Aqsa Television broadcast footage of Hamas gunmen brandishing American assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition the U.S. reportedly provided to Fatah over the past few months. Hamas fighters also showed what they said were 10 American-provided armored personnel carriers the terror group said it seized from Fatah security compounds it took over yesterday.

Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND today, "We informed you many times we would obtain all American arms brought to Gaza in the conspiracy against our government."

According to a recent United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of the World Population Report, these practices, combined with neglect, have resulted in at least 60 million "missing" girls in Asia, CREATING GENDER IMBALANCES AND OTHER SERIOUS PROBLEMS THAT EXPERTS SAY WILL HAVE FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES FOR YEARS TO COME.

"Twenty-five million men in China currently can't find brides because there is a shortage of women," said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute in Washington, D.C. "The young men emigrate overseas to find brides."

The imbalances are also giving rise to a commercial sex trade; the 2005 report states that up to 800,000 people being trafficked across borders each year, and as many as 80 percent are women and girls, most of whom are exploited.

It comes despite the two sides saying they had agreed to a truce to end days of fighting which has killed 80 people. But Hamas's military wing says it has so far received no orders to put down its guns. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, is expected to make a statement on the unity government.

Fatah forces are said to have abandoned key positions in central Gaza, following a series of battles on Wednesday in which Hamas made systematic gains in the north and south. Fighting has also spilled over into the West Bank. Analysts say that if the fighting is not checked, Palestinians could be split into a Fatah-controlled West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the idea of an international peace-keeping force in Gaza should be explored. Mr Ban said both Mr Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had floated the option.
The international community has called for a ceasefire, and Arab League head Amr Moussa said the fighting was destroying the Palestinian cause.

The Vatican also said it was suspending all financial aid to Amnesty over what it said was the group's recent change of policy on the issue. Amnesty said it was not promoting abortion as a universal right. But the group said that women had a right to choose, particularly in cases of rape or incest.

"No more financing of Amnesty International after the organisation's pro-abortion about-turn," said a statement from the Roman Catholic Church's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The council's president, Cardinal Renato Martino, described abortion as "murder".

"And to justify it selectively, in the event of rape, that is to define an innocent child in the belly of its mother as an enemy, as 'something one can destroy'," the cardinal said.
Amnesty says it does not take any position on whether abortion is right or wrong.

But it defended its new position in support of abortion for women when their health is in danger or human rights are violated, especially in cases of rape or incest. "We are saying broadly that to criminalise women's management of their sexual reproductive right is the wrong answer," Amnesty's deputy Secretary General Kate Gilmore told Reuters news agency.

"The Catholic Church, through a misrepresented account of our position on selective aspects of abortion, is placing in peril work on human rights," Ms Gilmore said.

WHERE'S GOD IN THE LIBERAL MORAL EQUATION? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND ? AND WITH GOOD REASON. THE AMERICAN LEFT NOW STANDS FOR THE WHOLESALE DISPLACEMENT OF TRADITIONAL RELIGIOUS MORALITY AND THE UTTER REJECTION OF THE DIVINE. "We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion," atheistic commentator Christopher Hitchens writes in his new best-seller, "God Is Not Great." Hitchens, consciously or unconsciously, speaks for the liberal movement.

A recent Gallup poll showed overwhelming liberal support for homosexual activity (83 percent), premarital sex (89 percent), illegitimacy (83 percent), abortion (67 percent) and doctor-assisted suicide (73 percent). Liberals support polygamy, adultery and cloning humans at an exponentially higher rate than conservatives. The top moral issue on the liberal agenda seems to be global warming. ("It is a moral issue, it is an ethical issue," spouts Al Gore.) Liberals seem far less comfortable discussing the moral implications of a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq.

This, then, is the "ethical life" proposed by the liberals who echo Hitchens: the unethical life of moral lassitude. It is a collective program of moral abdication on the international and domestic fronts. It is the substitution of libertinism for liberty, accompanied by the substitution of enforced fairness for individual freedom.

Liberalism's morality is philosophically bankrupt. Its atheism precludes the human capability for free will - without a soul, we are nothing but mechanistic products of genetics and environment - yet it simultaneously insists on an infinite capability for individual and societal perfection. It asserts the potentiality for a triumph of the will, while obliterating the basis for willpower. It champions the "natural," while maintaining that nature need not dictate social relations. IT WEDS DETERMINISTIC DARWINISM TO MARXIST UTOPIANISM.

The president is elected by the 120 members of the Knesset. Peres ran against Reuven Rivlin from the opposition Likud party and the leftist Labor party's Collette Avital.

The Peres Peace Center, headed by the former prime minister, advocates the division of Jerusalem and Israeli withdrawals from the strategic West Bank and Golan Heights. The West Bank borders Jerusalem while the Golan looks down on Israeli population centers and twice was used by Syria to mount ground invasions into the Jewish state.

Peres repeatedly has come under fire by critics for policies and plans many say would greatly undermine Israel's security.

President Alvaro Uribe, who visited some of the areas on Monday, described the floods as "a tragedy" and promised more efficient government action. Some 270,000 people have had their homes or businesses wrecked or damaged since the rainy season began in March.

One town, Nechi in Antioquia province, has been almost completely flooded. The heavy rains have affected large parts of the country, with the north particularly badly hit. Thousands of people have lost their homes and livelihoods, many of them caught up in mudslides set off by the floodwaters.

First, do no harm. This tenet of medicine applies equally to psychologists, yet they are increasingly implicated in abusive interrogations, dare we say torture, at U.S. military detention facilities like Guantanamo. While the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association both have passed resolutions prohibiting members from participating in interrogations, the American Psychological Association refuses to, despite the outrage of many of its members.

Even the army surgeon general's report SAID IT WAS THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGISTS TO TELL INTERROGATORS WHEN TO INCREASE THE PRESSURE, HOW TO EXPLOIT VULNERABILITIES. So I think we really do have to end this as a nation, not just as professional associations. ... We're talking about ... ending complicity in torture by a profession that has an enormous amount to contribute to the good of humanity and should not be involved in the destruction of people.

According to an article published on the New York Times last week, the new interrogation tactics are expected to prohibit water-boarding, the most used method by U.S. interrogators despite its cruelty. However, the so-called "enhanced interrogation" methods would allow prolonged stress positions, exposure to harsh elements as well as general mental and physical torture; methods that "go beyond those allowed in the military by the Army Field Manual," according to the Times.

Apparently President Bush was forced to give orders for the new interrogation methods following critics' fears over the use of such tactics and whether they are the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee.

The "enhanced interrogation" methods follow the passage of the Military Commission Act of 2006, which allowed indefinite detention of prisoners and sanctioned military commissions. It also modified the War Crimes Act and gave the president explicit authority to interpret the Geneva Conventions. This was done to protect U.S. officials from prosecution and pave the way for a presidential directive that would authorize the CIA to carry out methods that amount to violations of Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions.

In experiments that entailed infecting monkeys, the researchers have shown the virus sends the immune systems into overdrive, flooding the lungs with fluids that drown its victims. The scientists say this helps explain why so many healthy young adults died as the 1918 flu pandemic swept the world killing up to 50 million - more people than died in the First World War.

The research is also expected to provide tips to halt future pandemics and protect front-line workers. "Really that's what this is all about," says Michael Katze of the University of Washington in Seattle, a member of the international team that describes the monkey experiments in the journal Nature today.

The insect-borne bluetongue virus has re-emerged in Germany, according to the UK's Institute for Animal Health. The midges carrying the virus survived a mild winter, increasing the chance of it hitting the UK, the institute says.

The viral infection can affect goats, deer and cattle, but does not pose a risk to human health. An outbreak would damage the beef and lamb industries. Once infected, up to 70% of a flock of sheep can die from the virus. Animals with the disease contract a fever that may last for several days, have mucous lining their mouth, nose and eyes, and suffer from excessive salivation and frothing.

The environment department, Defra, says there have been more than 2,000 cases of the virus, known as BTV-8, in the EU since mid-2006.

Both sides said Gaza had descended into civil war. Dozens have been killed since Monday and battles over security positions spread to central Gaza early Wednesday. Gunmen fought for control of high-rise buildings in Gaza City, and Hamas said it seized and bulldozed a key Fatah outpost that controls Gaza's main north-south road.

Tuesday's battles marked a turning point, with Hamas moving systematically to seize Fatah positions in what some in the Islamic militant group said would be a decisive phase in the yearlong power struggle. The confrontations became increasingly brutal in recent days, with some killed execution-style in the streets, others in hospital shootouts or thrown off rooftops.

The conflict escalated further when the Fatah central committee decided to suspend the activities of its ministers in the government it shares with Hamas. In an emergency meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Fatah decided on a full withdrawal if the fighting doesn't stop, said government spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Islamic militants of Hamas of trying to stage a coup.

The definition of GM-free food was relaxed last night as European ministers decided to allow a greater proportion of genetically-modified material into products that could still be labelled "GM free".

EU agriculture ministers decided that food could include up to 0.9 per cent of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) instead of the 0.1 per cent currently used as the gold standard by leading supermarkets. Ministers also agreed a Europe-wide system for labelling foods as organic so long as they contained at least 95 per cent organically-produced material - the same threshold already in use in Britain.

The 0.1 per cent figure for GMOs represents the lowest trace detectable and green campaigners believe that it forces producers to do all they can to keep their food "pure".

Although it will remain prohibited to use GMOs knowingly in organic farming, adopting a 0.9 per cent threshold for labelling food "GM free" will encourage lower standards in keeping produce truly organic, they argued.

Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU Agriculture Commissioner, said that it would be too costly for farmers to achieve higher purity in their organic produce.

Every member state will also be granted access to millions of fingerprints, as well as vehicle and driver registrations. A two-year agreement on cross-border co- operation between seven EU countries now becomes law involving all 27 nations.

The Tories said the so-called "Prum Convention" was a "sell-out", as many of the controversial proposals were salvaged from the wreckage of the EU constitution. They added that the deal - signed by Home Office Minister Joan Ryan in Luxembourg - also paves the way for police from different EU states to set-up joint patrols. London MEP Syed Kamall said: "WE ARE SLEEPWALKING INTO A BIG BROTHER EUROPE WHILE OUR GOVERNMENT STANDS IDLY BY."

Britain receives by far the worst deal of the member states. More than 4.2million people are contained on our database, or 7 per cent of the population. It includes a million innocent people, who were arrested but never charged and 100,000 children. The database is 50 times the size of its French equivalent. In Austria, less than 1 per cent of the population is included.

Tory European Parliament spokesman Philip Bradbourn said that much of what had been agreed was originally part of the EU constitution. He added: "Mr Blair has started the constitution sell-out today. Now everyone's personal details can be sent to police throughout Europe because Britain did not wield the veto.
"This Prum treaty fundamentally goes against the rules of data protection and civil liberties that we have come to expect in Europe."

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: "This is a serious development which we strongly object to. It is typical of incompetent Home Office Ministers to give away powers like this without thinking through the consequences." The Luxembourg meeting also rubber-stamped a deal to set-up a common database for visa applicants' pictures and fingerprints.

Ian Wilmut, who made history when he cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, is now calling on scientists to inject human DNA into animal egg cells as a workaround to ethical and legal roadblocks. His commentary appears in Nature Reports Stem Cells, an online stem cell resource created by the journal Nature.

Wilmut proposes that scientists take a DNA-packed nucleus from a diseased person's cell, then slip it into an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed. About one times out of eight, a clump of human embryonic stem cells should grow. Once the clump is large enough, medical researchers could test experimental drugs on the cells without destroying a single human embryo.

Kevin Eggan, an embryonic stem cell researcher at Harvard University, said that Wilmut is onto something important. "I think that this is critical set of experiments that should go forward," he told LiveScience. The proposed process, Wilmut wrote, would be an improvement over the current approach testing experimental drugs on mice.

These experiments can take years to complete. Embryonic stem cells, however, need only a few days to grow up to a drug-testable point. "In a single year," he wrote, "thousands of compounds" could be screened in the same time and at the same cost it takes to test a "handful" of drugs with mice experiments.

Although the ethical issue is not completely resolved, as human tissue would be growing in an animal egg, Wilmut is confident about the proposed procedure's advantages. "Although barriers to producing embryos and embryonic stem cells (with this process) could be large," Wilmut wrote, "so too are the lessons that could be learned."