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Israel Radio, meanwhile, quoted Israeli army officials as saying that Israel won't stop its military offensive until an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants on June 25 is freed.

World news seems to be 80% against Israel - and THAT is very troubling news IMHO. Our family met some incredibly nice people from Israel last summer and we cannot help but wonder about their personal safety. Sometimes things happen (like us meeting these people) that puts human faces on world news. May God bless those young people and keep them safe from harm.

Amazingly heard a political rock and roll song that doesn't bash our President

Minneapolis woman first in nation to die of West Nile virus

Snip: Her family doesn't want her name released. But the say she was 72 years old, and she was an active gardener. She fell ill on July 7 and died on July 11. And for months before her death, her relatives say she didn't travel farther than the two-mile radius that surrounds her home in the Powderhorn Park area in Minneapolis.

Putin plans to shut out US oil giants

Snip: President Vladimir Putin is set to keep US oil companies out of a lucrative gas field in the latest sign of the deteriorating relationship between Moscow and Washington.

The Russian leader is expected to favour Norwegian companies and reject bids by America's Chevron and ConocoPhillips after failing to secure backing from the United States for his country's attempt to join the World Trade Organisation.

Islamic charity will get literature back

Snip: Federal officials on Friday agreed to return 155 cartons of religious literature seized two years ago from an Ashland-based Islamic charity, according to the charity's attorney.

"They are turning all the materials over to me. No strings attached," said Thomas Nelson, a Portland attorney representing the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. A Treasury spokesman declined to comment.

M15 fears Hezbollah terror attacks in UK

Snip: Whitehall security sources last night confirmed MI5 and anti-terrorist police were investigating threats to Jewish and Israeli targets in the UK. They fear Hezbollah may resort to a renewed international terror campaign.

Outcry as border guards seize British "dirty bomb" lorry heading for Iran

Snip: Border guards seized a British lorry on its way to make a delivery to the Iranian military - after discovering it was packed with radioactive material that could be used to build a dirty bomb.

The lorry set off from Kent on its way to Tehran but was stopped by officials at a checkpoint on Bulgaria's northernborder with Romania after a scanner indicated radiation levels 200 times above normal.

The lorry was impounded and the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NPA) was called out. On board they found ten lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iranian Ministry of Defence. Inside each box was a soil-testing device, containing highly dangerous quantities of radioactive caesium 137 and americium-beryllium.

The soil testers had been sent to Iran by a British firm with the apparent export approval of the Department of Trade and Industry. Last night, the head of the Bulgarian NRA, Nikolai Todorov, said he was shocked that devices containing so much nuclear material could be sold so easily.

He said: "The devices are highly radioactive - if you had another 90 of them you would be able to make an effective dirty bomb." And a spokesman for the Bulgarian customs office, said: "The documentation listed the shipment as destined for the Ministry of Transport in Tehran, although the final delivery address was the Iranian Ministry of Defence.

"According to the documentation they are hand-held soil-testing devices which were sent from a firm in the United Kingdom." A leading British expert last night said the radioactive material could easily be removed and used to construct a dirty bomb.

Dr Frank Barnaby from the Oxford Research Group, said: "You would need a few of these devices to harvest sufficient material for a dirty bomb. Americium-beryllium is an extremely effective element for the construction of a dirty bomb as it has a very long half-life, but I would be amazed to find it out on the street.

"I don't know how you would come by it as it is mainly found in spent reactor-fuel elements and is not at all easy to get hold of. I find it very hard to believe it is so easily available in this device."

Senior Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay called for the Government to tighten up export controls to prevent the Iranian military getting its hands on nuclear material. He said: "The Prime Minister has accused the Iranian Government of sponsoring international terrorism, yet his officials are doing nothing to prevent radioactive material which has an obvious dual use being sold to their military."

The discovery will add to fears about the lack of control over the sale of nuclear material to so-called 'rogue states' which the Government claims sponsor international terrorism, particularly as it comes at a time when Iran is ignoring international calls to halt its nuclear programme.

The case has echoes of the arms-to-Iraq affair during which the DTI approved exports of apparently innocent civilian equipment to Saddam Hussein that was then used to build weapons. Mr MacKinlay added: "Our export controls are a mess.

"The Iranians are resourceful and sophisticated and, just as we saw with Saddam Hussein in the past, this is just the sort of method they would use to get their hands on the equipment they need for their supposedly banned weapons programmes."

Andrew Maclean, a director of Kent-based Orient Transport Services, which was paid by another unnamed British firm to transport the radioactive devices to Iran, said the shipment was perfectly legal.