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The United States has denied that a session of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority had been cancelled following the deaths of three rioters in the Kalandia refugee camp, north of Jerusalem. "I can assure you that no meeting has been cancelled," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. Her statement contradicted claims made earlier today by a PA spokesperson who said that "The meeting that was to take place in Jericho...today was cancelled because of the Israeli crime committed in Kalandiya today." "What happened today in Kalandiya shows the real intentions of the Israeli government," said PA Chairman...

My column yesterday, "Converts to Terrorism," delved into the issue of converts to Islam who engage in terrorism. Space constraints limited the information I could include, so here, I add to it in three ways: (1) providing names of converts suspected, arrested, or indicted of terrorism but who have not yet either gone into action or been convicted; (2) reviewing the matter of non-terrorist jihadis; and (3) summarizing a French intelligence report on converts to Islam.(1) Yesterday's list included converts who had either engaged in or been convicted of terrorism. That leaves many other converts who have not yet reached...

Converts to Islam are taking over the terrorist operations previously carried out mainly by Muslim-born immigrants and their children.This was dramatically illustrated when a Belgian convert to Islam, Muriel Degauque, 38, blew herself up near Baghdad on November 9 in a suicide attack on American troops, becoming the first Christian-born Western woman to kill herself for Islamist purposes. And of the fourteen people arrested because of connections to Degauque, half were converts to Islam. In neighboring Holland, a just published government report specifically worries about radicalized converts.Islamist terror organizations particularly prize converts. They know the local culture and blend in....

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Wednesday, August 11, 2004. 6:01am (AEST) Shanghai two millenniums older than previously thought China's thriving and modern metropolis of Shanghai was first established nearly 6,000 years ago, about two millenniums earlier than previously estimated, experts and state press have said. Newly discovered artefacts in Shanghai's outskirts prove the first inhabitants migrated from neigbouring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces more than 6,000 years ago, Song Jian, director of the Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Commission, told AFP. Mr Song said new archaeological evidence, including pieces of a human skull, show that today's teeming city of 17 million was first populated some 2,000 years...