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LONDON (AFX) - The West must send a 'strong signal' to Iran's leadership that it will not tolerate defiance over calls to suspend its nuclear programme, said Prime Minister Tony Blair. Speaking as oil prices soar over fears of a military confrontation with Iran, Blair said now was not the time to show 'weakness'. However, Blair repeated his assertion last week that 'Iran is not Iraq', and added that 'nobody is talking about military invasion'. 'People do however, want to send a very strong signal to Iran because...Iran is supporting terrorism in the region to the detriment of democratic governments,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bowing to intense pressure, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari agreed Thursday to allow Shiite lawmakers to find someone else to head the new government, abandoning his claim on another term in the face of Sunni and Kurdish opposition.

In their search for patterns, mathematicians have uncovered unlikely connections between prime numbers and quantum physics. Will the subatomic world help reveal the elusive nature of the primes?In 1972, the physicist Freeman Dyson wrote an article called "Missed Opportunities." In it, he describes how relativity could have been discovered many years before Einstein announced his findings if mathematicians in places like Göttingen had spoken to physicists who were poring over Maxwell's equations describing electromagnetism. The ingredients were there in 1865 to make the breakthrough—only announced by Einstein some 40 years later. It is striking that Dyson should have written about...

Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's prime minister, "says a huge chasm has opened between the West and Islam, fuelled by Muslim frustrations over Western foreign policy," according to the BBC, in a story about the Mohammed caricatures. The Beeb claims that Abdullah is "promoting a moderate form of Islam," but his anti-democratic actions prove otherwise. Au contraire, Mr. Abdullah, it is your seething, Muslim masses that are the cause of this "chasm." Again, the BBC: As he spoke at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, thousands protested outside at Western cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. ... "Long live Islam. Destroy Denmark. Destroy Israel. Destroy...

Thailand's prime minister is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement operation, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet's reputation, a news report said on Wednesday. "Who did it? Tell me," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra asked his ministers at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, triggering a round of banter and causing some to squirm in their chairs, The Nation newspaper said. Last week, a woman -- being sued for defamation by a clinic after she claimed it gave her

President Ronald Reagan loved to rail against Congress' pork-barrel spending. But critics say that didn't stop Congress from earmarking $2.3 million for landscaping on the freeway that bears his name, one item among the $24 billion worth of special projects tacked onto the transportation bill signed Wednesday by President Bush. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who opposed the bill with four other senators, said the amount directed to special projects was "egregious." And he singled out Simi Valley's long-awaited landscaping project along Highway 118. "I wonder what Ronald Reagan would say?" McCain asked about the fiscally conservative president. In the city...

In a confidential report, Young Muslims and Extremism, prepared jointly by the Home and Foreign offices in mid-2004 and presented to Prime Minister Tony Blair, we learn something about the inner thinking of the British government. Leaked to the Sunday Times of London, the report is now available in four parts in .pdf format at the newspaper's site.Its goal is "to encourage moderate Muslim opinion to the detriment of extremism" and to that end proposes an "Operation Contest." Along the way, it contains much of interest in it, including these points: "A number of extremist groups are actively recruiting young...

Six decades ago, a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot on a mission over the Pacific was shot down by Japanese artillery. His name might have been forgotten, were it not for 6-year-old James Leininger. Quite a few people — including those who knew the fighter pilot — think James is the pilot, reincarnated. James' parents, Andrea and Bruce, a highly educated, modern couple, say they are "probably the people least likely to have a scenario like this pop up in their lives." But over time, they have become convinced their little son has had a former life. From an early age,...

ROME, July 1 - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded to day that the United States show "full respect" for Italian sovereignty, after summoning the American ambassador to explain the reported abduction of a Muslim cleric by officers and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency . . . There have been growing calls from the opposition, as well as some members of the governing majority, for clarification of the relationship between the United States and Italy.

(sung to the tune of Waltzing Matilda) Crossing Belinda, crossing Belinda You’ll go-acrossing Belinda to me And we’ll pay you off with a feeding at the trough If you’ll go-acrossing Belinda to me. Belinda Stronach’s crossing the floor to the Liberals comes as no surprise to me, as I have long held the view that ‘Crossing Belinda’ was a Liberal time bomb in the Conservative Party. To call her an "opportunist" is to understate her commitment to herself. Let’s just say that Belinda has taken advantage of an opportunity that could ultimately put her into the prime minister’s office. Belinda’s...

Four years ago, Canadian Steamship Lines International, a subsidiary of the Prime Minister Paul Martin-blind trust Canada Steamship Lines, entered into a deal with Shanghai-based Jiangnan Shipyard to build two bulk cargo vessels--at $45-million per ship. CSL has moved shipbuilding from Canada and the West to Communist China. The two Chinese-built bulk cargo vessels are not the first ships built for CSL in the Orient. The Sheila Ann, a bulk carrier named after Martin’s wife, was built in China in 1999. In spite of its name, the Sheila Ann may never have come to public attention. But a few days...

It's official, Team Martin has become Team Corruption. In February of 2004 Martin appeared on a CBC radio call in show and stated, "The Liberal party is not corrupt. Every single Liberal across the country wants to find the answer to this. Every single Liberal across this country is sick about this." Given Martin's recent national confession it seems they were only sick about getting caught. In his pre-recorded address on Tuesday the Prime Minister said: 'There are people who think I was wrong to call this inquiry, wrong to expose my government to the political cost of the scrutiny...

The former chairman of the Prime Minister Paul Martin-owned company that accepted $1 million from Saddam Hussein, worked with Martin at the Paul Desmarais-owned Power Corporation. William Turner was chairman of Cordex Petroleums Inc., an oil and gas exploration and production company based in Alberta with an American subsidiary in Denver, Colo. Listed among Martin’s Public Declaration of Declarable Assets submitted to the Federal Ethics Committee are his 100 percent ownership of both Canada Steamship Lines and Canada Steamship Lines Group Inc., which owns 4.6 percent of Cordex Petroleums Inc. Martin’s mentor and senior aide to UN Secretary Kofi Annan...

The Canadian company that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in belonged to the Prime Minister of Canada, canadafreepress.com has discovered. Cordex Petroleum Inc., launched with Saddam’s million by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s mentor Maurice Strong’s son Fred Strong, is listed among Martin’s assets to the Federal Ethics committee on November 4, 2003. Among Martin’s Public Declaration of Declarable Assets are: "The Canada Steamship Lines Group Inc. (Montreal, Canada) 100 percent owned"; "Canada Steamship Lines Inc. (Montreal, Canada) 100 percent owned"–Cordex Petroleums Inc. (Alberta, Canada) 4.6 percent owned by the CSL Group Inc." Yesterday, Strong admitted that Tongsun Park, the...

On March 23, Paul Martin will be in Texas to meet with President George W. Bush and President Vincente Fox of Mexico. It appears that Martin will at least get to visit Bush’s Crawford Texas ranch; something that was always denied to his predecessor. When Martin recently went to China he was criticized by some Canadians for not criticizing that country’s human rights practices. While trying to deflect the criticism away from him and onto Conservative Party MP Jason Kenney, Martin countered that he indeed did discuss human rights with Chinese leaders. There is no doubt that Martin did what...

INTERNATIONAL furor over Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian Communist writer who claims American troops in Iraq may have deliberately shot at her car after she was released by kidnappers, misses the bigger scandal. The scandal is not that an anti-war propagandist has accused the U.S. of targeting journalists. That’s par for the course. (Yes, hello again, Eason Jordan.) The scandal is not that mainstream media sympathizers are blaming our military and dredging up every last shooting accident along the treacherous routes to Baghdad Airport. Again, no surprise here. The scandal is that Italy — our reputed ally in the global War...

ROME Mar 10, 2005 — Disputing Washington's version of events, Italy's premier said that an Italian intelligence agent who was shot to death by U.S. troops in Baghdad had informed the proper authorities that he was heading to the airport with a freed hostage. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also told lawmakers that the car carrying agent Nicola Calipari and a just-liberated hostage was traveling slowly and stopped immediately when a light was flashed at a checkpoint, before U.S. troops fired on the car. Though the U.S. and Italian versions of what happened Friday do not match up, "I'm sure that...

If Defense Minister Bill Graham wasn’t so arrogant and condescending, you could almost feel sorry for him. For years, both as Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Graham was the government’s perennial fence sitter; sitting on high, looking down on the little people below and refusing to take a position, one way or the other. Then one day Graham, with a might leap, jumped down from his fence and took a stand. Unfortunately, although he landed on squarely on his feet, he ended up on the wrong side of the fence. The guy who is reluctant to change...

Sharon Avoids Charges in Funding Case; Son Indicted 1 hour, 38 minutes ago By Megan Goldin JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's attorney general decided not to file charges against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a campaign funding scandal but indicted his son on Thursday, the Justice Ministry said. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz closed a three-year investigation of Sharon, saying there was insufficient evidence of involvement in setting up shell companies to funnel foreign donations to his 1999 primary campaign. Foreign funding of political campaigns is illegal in Israel. An indictment of Sharon could have jeopardised his "disengagement" plan after parliament on...

It was a busy day in Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran today. Some Lebanese buried a former prime minister in Beirut. Simultaneously in Damascus and Tehran, the capitals of the two countries most likely responsible for killing former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, dictators announced they would support each other in the war against democracy. In today’s events we find – above all – grave contradictions, but also truths, lies, and deep sadness. But something good is developing out of the sadness, lies, truths, and contradictions. The day started with “breaking news” from Iranian state television. The network claimed that an...