CHINA REVEALS IRAN'S NUCLEAR SECRETS TO UN
April 03, 2008 The London Daily Telegraph reported: "China has betrayed one its closest allies by providing the United Nations with intelligence on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear technology, diplomats have revealed. Concern over Tehran's secretive research programme has increased in recent weeks after officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, discovered that Iran had obtained information on how to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons. Beijing is believed to have decided to assist the inspectors after documents seized from Iranian officials included blueprints for "shaping" uranium metal into warheads, the testing of high explosives used to detonate radioactive material and the procurement of dual-use technology. Much of the new material was presented to the governors of the Vienna-based IAEA in February. That meeting is said to have triggered China's change of heart. Diplomats described Beijing's decision to provide material related to Iran to the IAEA as a potentially significant breakthrough. Chinese designs for centrifuges that refine uranium into a "weaponised" state have been found in Iran but these are thought to have come through a network controlled by the disgraced Pakistani scientist AQ Khan. John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, said suspicions over the leakage of technology from China to Iran had long centred on uranium enrichment technology and their bilateral ballistic missile trade. A spokesman for the IAEA said it did not comment on intelligence it received from its members. Beijing has long-established ties with Iran's clerical regime and has emerged as one of the country's biggest customers for oil and gas. It has allied itself with Tehran's attempts to prevent the IAEA referring Iran to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions."

BARAK PREPARED SECURITY CONCESSIONS FOR RICE
March 30, 2008 Arutz Sheva reported: "Israeli officials are planning additional "gestures" to ease restrictions on Palestinian Authority Arabs, according to Army Radio. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will discuss the plans with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday. The US Secretary of State arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport Saturday evening in another attempt to push the pace on talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Rice said Saturday that one of her goals in her current trip to the region was to convince Israel to ease travel for PA Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Security officials said Israel will remove dozens of roadblocks in Judea and Samaria and will remove one or two checkpoints as well. PA Arabs will be granted free access to the Dead Sea, as the checkpoint between Jericho and the sea, in place since 2000, is removed. Senior PA businessmen will be granted reduced travel restrictions, and thousands more PA Arabs will be granted permits allowing them to work for Israeli employers... Rice met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Saturday night over dinner to discuss the main issues on which she plans to focus this time around. She has plans to discuss ways to keep other Arab nations involved in the Israel-PA negotiating process, according to a statement by the US State Department. Contrary to her usual modus operandi, Rice will meet together in a three-way parlay with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and then do the same with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (Israel's chief negotiator) and chief PA negotiator Ahmed Qureia. Rice will also eschew the traditional visit to PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas's headquarters in Ramallah this time around due to her greeting by an angry mob during her last visit. Sources said Rice will meet elsewhere with Abbas at an undisclosed location. Following her meetings with Israeli and PA officials Rice will travel to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II, where according to a statement by the US Department of State, she will also be discussing "the political situation in Lebanon, stability in Iraq and other regional developments."

FIRST BRITISH HUMAN-ANIMAL HYBRID EMBRYOS CREATED BY SCIENTISTS
April 02, 2008 Guardian.co.uk reported: "Britain's first human-animal hybrid embryos have been created, forming a crucial first step, scientists believe, towards a supply of stem cells that could be used to investigate debilitating and so far untreatable conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease. Lyle Armstrong, who led the work, gained permission in January from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to create the embryos, known as "cytoplasmic hybrids". His team at Newcastle University produced the embryos by inserting human DNA from a skin cell into a hollowed-out cow egg. An electric shock then induced the hybrid embryo to grow. The embryo, 99.9% human and 0.1% other animal, grew for three days, until it had 32 cells. Eventually, scientists hope to grow such embryos for six days, and then extract stem cells from them. The researchers insisted the embryos would never be implanted into a woman and that the only reason they used cow eggs was due to the scarcity of human eggs. The team's success comes days after Gordon Brown was forced to give MPs a free vote on the human fertilisation and embryology bill, which has faced condemnation from Catholic bishops. Cardinal Keith O'Brien used his Easter sermon to denounce what he called experiments of "Frankenstein proportion" and called the bill a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life". Catholics object to the idea of putting human and animal DNA in the same entity and to the notion of creating what they regard as a life for the purposes of research, a life that will then be destroyed. John Burn, head of the Institute of Human Genetics at Newcastle University, said the embryos had been created purely for research. He told the BBC's Six O'Clock News last night: "If you look down the microscope it looks like semolina and it stays like that. It's never going to be anything other than a pile of cells. What it does is give us the tools to find out the simple questions: how can we better understand the disease processes by working with those cells in the body?"

'BIG BANG' MACHINE COULD DESTROY THE PLANET, SAYS LAWSUIT
April 01, 2008 The London Telegraph reported: "A giant particle accelerator that mimicks the effects of the "Big Bang" could destroy all life on Earth by sucking it into a black hole, a lawsuit claims. Walter Wagner, who runs a botanical garden on Hawaii's Big Island, and Luis Sancho, a Spaniard, have asked for an injunction to prevent the European Centre for Nuclear Research, or Cern, starting up the Large Hadron Collider. The accelerator, which will be the world's most powerful particle smasher, is due to begin hurling protons at each other at its base outside Geneva this summer. Physicists hope that the device, which has taken 14 years and ???4 billion to build, will provide clues to the universe's origins by mimicking its condition a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Although Cern scientists have already ruled out the possibility in a safety review, Mr Wagner and Mr Sancho say there is at least a small chance of total annihilation of the planet and maybe the universe. They claim Cern has under-played the chances that the collider could produce a tiny black hole or a particle called a "killer strangelet" that would turn the Earth into a shrunken lump of "strange matter". Their lawsuit, filed in the Federal District Court in Honolulu, seeks a temporary restraining order banning Cern from finishing the accelerator until it has produced a safety report and an environmental assessment. Defendants named in the suit are Cern, the US Department of Energy, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the National Science Foundation. The US Justice Department said it would represent the Energy Department at a meeting over the lawsuit in Hawaii in June. Cern is not bound by an American court's jurisdiction, but Mr Wagner said a restraining order on Fermilab and the Energy Department, which helped to supply the accelerator's crucial super-conduction magnets, would be enough to stop the programme."

IDF DEPUTY CHIEF VOWS 'PAINFUL' RESPONSE TO ANY ATTACK ON ISRAEL
April 2, 2008 Haaretz.com reported: "Israel Defense Forces Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Dan Harel on Wednesday warned Israel's enemies not to attack, saying "anyone who tries to harm Israel must remember that it is the strongest country in the region, and retaliation will be powerful and painful." Harel's words came during a briefing for reporters at a Tel Aviv army base, hours after London-based Arabic-language daily Al Quds al- Arabi reported that the Syrian army was calling up part of its reserves over fears of an IDF offensive. Harel dismissed forecasts of increased tension between Israel and Syria, saying "I don't see any reason for unusual tension in the north, and I don't think that either side, be it this one or that, is interested in a military conflict." The daily also reported that Syria is closely following Israeli military activity along the Syrian border, and that Damascus is operating under the assumption that Israel is laying the groundwork for war with Syria. In recent weeks, several media sources have reported that the Syrian army has deployed armored divisions and infantry units near Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. According to the report, Syrian military intelligence estimates that Israeli forces will attempt to infiltrate from the Bekaa Valley area, regarded as a 'soft spot' on the border. Last week, London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat also reported that the Syrian army was calling up reserve units."

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