Jerusalem
Olmert says Israel ‘will not reconcile’ with a nuclear Iran
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a powerful parliamentary panel yesterday that Israel rejects “no options” to block Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a meeting participant said.
The statement was the Israeli leader’s clearest indication yet that he is willing to use military force against Iran.
“Israel clearly will not reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran,” the meeting participant quoted Olmert as telling the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “All options that prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capabilities are legitimate within the context of how to grapple with this matter.”
The meeting participant spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was closed.
Baghdad
Militants aim to wipe out Iraqi professional class
Gunmen assassinated a high-ranking Sunni judge as he headed to work in Baghdad yesterday, the latest of thousands of professionals killed in unsolved cases since the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
Appeals Court Judge Amir Jawdat al-Naeib was slain a week after police arrested a group of militants who specialized in intimidating or killing doctors, academics and judges, according to an Interior Ministry official.
The aim of such attacks is to empty the country of professionals and scientists, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Yala, Thailand
Suspected Islamic insurgents bomb Thai marketplace
Suspected Muslim insurgents exploded a bomb that left at least 27 people injured in a southern Thai market today, officials said, a day after rebels ambushed a military patrol and killed eight soldiers.
The bomb was hidden in a motorcycle at the market in the capital of Yala province. Police Col. Phumphet Phiphatphetphum said several people were wounded by the blast while others sustained injuries in the ensuing panic.
The explosion was the third blow for the government in as many days, coming after yesterday’s ambush – where one soldier was beheaded – and a jailbreak Sunday that saw six suspected militants escape.
Entering its fifth year, the Muslim rebellion in Thailand’s southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and some parts of neighboring Songkhla has taken the lives of more than 2,800 people.
Albany, N.Y.
MySpace agrees to fight use by online sexual predators
MySpace reached an agreement with legal authorities in 49 states on changing its social networking Web site to help prevent sexual predators and others from misusing it, state officials said yesterday.
Several states’ attorneys general said in a statement that Myspace will add several protections and participate in a working group to develop new technologies, including a way to verify the ages of users. Other social networking sites will be invited to participate.
MySpace also will accept independent monitoring and changes the structure of its site.
The agreement was announced in Manhattan by attorneys general from New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.
-Compiled from Daily wire reports