Source: Monsters and Critics -- Read Full Story

Chinese state media on Sunday continued to intensify rhetoric against the Dalai Lama, with fresh comment accusing the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader of encouraging violence and trying to 'tarnish the Beijing Olympic Games.' 'The Dalai Lama had never really given up his hope of 'Tibet independence' and had always been involved in anti-China political activities aimed at splitting the country and undermining national unity under the camouflage of religion,' said one government statement issued by the official Xinhua news agency. 'The Dalai clique falsely sought dialogue with the Chinese central government, truly confronting the government, falsely bragging for peace, but truly instigating violence,' said the commentary, which was issued in response to a resolution on Tibet adopted by the US House of Representatives last week. It said independence protests and rioting in Lhasa, the capital of China's Tibet region, were 'organized, premeditated and deliberately masterminded and instigated by the Dalai clique.'

Source: BBC -- Read Full Story

China's President Hu Jintao has held a historic meeting with Taiwan's Vice-President-elect, Vincent Siew. It was the highest-level contact between the two governments since their post-civil war split in 1949. The meeting, on the sidelines of a business conference on China's Hainan island, was short. But correspondents say it represented an important signal that both sides now want to improve relations, after several years of worsening ties. Mr Siew is the running-mate of Ma Ying-jeou, who won a convincing victory in Taiwan's elections in March, and has vowed to improve the island's standing with its much bigger neighbour once he takes office on 20 May. The BBC's Caroline Gluck in Taiwan's capital, Taipei, says that while this may have been a low-key 20-minute meeting, it was one laden with symbolism.

Source: International Herald Tribune -- Read Full Story

The super-white teeth and the endless clowning remain, as when he clutched his chest as if dying after eating buffalo mozzarella, now the focus of a dioxin scare. But gone are many other trademarks of Silvio Berlusconi. In the heat of the campaign for parliamentary elections Sunday, the comic-book energy has succumbed to self-acknowledged fatigue. Loose-tongued in the best of times, Berlusconi, 71, now says "anything that comes into his head," one commentator wrote, citing his proposal for mental health screening for prosecutors who apparently were unhinged enough to charge him with corruption. Mostly, though, what is gone are the big promises: Italy, he seems to be saying, is so ill that not even the mighty Berlusconi can be sure of curing it. "The cross I will have to bear has never been so heavy because never has the situation before us been so difficult," he said last week. The cross in question being the office of prime minister, which he is seeking for the third time in elections on Sunday and Monday. The man who once said his leadership would herald "a new Italian miracle" now says: "We can't promise and can't achieve miracles."

Source: MSNBC -- Read Full Story

As protesters besiege the Olympic torch on its global tour, a phalanx of tall, tough-looking young Chinese men in blue-and-white running gear have vigorously protected the flame -- too vigorously in the eyes of those who consider protest a constitutional right. With their steely demeanor and strong-arm tactics, they have become a symbol of what is going wrong for Chinese authorities who had hoped to make the 2008 Beijing Games a worldwide celebration of China's friendly new face. Sebastian Coe, chairman of the Olympic organizing committee for 2012 in London, called the men "thugs" and said they had pushed him around when the flame passed through the city Sunday. A spokeswoman for the Paris police, Marie Lajus, said the men had failed to coordinate with local authorities when they grabbed the torch and put out the flame during protests in the French capital Monday. One torchbearer described them as aggressive and robotic; another called them tense and irritable.

Source: Times -- Read Full Story

President Bush warned Iran today that if it did not stop arming and training Shia militia in Iraq then "America will act to protect our interests and our troops". Mr Bush, during a speech in which he ordered an indefinite halt in US troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer, called Iran one of the two "greatest threats to America in this century" - together with al-Qaeda. Mr Bush's warnings came after two days of testimony from General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, who said Iran posed one of the greatest threats to stability in the region. General Petraeus called the Iranian-backed Shia groups and the "malevolent" influence of Tehran the greatest long-term threat to a viable Iraq. Mr Bush said he was following General Petraeus's advice to halt withdrawals after July, when troop levels have been reduced to 140,000, roughly the same number deployed in Iraq before last year's "surge" of additional troops. He said the general will "have all the time he needs" to evaluate further withdrawals.

Source: FOX News -- Read Full Story

Abu Ubaida al-Masri, one of Al Qaeda's top operatives and the mastermind behind a plot to use liquid explosives to blow British passenger jets out of the sky, is dead, a U.S. official confirmed to FOX News Wednesday. The unidentified official said it is believed that al-Masri died of natural causes, possibly hepatitis, in Pakistan, and are staying away from a report that he was killed in a January CIA predator strike. At the time of his death, the Egyptian-born al-Masri was responsible for the terror organization’s external operations, focusing on plotting attacks outside the tribal areas of Pakistan. Al-Masri is tied to two major terrorist plots. The first being the July 7, 2005, London subway bombing, in which al-Masri recruited, trained and directed four homicide bombers in a coordinated attack on London's transportation system. In the attack, known as the 7/7 Bombings, three bombs exploded during morning rush-hour within 50 seconds of each other on three London Underground trains. A fourth bomb exploded on a bus nearly an hour later. The attack left 52 commuters dead, and more than 700 injured. It was the largest and deadliest terror attack on London in its history.

Source: Voice of America -- Read Full Story

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have carried out a deadly cross-border raid. As Robert Berger reports from VOA's Jerusalem bureau, the attack is likely to provoke Israeli retaliation. Four Palestinian gunmen stormed through the border fence in Gaza and attacked an Israeli cargo crossing in a daring daylight raid. They shot and killed two Israeli civilians who work for the company that supplies fuel to Gaza. Israeli general Yoav Galant who rushed to the scene said it could have been worse. He said the militants were apparently planning to attack a kibbutz collective farm or to kidnap a soldier. The general said the quick response of Israeli troops prevented further casualties.

Source: New York Times -- Read Full Story

China suffered another unexpected public relations setback on Wednesday when Buddhist monks interrupted a government-managed news media tour in western China by waving a Tibetan flag and protesting that the authorities were depriving them of their human rights. The disruption, in Xiahe, a city in Gansu Province, was the second in which monks had upstaged government efforts to control foreign media tours of Tibetan areas. Last month, several monks in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, risked official punishment when they made an emotional appeal to foreign journalists inside the Jokhang Monastery, one of the city’s holiest shrines. The outburst on Wednesday occurred as authorities guided reporters through the Labrang Monastery. The tour was the first officially approved visit to Xiahe by foreign reporters since monks and other Tibetans in the city clashed with the police last month. During the tour, about 15 monks rushed out, waving a Tibetan flag, and approached a group of about 20 Chinese and foreign reporters.

Source: ABC News -- Read Full Story

Mohamed Al Fayed said Tuesday that he was abandoning a quest to prove his belief that Princess Diana and his son were killed by British secret agents. Al Fayed said he reluctantly accepted a coroner's jury ruling that Diana and Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed due to reckless speed and drinking by their driver, and by the reckless pursuit of the paparazzi chasing them. "Enough is enough," Fayed said in an interview with ITV News broadcast Tuesday night. "For the sake of the two princes, who I know loved their mother." Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry, endorsed the verdict delivered by a jury on Monday. Al Fayed, the Harrods department store owner, said he still believed the couple was murdered and that the evidence presented at the inquest supported his theory. "I'm a father who has lost his son and I've done everything for 10 years. But now with the verdict I accept it, but with reservations," he said.

Source: Breitbart -- Read Full Story

Iran on Tuesday said it had started work to install thousands of new centrifuges to enrich uranium at its main nuclear plant, angering world powers who fear Tehran wants to develop an atomic weapon. "Today, the phase for installing 6,000 new centrifuges at the facility in Natanz has started," the state broadcasting website quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying at the atomic plant. His announcement came as Iran marked its "national day of nuclear technology" on the second anniversary of its first production of uranium sufficiently enriched to make atomic fuel. Iran has already installed around 3,000 P1 centrifuges at an underground enrichment facility at Natanz, in central Iran, according to the latest report by the UN nuclear watchdog, and tripling this number would mark a major expansion of its nuclear capacities. The West fears Iran could use enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon, and Tehran's refusal to suspend the process has been punished with three sets of UN Security Council sanctions and US pressure on its banking system.