CARACAS (Reuters) - World oil prices are headed for $100 per barrel, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez predicted on Saturday, and said he will cut supplies to the United States if the U.S. government "attacks" the South American nation again.
"I've always said that oil prices are headed straight to $100 per barrel," he said during a televised speech. "We should prepare ourselves for those prices of one hundred dollars."
Chavez said high oil prices were the sign of a "global crisis" in energy caused by voracious consumption that has vastly reduced available oil reserves.
Chavez has accused the United States of plotting a bungled coup that ousted him for two days in 2002, though Washington denies the accusations, and has repeatedly made conditional threats to cut off oil sales to the United States that historically account for 12 to 15 percent of U.S. imports.
"No one should think that we're going to stop sending oil to the United States, no -- unless they attack us again," Chavez said during a speech to leaders of Caribbean nations meeting in Caracas for an energy summit.
"If they attack us again like they did in April of 2002 ... there will be no ...   more »

Woman takes on sheik in heated exchange on Riyadh state television
In an interview originally broadcast on Saudi television, a female newscaster in the Islamic kingdom charged young people are brainwashed under the country's strict educational system.
In an exchange with a cleric, Buthayna Nasser reacted to the Saudi Shura Council's discussion of whether a woman's face should be covered if she appears on television. The debate with Saudi Sheik Nasser Al-Huneini also was broadcast March 25 on television in Lebanon.
Video excerpts, courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute, can be viewed here
Addressing the sheik, Nasser said that from the beginning of elementary school through university, students are subject to rote memorization and "whoever dares to argue or to question anything is called upon to ask for Allah's forgiveness. He is told that this will get him into Hell."
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"You, who frighten people with Hell, have brought them a hell upon earth," she told the cleric. "You have banned books of the various intellectual streams. You've prevented the mind from operating, thinking, comparing, and choosing, even though it is the same mind that the Creator gave people in order to choose between Paradise and ...   more »

AMMAN, 12 August 2007 - Jordan has formed a committee of 100 Muslim scholars to address through dialogue "critical issues" affecting Muslims around the world, a statement said yesterday.
The committee, called "Salam (peace) 100," aims to "enable peaceful debate and discussion, using the power of ideas as a means of calming conflict and finding a resolution to problems of the gravest importance." The statement said controversies such as the 2005 Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), have "exposed the lack of intellectual leadership" in the Muslim world.
This "must be addressed with the utmost urgency to prevent further rifts in human understanding. The committee proposes to conquer immediate and future fears and misapprehensions, which are so easily exploited by extremists of every kind."
The committee is headed by the uncle of King Abdallah II, Hassan bin Talal. It groups Muslim figures from around the world, including the director general of the Islamic Organization of Education, Science and Culture, Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri, and former Yemeni Prime Ministers Abdul Karim Al-Eryani and Haider Abu Bakr Al-Attas. It pledged to promote "a rational and equitable understanding of hearts and minds." "We actively seek to address core disputes of international concern, to ...   more »

by Gerald A. Honigman
Shocking…
Yet another State Department Arabist takes Jews to task for wanting to survive the Foggy Folks' less than friendly--if not downright hostile--"peace" (of the grave) plans. We'll return to this later
First, imagine, for one moment, that the entire territory of the United States was reduced to the size of New Jersey.
Rather than being separated from any real or potential enemies by thousands of miles of oceans as it formerly was, this new, constricted America is still surrounded by the rest of the same territory that was the old America…but that land now consists of enemies dedicated to mini-America's destruction.
Next, picture that the animosity of the enemies America faces has nothing to do with its size --for America is now indeed tiny--but is based on their belief that Americans have no historical or political right whatsoever to the land. Our enemies, instead, claim all of the area--including America--as purely their own patrimony.
Next, picture that mini-America with 6 million Americans, surrounded by hundreds of millions of enemies who would like to have it for dinner, has a powerful, friendly nation across the sea from which it gets most of its support--militarily, financially, and ...   more »

By Isabel Gorst in Moscow
The war of words between Moscow and the west over missile defence intensified over the weekend as Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, declared a new radar station near St Petersburg to be “the first step in a large-scale programme”.
Moscow has said it would bolster its air defence capability in response to US plans to site early-warning systems in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland to protect against attack from Iran or North Korea.
Washington insists the anti-missile system is to deal with “rogue” states, but Mr Putin has said the installations would risk turning Europe into “a powder keg” and has threatened to retarget Russian missiles on Europe if the US goes ahead with the plan, opening the most serious rift in Moscow’s relations with Washington since the cold war.
Mr Putin’s weekend comments are the latest in a series of statements that have heightened tension between Moscow and Washington, despite the Bush administration’s attempts to clear the air.
The US has stated it has no intention of counteracting Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal, but Moscow sees the Polish and Czech plans as an unjustifiable incursion into a region formerly part of its sphere ...   more »