By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
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.
Outcry as Chinese activist Hu Jia jailed
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.  
A heavy-water nuclear facility in Arak and a security guard at an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility
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.    
Ahmadinejad on National Nuclear Day
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 ...   more »

Munitions being sent to police force on which known terrorists serve
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Influential nationalist rabbis here are set to release a ruling making it a violation of Jewish law for the Israeli government to follow through with a planned transfer of weapons or armored vehicles to the Palestinian Authority.
The ruling also calls for Israel Defense Force soldiers to refrain from participating in the munitions transfers.
"It is strictly forbidden to transfer arms of any sort to the Arabs, and anyone who does so or cooperates in such an act is guilty of 'bloodletting' and collaborating with the enemy," stated the halachik, or Jewish law decree by Rabbi Dov Lior. He is considered the chief rabbi of the Jewish communities in the West Bank.
The ruling, also signed by other prominent rabbis, calls for anyone capable of disrupting the planned transfers to do so.
The religious ruling is set to be published this week.
Last week, the Israeli government announced it is planning to transfer ammunition, 50 armored vehicles and security equipment to the PA police force. Hundreds of known members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades serve in the force.
The Brigades is responsible for ...   more »

By Jonathan Tobin      
Do Muslim demands at Harvard safeguard rights or promote something more troubling?
 Conflicts between the religious needs of minorities and those of the rest of society always have the potential to take a reasoned debate off the tracks
That's what happened when the otherwise trivial question of the hours of operation of a gym on Harvard University's campus become a major cause célèbre.
The dispute centers on the request of six female Muslim Harvard students. Speaking with the support of the Harvard College Women's Center, they point out that their faith forbids them from wearing revealing clothing in the presence of men, the school ought to provide women's only hours at one of its gymnasiums where they can work out in comfort without any males there to leer at them.
The university responded positively, and since Feb. 4, no men have been allowed in the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic for sessions amounting to six hours per week.
NO BIG DEAL?
Given the fact that this is but one of a number of such facilities on the campus, and the hours set aside are but a fraction of the total available to everyone, the school probably assumed that ...   more »

Binghamton, N.Y., grants permit for Milad-un-Nabi event
Muslim leaders at an encampment in the Catskill Mountains called "Islamberg" have been granted a permit by the city of Binghamton, N.Y., to hold a parade Saturday in honor of Muhammad's birthday.
The holiday, called Milad-un-Nabi, will be celebrated by a group of families who live at the nearby property owned by Muslims of the Americas Inc.
Entrance to Hancock, N.Y., encampment (Courtesy Northeast Intelligence Network)
The city has scheduled the parade for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the downtown area, including its main street. A report in the local Press & Sun-Bulletin said the celebration previously held on the group's own property this year is being expanded.
"We're trying to do an interfaith thing, we're reach out to the community to do a program based on unity," Maryam Rahim, a spokeswoman, told the newspaper. "We haven't been very well known. ...We want everyone to come out and celebrate, may ask questions."
City spokesman Andrew Block said the group secured the appropriate permits to hold the celebration, and the city will close down one lane of the downtown's main street for the parade.
Other events will be held in front of the ...   more »

SAKHIR, Bahrain,
(AP) Formula One teams and manufacturers are questioning whether Max Mosley should stay on as FIA president following a sex scandal.
Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes-Benz all issued statements Thursday expressing disappointment over Mosley's behavior, but stopped short of calling for his resignation.
"Toyota Motorsport does not approve of any behavior which could be seen to damage Formula One's image, in particular any behavior which could be understood to be racist or anti-Semitic," the Japanese car maker said. "When all the facts are known, it will be for the FIA to decide whether Mr. Mosley has met the moral obligations which come with the position of FIA President."
A British tabloid, The News of the World, reported Sunday that Mosley participated in sex acts with five prostitutes in a scenario that is believed to involve Nazi role-playing.
FIA said in a statement Thursday that Mosley had called a special assembly of the federation to consider the issue. The full 200-strong FIA membership was invited to a meeting in Paris at the earliest possible date.
"The widespread publicity following an apparently illegal invasion of the FIA's President's privacy will be discussed," the statement said.
Mosley, who is not attending ...   more »

Etgar Lefkovits Britain has become the epicenter for anti-Semitic trends in Europe as traditional, age-old anti-Semitism in a country whose literature and cultural tradition were "drenched" in anti-Semitism has developed into a contemporary mix of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, an Israeli historian said Monday.
The problem of anti-Semitism in Britain is exacerbated by a growing and increasingly radical Muslim population, the weak approach taken by a timid British Jewish leadership, and the detachment of the British from their Christian roots, said Hebrew University historian Prof. Robert S. Wistrich in a lecture on British anti-Semitism at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
"Britain has become the center point for the meeting of anti-Semitic trends in Europe," Wistrich said.
In a wide-ranging two-hour address, the Cambridge University-educated historian, who has just completed a book on global anti-Semitism, traced the roots of British anti-Semitism to its history, culture and literature going back to medieval times.
"Anti-Semitism in Great Britain is at least a millennial phenomenon and has been around for 1000 years of recorded history," Wistrich said.
He noted that the expulsion of all Jews from Britain in 1290 by King Edward I following years of anti-Semitic violence was the first major expulsion of ...   more »