Sarah Baxter,
Also from Sarah Baxter: Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid | Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid | Israelis 'blew apart Syrian nuclear cache' | Alan Greenspan: "Blair was clearly an aide to Brown"
THE United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran.
Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June.
It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to “fight the last war” and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.
It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence “Stutz” Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer and expert on cyberwarfare.
The failure of United Nations ...   more »

By Ralph Z. Hallow - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will begin next week to seek financial commitments from donors for a presidential-nomination bid, the Georgia Republican told The Washington Times yesterday.
If he can get pledges for $30 million over the next three weeks, he will join the Republican presidential-nomination race — a prospect he had been downplaying until yesterday.
But the prospect of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York winning the Democratic nomination and the presidency is moving more voters to seek him out, he told The Times.
"As people have grown more worried about the Clinton machine and the prospect of a second Clinton presidency, more and more people have been approaching me about running," Mr. Gingrich said.
"Next Monday, Randy Evans, my friend and adviser since 1976, will hold a press briefing and explain how he intends to review whether it is realistic for me to consider running," Mr. Gingrich said.
"I am happy to compete in the world of ideas, but to compete in modern campaigns you have to have at least a threshold of donations," he said. "We believe that threshold is about $30 million."
"If Randy reports back in the next three ...   more »

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- The euro rose to another new record against the dollar on Monday, hitting US$1.4130 as last week's Federal Reserve interest rate cut continued to weigh on the U.S. currency.
The 13-nation rose to US$1.4130 before settling back slightly to US$1.4115 in early morning European trading. That compared with a previous peak of US$1.4119 on Friday, and with the US$1.4083 it bought in New York late that day.
The euro surged through the US$1.40 mark for the first time since its debut in 1999, and then kept going, after the Fed last week cut its key interest rate by a larger-than-expected half percentage point to 4.75 percent.
The central bank was responding to market turbulence in the U.S. and elsewhere in the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis.
Lower interest rates, used to jump-start the economy, can weaken a currency by giving investors less return on investments denominated in the currency.
In other trading Monday, the British pound rose to US$2.0288 from US$2.0200. The dollar also slid to 115.01 Japanese yen from 115.39 yen.
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By Dmitry Zhdannikov
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The leader of Russia's Communist Party accused President Vladimir Putin on Saturday of piling up vast powers and said the Kremlin's main party represented billionaires rather than ordinary people.
"He (President Vladimir Putin) has more power today than the Pharaoh of Egypt, the Tsar, and the Soviet Union's General Secretary combined," veteran Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov told a party congress on the outskirts of Moscow.
"He has four times more power than the quite powerful president of the United States," said Zyuganov, whose party is the country's number two political force with 162,000 members.
Zyuganov said his party, the successor to the all-powerful Soviet Communists, hoped to win at least a fifth of seats in elections this December for the State Duma (lower house of parliament). It currently has just over 10 percent of deputies.
The Duma is dominated by United Russia, a party patronised by Putin, which enjoys a two-thirds majority.
Zyuganov said he was the only real opponent of the Kremlin and added he was gaining new supporters as voters were getting bored with unfulfilled promises from United Russia, which he said represented the rich, with over 30 billionaires among its Duma ...   more »

By AMY TEIBEL
JERUSALEM -- Israeli rabbinic authorities have abruptly called on Jews to shun a major Christian tourism event, baffling and upsetting evangelical groups that traditionally have been big supporters of the Jewish state.
More than 6,000 Christians from over 90 nations are expected to arrive in Jerusalem this week to take part in the 28th annual Christian celebration of the weeklong Jewish holiday of Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles, according to the event's organizers, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.  
According to the Old Testament Book of Zechariah, all nations will make pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the messianic era to celebrate Sukkot. Christians have interpreted this to mean that Sukkot is a holiday where Jews welcome non-Jews to join them in celebration in Jerusalem.
Thousands of Christians take part in the celebration annually, as do Israeli lawmakers, government representatives and ordinary Israelis.
But last week the chief rabbinate urged Jews to stay away from the event, saying some of the groups want to convert them to Christianity. Israel has laws against missionary work, and for many here, proselytizing is dangerously close to the forced conversions European Jews endured for centuries.
"According to information that has reached the chief ...   more »

JERUSALEM (AFP) — The Israeli army unveiled a new website on Sunday that will be used to warn Israelis of impending attacks after the "lessons learned" from the 2006 war in Lebanon.
"The Home Front Command, which sees great importance in the relations with the Israeli population, is now in the frontline of technology," Major General Yitzhak Gershon said in a statement.
"The new website reflects the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War."
The site, at www.oref.org.il, will offer postings in English and Arabic as well as Hebrew providing emergency information such as live alerts for missile attacks, audio-visual instruction manuals, and forums with security experts.
In July, Israel's state comptroller blasted Prime Minister Olmert for "intolerable" failures in protecting civilians during the 2006 war against Lebanon's Hezbollah Shiite militia.
In Israel, both the government and army are responsible for providing services to civilians in time of war, from maintenance of public shelters, to rescue, medical and basic administrative services.
During the 34-day war with Hezbollah, the Shiite militia fired over 4,000 rockets into Israel, forcing a million residents to flee, paralysing the northern part of the country and catching the public shelters system unawares.
Original Source
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Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter
Also from Sarah Baxter: Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid | Israelis 'blew apart Syrian nuclear cache' | Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike | Alan Greenspan: "Blair was clearly an aide to Brown"
Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.
The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.
They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.
Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before ...   more »

Israel's air force scrambled fighter jets on Saturday after a Syrian military aircraft disappeared from its radars at it approached the Syrian-Israel border.
The Syrian fighter was later found to have crashed on the Syrian side of the border. Israeli officials do not believe it was on a hostile mission.
The incident highlighted the growing tensions between Israel and Syria following an alleged Israeli air force raid on a suspected nuclear installation in eastern Syria earlier this month. Officials in Damascus have said they are eager to respond to that attack, putting Israel on high alert for the possibility of war with its neighbor.
In related news, London's Sunday TImes reported that Israel's air raid on Syria came after undercover Israeli commandos spent months gathering evidence of North Korean nuclear equipment being installed in the country. The Arabic-speaking Israeli soldiers reportedly disguised themselves as Syria soldiers to gain access to the facility housing the equipment.
It was that evidence that convinced Washington to give a green light to the Israeli raid, according to the newspaper.
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The IDF has maintained a high alert level in the North following suspicions that Syria might attack Israel or other Jewish targets around the world via international terror proxies, Israel Radio reported.
On Sunday morning, IDF troops were alerted to the northern border fence after the electronic alarm was activated, sparking fears of a possible infiltration from Syria.
The army said the alarm went off after the fence was touched, and that tracks were spotted on the Syrian side of the border.
Soldiers who arrived on the scene ruled out an infiltration, and the IDF said it was possible that a roving animal had triggered the alarm.
Over the past few days, IAF jets were alerted twice following suspicious activity in the Golan Heights. On Saturday, IAF fighter jets were alerted to the northern border with Syria after a Syrian military jet that was being tracked by Israel disappeared from military radar systems.
A short time later, the IAF discovered that the Syrian jet had crashed in Syrian territory. The IAF jets returned to their bases and the level of alert was lowered.
On Thursday, fighter jets were dispatched to the Golan when "suspicious activity" was reported in the area, ...   more »

By Rebecca Harrison
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Archaeologists have found an ancient quarry where King Herod's workers may have chiselled the giant stones used to rebuild the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago.
The Israel Antiquities Authority said on Sunday experts believe stones as long as 8 meters (24 feet) were extracted from the quarry and then dragged by oxen to building sites in Jerusalem for major projects such as the temple. 
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"This construction most likely included the walls of the Temple Mount and other monumental buildings," the authority said in a statement.
Some of the blocks discovered at the site resemble stones used in the lower parts of the ...   more »