Yesterday & on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq, thousands of anti-war protesters flooded the streets of Manhattan. What do they all want? They want an immediate withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq & an end to the funding of the Iraq war.
They were all shouting: "They say attack Iraq! We say fight back. End the War on Iraq."
Those protesters are from all age groups, from all walks of life & from all races ... There were union members, city workers, celebrities, students & everyday citizens like all of us.

With chaos in Iraq and Iran's influence getting stronger in the Arab territories, what is the US going to do?
Blast them, of course! What else?

My sarcastic view to this is not so far from reach. CBS news reported earlier that the United States is planning a major naval build up in and around the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran. This comes at a time when the Bush administration said that it wants the U.N. Security Council to vote within a few days on a resolution to place sanctions on the Persian country for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.

Opening today in the Iranian capital, Tehran, is the first seminar aimed at studying the Holocaust, which was the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the second World War. It is believed that some 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler's armies from 1940-1945. However, Iran is holding a seminar about holocaust as 67 researchers from 30 countries will attend, some of them open Holocaust deniers.

We want more Israelis to visit California and more Californian's to visit Israel.
This was the whole idea behind the agreement made by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Israel’s Minister of Tourism, Isaac Herzog who signed the agreement recently.

“I first visited Israel in 1978 in connection with bodybuilding,” said Arnold at the signing ceremony in the Los Angeles Convention Center, “and then I visited Israel again for the opening of Planet Hollywood in Tel Aviv.”

The whole idea of the agreement came from Haim Saban. He's an Egyptian-born and Israeli-raised resident in California and is considered to be amongst the top 5 richest media giants in the world. He's the guy who invented "The Power Rangers."

An unpopular war just got even more unpopular as 10 American troops were killed today in Iraq. The violence spares no nationality, no age or gender and is on a constant rise.
At least 30 Americans have been killed this month alone which has just begun.

Now a panel made up from 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats called the Bipartisan Iraq Study Group said that President Bush's war policies have failed in almost every regard. Thos comments come a day after the newly-appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said himself that the US was loosing the war.

Ever imagined a woman president of the US?
Sure we've seen them in some movies but a woman president might actually be a thing of reality.
Hillary Clinton, wife of former president Bill Clinton, is seriously considering running for president in 2008.
The senator has personally asked some of her fellow New York Democrats for their support in the event she goes ahead with such a campaign, a top adviser said Sunday.

79-year old Pope Benedict XVI, who had just sent the Muslim world up in rage 2 months ago, stood silent in prayers along side Muslim clerics facing Mecca in one of the world's most important mosques, the Blue Mosque in Turkey, in an attempt to reconcile Christians and Muslims.

Pope Benedict is now the second pope to set foot in a mosque following the footsteps of his predecessor Pope John Paul II. All in all, there have only been 2 Popes to do so in 2000 years.

Now we all know that when a VIP goes to a foreign country, he makes sure he's well protected. The Pope is going to make visit Turkey, his maiden voyage to a Muslim country. Usually, he's use the “Popemobile” but since the big boys at the Vatican are taking no chances, he's going to travel military style!

He will go in an armour-plated car, with several similar vehicles used as decoys, a spokesman, said.
There are even plans for him to wear a bullet-proof vest!
As for the Turks, they don't want to be embarrassed if anything goes wrong, so they're not taking any chances either. They've planned a huge security operation including rooftop snipers, Special Forces, helicopters and navy speedboats.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary of the US, who has been criticized for his miss handling of the Iraq war, resigned yesterday.
It's about time for a change of management at the head of the Pentagon.
The resignation of Rumsfeld marks the end his career as one of most deplored defense secretaries in America’s history, a longstanding champion of the aggressive & horrible foreign policy of Bush.

This morning Israeli tanks fire attacked Palestinians in their homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. The Irony, is that this attack comes a day after Israeli troops pulled out of the town after a week-long offensive in which dozens died.
As usual, Israel apologized for the massacre that left 19 killed & pools of bloodstained water outside the houses of innocent families ... But what's in an apology!?
They said: "The Israeli military does not intend to harm civilians - that is never our aim. But in the framework of such things, incidents like these happen." Ya .. Ya .. We heard that hundreds of times before!

It's official, the much awaited Al-Jazeera English channel will be launched next week.
The launching of this English channel offers the chance to reach out to a new & huge audience that is used to hearing the name of Al-Jazeera without being able to watch it or understand the language.
The director of Al-Jazeera Network, Wadah Khanfar announced that the new channel will provide the same ground-breaking news & balanced journalism to the English-speaking world.

We've all seen many movie stars, producers, directors, writers and so on insulting the US President's intelligence but it's never been done by a senator and 2004 presidential nominee.

Massachusetts senator John Kerry told a California audience: "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Yes, it's happening again.
Last year's riots in Paris were remembered in a flamy anniversary as youths burned hundreds of vehicles across the country.
The violence exposed yet again the sharp division between poor North African immigrants and the rest of the French society. And apparently, not much action has been taken to solve last year's problem.

In the southern port city of Marseille, a bunch of teenagers set a bus on fire seriously wounding a passenger and injuring others. Police said that two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight.

As the heat is turned way up, North Korean leader Kim Jong II has shown regret about his country’s nuclear test. “If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks,” he said.

Kim told a Chinese delegation that “he is sorry about the nuclear test,”
Kim also said that “we have no plans for additional nuclear tests,”