In The Days

For nearly 50 years, worries about a nuclear Middle East centered on Israel. Arab leaders resented the fact that Israel was the only atomic power in the region, a resentment heightened by America’s tacit approval of the situation. But they were also pretty certain that Israel (which has never explicitly acknowledged having nuclear weapons) would not drop the bomb except as a very last resort. That is why Egypt and Syria were unafraid to attack Israel during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. “Israel will not be the first country in the region to use nuclear weapons,” went the Israelis’ coy formula. “Nor will it be the second.”
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Egypt moved 5,000 additional security forces near the Gaza Strip border yesterday following a warning that Israel may bomb tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian official said.
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War games designed to intercept ships carrying weapons of mass destruction will take place for the first time today in the Gulf opposite Iran.
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The head of news at the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been accused of acting arbitrarily in unofficially blacklisting eight journalists and commentators. Among the banned journalists is Israel-based freelancer Paula Slier, a Jerusalem Post contributor, who has been barred from reporting because she is a Jew.
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MARSEILLE, France – France’s interior minister sent riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille on Sunday after a group of marauding teenagers torched a bus, gravely burning a young woman.
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Though Lebanese law doesn’t currently allow Shiite to become prime minister, could Hibzullah leader become Lebanon’s PM? Dr. Boaz Ganor tells Ynet why he thinks it’s possible
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped up international pressure on Hezbollah to disarm, saying the guerrilla group must surrender its weapons if it wants to remain part of Lebanon’s political process.
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BEIRUT — Emboldened by this summer’s war with Israel, the radical Islamist Hezbollah party has gone on the political offensive inside Lebanon, determined either to replace or to bring down the pro-American government.
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Iran advanced its uranium enrichment capability by injecting gas into a second “cascade” of 164 centrifuges last week, the semi-official Iranian Student News Agency reported today (see GSN, Oct. 26; ISNA, Oct. 27).
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WASHINGTON – Nearly one of every 25 weapons the U.S. military bought for Iraqi security forces is missing and many others cannot be repaired because parts or technical manuals are lacking, a government audit said Sunday.
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