Palestinian leadership announced Saturday that it accepts the United States' invitation to enter into direct talks with Israel, however PA senior officials conditioned talks with a continued freeze in settlement construction. Meanwhile, Israeli state officials stressed that a freeze continuation was not an option.

Also on Saturday, Arab media reported that the Palestinians had set conditions for direct talks which the US accepted and provided guarantees for.

Palestinian sources told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted American guarantees since Washington "already knows where talks should proceed and how they should end." This suggests an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. The sources added that the US administration would push for a continuation of the freeze in settlement construction.

They mean that a suspect arrested in Britain who is wanted in another European country has no right to ask a British judge to test the merits of the case against them. But a series of worrying cases has led to concern that the warrants can lead to injustice for people wanted on spurious charges in countries with less sophisticated justice systems.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who was in charge of the Home Office when it brought in the warrants in 2004, admitted his own reservations yesterday. He said: 'I was right in the post 9/11 era to agree to the European Arrest Warrant, but I was insufficiently sensitive to how it might be used.' This month the warrants were used to deport five young men to Greece on flimsy-looking assault charges dating back to a holiday two years ago. The men faced up to 18 months in a Greek jail awaiting trial.

European Arrest Warrants have also added to the controversy in the case of Daniel Ubani, the German doctor who killed 70-year-old patient David Gray with a massive overdose of painkiller during a shift of out-of-hours cover in Britain. British authorities issued a warrant demanding Ubani's extradition to face trial for manslaughter. But, in contrast with the Greek case, a German court opted to deal with the case itself. Ubani was fined and put on probation for nine months.

Brooklyn plumber Steve Ayling says the people who want to build the project are the same ones who 'took down the twin towers.' Nearby, several hundred people who support the mosque chanted: 'Muslims are welcome here. We say no to racist fear. The proposed 70 million pounds mosque has ignited furious debate.

The growing movement against the building of the mosque gained another prominent supporter last week: the first Muslim Miss USA.

Rima Fakih, 24, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants and a Muslim, criticised the location of the planned mosque. 'It shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center,' Fakih, 24, told Inside Edition during a break from the Miss Universe pageant preparations in Las Vegas. 'We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.'

Meanwhile growing numbers of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero, according to the New York Daily News. 'It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground,' said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site. Construction is due to begin on September 11 next year - the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack.

Andrew Lilico, of the Policy Exchange think tank, said: 'To keep inflation (as measured by the retail prices index) down to only 10 per cent for one year, the economy will have to be able to tolerate interest rates of perhaps 8 per cent.' His warning echoes that of former Bank of England deputy governor Sir John Gieve, who last month said he expects rates to start rising 'faster than the market currently expects'.

Sir John believes the base rate will rise to 2.5 per cent within a year, from its current historic low of 0.5 per cent. This would mean a huge rise in the monthly mortgage payments of most ordinary Britons, forcing many families into financial difficulties.

But Mr Lilico is predicting an even more alarming scenario than that. The current historically low average mortgage rates of around 4 per cent mean millions of households have so far been shielded from the full effects of the economic downturn. But if base rates rose to 8 per cent, and lenders keep their current mark-up of 3.5 per cent on the deals they offer, then householders could face mortgage rates of 11.5 per cent, compared with the current 4 per cent average.

At that 4 per cent rate, the interest payable on an average 150,000 pounds home loan is around 6,000 pounds a year, or 500 pounds a month. But, if the base rate leaps to 8 per cent, the cost could soar to 17,250 pounds a year, or more than 1,400 pounds a month. And as that is just the interest part of the mortgage, once actual repayments are added in, many households could find their mortgage an insupportable burden on their income.

It said four people died, including a couple in their 70s and a mother and son, after their homes in Dandong were swept away by flash floods. Xinhua said 253,500 residents have been evacuated after the Yalu rose to its highest level in a decade. An official with the Water Resources Department in Liaoning province, where Dandong is located, confirmed that four people had died though he was unable to provide details. He refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said torrential rain and water from the overflowing Yalu - or Amnok as it is known in Korean - swamped houses, public buildings and farmland in more than five villages near Sinuiju, the city opposite Dandong. The report described Sinuiju and the surrounding area as having been "severely affected" by the flooding and said officials, the military and ordinary civilians were involved in rescue work. It said at least 5,150 people had been evacuated and residents were clambering on rooftops or taking shelter on hilltops.

Much of North Korea's trade with the world passes through the city, forming a vital lifeline for the isolated, economically struggling country. Flooding in previous years has destroyed crops and pushed North Korea deeper into poverty, increasing its dependence on international food aid.

Food and Drug Administration investigators have yet to determine the cause of the salmonella outbreaks at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The FDA investigation could take months, and sources of contamination are often difficult to find. The number of illnesses, which can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems, is expected to increase. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever eight to 72 hours after eating a contaminated product.

The company Quality Egg supplies young chickens and feed to both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The two share other suppliers, said Jewanna Porter, a spokeswoman for the egg industry, but she did not name them. The egg industry has consolidated over recent years, placing fewer, larger businesses in control over much of the nation's egg supply to consumers. The salmonella outbreak has raised questions about federal inspections of egg farms. The FDA oversees inspections of shell eggs, while the Agriculture Department is in charge of inspecting other egg products.

William D Marler, a Seattle attorney for a person who filed suit alleging illness from tainted eggs in a salad at a restaurant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said Sunday his firm has been retained by two dozen families and was representing a woman who was hospitalized in California. "The history of ignoring the law makes the sickening of 1,300 and THE FORCED RECALL OF 550 MILLION EGGS shockingly understandable," Marler said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "You have to wonder where the USDA and FDA inspectors were."

In Damascus, Syrian prime minister Naji al-Otari gathered his ministers and heads of security and emergency services Thursday and ordered them to place all their services on immediate war readiness. And sources close to the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas quoted him as saying that direct talks with Israel were not in the offing because "a big military surprise awaits the Middle East."

On Thursday, too, Tehran pitched its threat level high by warning that any attack on Iran's nuclear sites would be met by the IRGC "targeting the interests of the enemies in any part of the world." In the United States, respected commentators this week talked and wrote openly about a possible war over Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb capability.

Former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, who has excellent connections in Washington and Jerusalem, wrote, "The United States is more likely than Israel to launch an attack on Iran." Lawrence Eagleburger, former US Secretary of State, had this to say about the activation of Iran's first reactor at Bushehr Saturday, August 21, "The world's going to war over this. If Iran gets the weapon it's going to use it." He urged an attack on Iran before it obtained a bomb.

The mostly Shi'ite nation of Iran is an enemy to Al-Qaida, and al-Shehri predicted that after Israel attacked Iranian nuclear installations, Iran would blame Saudi Arabia - which reports say may let Israel fly through its airspace to attack Iran - and use the opportunity to seize the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Shehri said Israel would then seize territory from surrounding Arab nations to establish "the greater state of Israel," and the Sunni Arab population of the Middle East would be trapped between the "Jews in the Middle East and Iran in the Peninsula," the Daily Beast reported.

According to the Daily Beast, Al-Qaida would benefit from an Israel-Iran war because if Israel attacked Iran's nuclear installations, Iran would use its proxies to lash back at Americans in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The Daily Beast is a news aggregator and original content website owned by a former Wall Street Journal editor.

Mr Vahidi, who was speaking during Friday prayers in Tehran, did not say when the launch took place nor did he disclose the precise range of the missile. "The missile has new technical aspects and has a unique tactical capacity," he said on state television, adding that the device was of a "new class".

"Since the surface-to-surface missile has no wings, it has lot of tactical power, which also reduces the chances of it being intercepted," he said. On Tuesday, Mr Vahidi had said that Qiam was to be test fired during the annual government week, the period when Tehran touts its achievements in various fields. This year government week begins on Monday.

The third generation Fateh 110 (Conqueror) missile was also to be test fired during this period. Iran has previously paraded a version of Fateh 110 which has a travel range of 150 to 200 kilometres (90 to 125 miles). Also during government week, the production lines of two missile-carrying speedboats, Seraj (Lamp) and Zolfaqar (named after Shiite Imam Ali's sword) are due to be inaugurated, while a long-range drone, Karar, is expected to be unveiled.

The team said monitoring the free-floating plastic also provided an insight into the behaviour of ocean surface currents. They found plastic, most pieces measuring no more than a few millimetres, in more than 60% of 6,136 samples collected by dragging fine-meshed nets along the ocean's surface.

The researchers - from the US-based Sea Education Association (Sea), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Hawaii - described plastic as a "major contaminant". "Plastic marine pollution is a significant environmental concern, yet a quantitative description of the scope of this problem in the open ocean is lacking," they wrote.

"Their chemically engineered durability and slow rate of biodegradation allow these synthetic polymers to withstand the ocean environment for years to decades or longer."

The goal of the aircraft is to "keep the enemy paralyzed in its bases," he said, adding that the jet is for deterrence and defensive purposes.

The president championed the country's military self-sufficiency program, and said it will continue "until the enemies of humanity lose hope of ever attacking the Iranian nation."

The 4-meter-long unmanned plane, dubbed the Karrar or striker in Farsi, was inaugurated on the national day for the country's defense industry in a ceremony aired live on state TV. Referring to Israel's occasional threats against Iran's nuclear facilities, Ahmadinejad called any attack unlikely, but he said if Israel did, the reaction would be overwhelming.

"The scope of Iran's reaction will include the entire the earth," said Ahmadinejad. "We also tell you - the West - that all options are on the table." Ahmadinejad appeared to be consciously echoing the terminology used by the US and Israel in their statements not ruling out a military option against Iran's nuclear facilities.

On Friday, Iran also test-fired a new liquid fuel surface-to-surface missile, the Qiam-1, with advanced guidance systems. Since 1992, Iran has also produced its own tanks, armoured personnel carriers, missiles, torpedoes and a fighter plane. It frequently makes announcements about new advances in military technology that cannot be independently verified.

In a statement issued after the Islamic Republic celebrated the launch of its reactor in Bushehr, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said: "It is totally unacceptable that a country that so blatantly violates resolutions of the (United Nations) Security Council, decisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency and its commitments under the NPT (non-proliferation treaty) should enjoy the fruits of using nuclear energy."

"The international community should increase pressure to force Iran to abide by international decisions and cease its enrichment activities and its construction of reactors," Levy said. The United States, Israel and some other Western countries fear Iran's nuclear aim is to produce atomic weapons. Iran says it wants nuclear power solely for energy production.

Earlier Saturday, Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised a global response if his country is attacked. "OUR OPTIONS WILL HAVE NO LIMITS... THEY WILL TOUCH THE ENTIRE PLANET," HE SAID.

Also on Saturday, US State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said the reactor "underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful. We recognize that the Bushehr reactor is designed to provide civilian nuclear power and do not view it as a proliferation risk," Holladay said.

Meanwhile, Britain acknowledged Iran's right to build nuclear power stations, but warned that concerns remain about the Islamic republic's atomic program. "We have always respected Iran's right to develop an exclusively civil nuclear power program," Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said, as engineers began loading fuel into Iran's Russian-built Bushehr plant. "The problem is Iran's continued refusal to satisfy the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and international community that its work on uranium enrichment and heavy water projects are exclusively peaceful."

As prominent GMO opponent and biologist, Dr Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute of Science in London has noted, companies such as Monsanto build into their seeds herbicide-tolerance. The ecological time-bomb that came with the GMO according to Ho, is about to explode. Over several years of constant application of patented glyphosate herbicides such as Monsanto's famous and highly Roundup, new herbicide-resistant "super-weeds" have evolved, nature's response to man-made attempts to violate it. The super-weeds require significantly more not less herbicide to control. ABC Television, a major US national network, made a recent documentary about the super-weeds under the rubric, "super weeds that can't be killed."

They interviewed farmers and scientists across Arkansas who described fields overrun with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate as farmers are able to spray. They interviewed one farmer who spent almost 400,000 euros in only three months in a failed attempt to kill the new super-weeds.

The new super-weeds are so robust that harvester combines are unable to harvest the fields and hand tools break trying to cut them down. At least 400000 hectares of soybean and cotton in Arkansas alone have become infested with this new mutant biological plague. Detailed data on other agricultural regions is not available but believed similar. The pro-GMO and pro-agribusiness US Department of Agriculture has been reported lying about the true state of US crop harvest partly to hide the grim reality and to prevent an explosive revolt against GMO in the world's largest GMO market.

One variety of super-weed, palmer pigweed can grow up to 2.4 meters high, withstands severe heat and prolonged droughts, and produces thousands of seeds with a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it takes over an entire field in a year. Some farmers have been forced to abandon their land. To date palmer pigweed infestation in GMO crop regions has been identified in addition to Arkansas, also in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi and most recently, Alabama and Missouri.

Weed scientists at the University of Georgia estimate that just two palmer pigweed plants in every 6 meter length of cotton row can reduce yield by at least 23 percent. A single weed plant can produce 450 000 seeds.

1. Fried foods - Certain foods that are heated to 248 F, such as french fries and potato chips, form a suspected human carcinogen called acrylamide, according to the National Cancer Institute.

2. Heavily salted foods - A Japanese study linked salted foods with a 15 percent increase in cancer. In addition, salt allows cancer-causing Helicobacter pyloric bacteria to thrive in the stomach.

3. Pickled foods - In 2005, a South Korean study found that people who ate high amounts of kimchi (pickled cabbage) had a 50 percent higher risk of stomach cancer than those who ate less.

4. Sugar - A recent Italian study found that people who ranked in the top third of sugar eaters increased their odds of pancreatic cancer by 78 percent compared to those who consumed the least sugar. Scientists believe that sugar influences the body's production of insulin - encouraging the growth and division of cells in the pancreas, and thus encouraging the development of cancerous cells.

5. Charred meats - Cooking meats at high temperatures creates carcinogens called heterocyclic aromatic amines. The longer the meat is cooked at high temperatures, the higher the amounts of these compounds.

6. Alcohol - Excess alcohol consumption has been linked to higher levels of many types of cancer in both men and women. They include cancer of the mouth, liver, colon, and esophagus - which is the fastest growing type of cancer in the United States.

7. Meat and saturated fat - Harvard studies found that those who ate meat every day had three times the colon cancer risk of those who seldom ate meat. And researchers from the University of Texas found that men who had undergone surgery for prostate cancer and had diets high in saturated fats (including steaks, burgers, and cheese) were almost twice as likely to see their cancer progress.

8. Farmed fish - Farmed fish often contain high levels of carcinogens such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a class of man-made chemicals once used as an insulating material in electric equipment. The Environmental Working Group found that farmed salmon had 16 times the amount of PCBs found in wild salmon.

9. Cured meats - Carcinogens called nitrosamines are found in cured meats, such as lunch meats, bacon, and sausage. A study by the University of Southern California School of Medicine found that the mothers of children stricken with brain tumors were much more likely to have eaten large amounts of meats containing nitrates during pregnancy than moms who have healthy children.

"We have inspected many consignments from African countries, especially Ghana, and found that there is not an ounce of gold in them. For importing pure dust or other metals with yellow colour, these traders have paid several million dirhams." Emirates Gold has stopped examining gold imported from Africa. "We send specialists to examine a gold consignment only if it is routed through a local company."

"We don't have time to waste because most of these so called gold imports are fake. The traders got greedy. They thought they were getting gold at a discounted rate." Mohammed said that at least five tonnes of fake yellow metal is lying with Dubai Customs. A tonne of gold will cost approximately $40 million. Merchants estimated that the minimum loss of fake gold imported by local traders is nothing less than $200 million.

Recent media reports suggested that several million dollars worth of gold with the Ethiopian Central Bank turned out to be fake. These bars of gold turned out to be gold plated steel bars. African gold merchants claim to be in possession of large quantities of gold dust or gold bars, which they offer to sell at below market prices.

The would-be buyer is made to send money for travel of the seller, for insurance, for shipping and for refinery assays before they would receive anything of any value. Investors are shown samples, which may be original gold. But when the consignment reaches the port, it will be only mud or sand. Once Dubai Customs tightened controls, fake gold imports started reaching the UAE through other ports.