"Vulgarity has literally exploded," Robert Peters, chief of Morality in Media, told WND. "What went on in 1978 is not what's going on today." The court ruling was in a case brought by Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC, who went to court against the FCC after the agency cited the networks for allowing various objectionable words to hit the air ? and ears of consumers.

The case was based on those words that television characters sometimes blurt out - whether intentional or not. But observers noted it could have ramifications for other speech on television or radio. "There is a role for government in all of this. It's not the whole answer," he said. "But the goodwill of the industry is not going to solve the problem."

The old rule effectively instructed that an "isolated" incident of an objectionable word would not generate an FCC fine. The Bush administration ordered that changed after a series of incidents developed, including an actor swearing at an awards show.

The networks were pleased with the ruling. "Viewers should be allowed to determine for themselves and their families - what is appropriate viewing for their home," said Scott Grogin, a spokesman from Fox.

The development comes as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday told the Knesset he is ready for direct negotiations with Syria aimed at an Israeli retreat from the Golan Heights, strategic mountainous territory that looks down on Israeli population centers twice used by Damascus to attack the Jewish state.

With Israelis this week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War - when neighbors Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked the Jewish state - Israeli security officials told WND Syria has prepared for a confrontation and is capable of launching an immediate war.

The officials say the Syrian army is deployed along the Syrian side of the Golan Heights with strengthened forces after carrying out the past few weeks stepped-up training of troops. The officials noted the open movement of Syrian Scud missiles near the border with Israel and said Syria recently increased production of rockets and acquired missiles capable of hitting central Israeli population centers.

The Syrian army has improved its fortifications, according to the Israeli security officials, and has received modern, Russian-made anti-tank missiles similar to the ones that devastated Israeli tanks during the last Lebanon war, causing the highest number of Israeli troop casualties during the 34 days of military confrontations. Syria also received from Russia advanced anti-aircraft missiles.

The officials noted Syria stepped up the pace of weapons, including rockets, being shipped from the Syrian border to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Just yesterday, a truckload of weaponry meant for Hezbollah was confiscated by the Lebanese army.

Syria, which signed a military alliance with Iran, openly hosts Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. The U.S. accuses Syria of fueling and aiding the insurgency in Iraq. Israel says Syria has been allowing large quantities of weapons to be transported from its borders to Hezbollah. Syria has been widely blamed for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Syria is accused by Israel and pro-Democratic Lebanese politicians of fueling instability in Lebanon the past few weeks by backing Fatah al-Islam, a group claiming connections to al-Qaida that has been battling the Lebanese Army since May 20, killing some 107 people, including 47 soldiers and 60 terrorists.

The clashes erupted just before the U.N. was set to call for the establishment of an international tribunal to try the killers of Hariri. Syria has been widely blamed for the assassination and for a string of subsequent attacks that have rocked Lebanon.

The meeting began on Sunday in Bethlehem and gathered 47 religious, representatives of all the Franciscans of the Custody. THE THEME IS "LORD, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO IN THE HOLY LAND?"

The Pope assured the Franciscan of his prayers so that "this important meeting, faithful to the spirit" of St. Francis, "may respond with renewed apostolic zeal to the new challenges of our times."

Since early last month, Sichuan has witnessed a rise in rainfall. But due to the uneven distribution of rainfall and continued high temperatures, 46 cities, districts and counties in the province are suffering from drought, Zuo Xiong, deputy chief of Sichuan Weather Bureau, said.

A total of 3.988 million people and 4.46 million cattle have inadequate drinking water, and 116,000 people have to rely on water wagons to supply them drinking water, he said. Droughts are hampering farm production in the province as about 333,000 hectares of paddy fields are waiting for rain to plant rice, according to Zhao Shiyong, an agronomist in the Sichuan provincial department of agriculture.

In some drought-hit areas, rice has been planted in fewer than 50 percent of paddy fields. In Luzhou and Zigong in southern Sichuan, between 30 percent and 50 percent of the paddy fields become dry soon after rice is planted, and some rice crops have withered because of the lack of water, he said.

The ministers are expected to hear briefings from various governmental agencies - the Mossad, the National Security Council, military intelligence and the Foreign Ministry - regarding Syria's intentions.

In recent weeks, more and more voices - including central figures in the IDF such as Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen Gabi Ashkenazi - have advocated discreetly talking to the Syrians. Various IDF officials have been quoted as saying that Syria may opt for war if its overtures were not positively received.

Others, however, foremost among them Mossad head Meir Dagan, have come out against responding to Syrian President Bashar Assad's overtures, saying that they were meant only to relieve international pressure on Assad, pressure likely to increase now with the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

The US also believes that the focus of attention now should be on the Palestinian track, rather than the Syrian one, on the assumption that Israel cannot work on both tracks at the same time, and that the Palestinian situation is more urgent.

In a related development, Olmert spoke by phone Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Olmert, according to his office, discussed his planned meeting Thursday with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Olmert confirmed that the meeting would be held in the Palestinian Authority, the first time he will meet Abbas outside of Jerusalem. Although the site has not yet been officially announced, the meeting is expected to take place in Jericho.

If that figure shocks you, it's probably because women who have had one may never have discussed it, not even with their closest friends. Even the most brazen 21st-century female would draw the line at behaving like the celebrated feminist who went to a lunch in the Seventies and announced to horrified fellow guests: "I was pregnant, but I killed it." Abortion is back in the news with a vengeance, but guilt or squeamishness seem to hold ordinary women back from bringing their experiences to the debate.

Yesterday, Pro-Life MPs tried to push through another Bill that would require women to be counselled about possible side-effects and to be made to wait a week for a termination, to allow time for second thoughts. Then, breathing hellfire like a fundamentalist dragon, along came Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien.

The cardinal called on politicians to stop supporting an "unspeakable crime". He told his flock that abortion in their country was the equivalent of "two Dunblane massacres" every day. "Every child is a wanted child," insist the Pro-Lifers. They should get out more. To be an unwanted child - and there are tens of thousands of them in Britain - is a purgatory that even the most righteous should hesitate to inflict on a baby.

However, almost as blinkered are the Pro-Choice brigade. They insist on a woman's right to choose, come what may. NEVER MIND THAT 39 PER CENT OF 24-WEEK FOETUSES NOW SURVIVE OUTSIDE THE WOMB, WHICH MEANS THAT A TERMINATION AT THAT STILL-LEGAL POINT IS KILLING A VIABLE HUMAN BEING.

We are glad that termination is available as a last resort, but disgusted when we hear the Pregnancy Advisory Service say that abortion is "just another means of contraception". We support the idea that the abortion limit should go down to 21 weeks, a sensible, humane move which is backed by the majority of doctors and nurses who have to attend those grim, late procedures.

Attempts by the Pro-Choice zealots to make abortion a trivial thing won't succeed because we understand instinctively that it is a grave matter - something serious that is written in the body and has the power to come back and haunt us.

Yet the recent efforts by the Pro-Lifers to put the clock back, with the ultimate threat of an outright ban, are even more depressing. Having a baby is one of the biggest responsibilities a person can take on. That's why the freedom not to take it on is so valuable and worth defending. And we should remember that freedom was very hard won.

Gisele is idolized by many young women in Brazil, the world's largest Roman Catholic country, where debate over sexual issues has intensified around a visit by Pope Benedict last month.THE POPE STRESSED THE CHURCH'S FIRM OPPOSITION TO ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION AND RAILED AGAINST SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE.

The Brazilian beauty, one of the world's top models, told Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in an interview that when the Church made its laws centuries ago, women were expected to be virgins.Today no one is a virgin when they get married - show me someone who's a virgin!" she said. Asked about abortion, she said a woman should have the right to choose what is best for her.

"If she thinks she doesn't have the money or the emotional condition to raise a child, why should she give birth?"

"If S.B. 11 becomes the law, marriage will be functionally abolished," said Randy Thomasson, a spokesman for the Campaign for Children and Families. "Awarding marriage rights to people who shack up but refuse to get married is completely ridiculous." The plan that has been endorsed by the Democrat-controlled California State Senate is one promoted by a lesbian state senator, Carole Migden, of San Francisco.

It would give an unmarried man and woman who are living together the rights of marriage, Thomasson said. It was approved by the Senate 22-13, with all Democrats in support and all Republicans opposed. The plan that gives all the rights of marriage to heterosexual "domestic partners" ages 18 and up now goes to the state Assembly, and if approved there, would go to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not taken a position on the plan.

"Why get married if you can get all the legal rights and benefits of marriage without being committed?" Thomasson asked. "This bad bill severely weakens the institution of marriage and will motivate unwed parents to remain uncommitted. We call upon Gov. Schwarzenegger to veto this nonsensical bill that robs marriage of its uniqueness and honor.

"No one should get marriage rights unless they get married. S.B. 11 makes a mockery of this sacred institution," he said. Thomasson noted that not one Republican senator spoke against the bill during the floor session. "Once again, pro-family Californians are angry at the Democrat politicians for attacking marriage and deeply frustrated with the Republican legislators for not speaking up to defend the sacred institution of marriage," he said.

The move is seen as another step towards creating full-blown same-sex "marriage" licenses for homosexuals. That plan already has been proposed in A.B. 43 in the state Assembly. That group later voted 42-34 to pass A.B. 43, flouting the will of California voters by choosing to reject the 2000 initiative that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

"The arrogant majority in the California legislature have decided that they know better than the people by voting to force A.B. 43 on California," declared Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute. "The people of California clearly decided this issue when they passed Proposition 22. It is outrageous for legislators to waste time and money debating an issue that Californians have decided."

Tropical Cyclone Gonu is continuing north-west, but winds speeds have dropped to about 100mph (175 km/h).
Thousands of residents were evacuated from coastal regions and the low-lying offshore island of Masirah.
Forecasters said the storm, the most powerful in the region for 60 years, was set to weaken further as it headed towards southern Iran.

Low-lying areas have been evacuated. In the island of Masirah, 230km off the coast (140 miles), 7,000 people have left their homes. In the coastal capital of Muscat, people have been advised to stay indoors and to switch off their power.The most powerful part of the storm was expected to hit Oman on Thursday, before moving north across the Gulf to Iran.

Reports say Cyclone Gonu is the strongest to hit the Arabian Peninsula since records started in 1945. While crossing the Indian Ocean on Monday it reached the equivalent of a Category Five hurricane - the highest category available.

"Syria is ready to talk with Israel but only if negotiations lead to a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. There may be peace; there may be war. If there is no movement, Syrian resistance will be launched and not from the government but from the people of the Golan," said the Baath party official, who spoke on condition his name be withheld.

"We [Syria] have weapons and soldiers on the border with Israel, but let's face it, it's difficult to amass tanks or launch any invasion because the U.N. mans the border. But Syrian residents of the Golan are ready to launch resistance," the official claimed.

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory looking down on Israeli and Syrian population centers captured by Israel after Damascus twice used the territory to attack the Jewish state. There are U.N. posts at international buffer areas between the Israeli and Syrian sides of the territory.

The Heights has a population of about 35,000 - approximately 18,000 Jewish residents and 17,000 Arabs, mostly Druze. The Arab residents retain their Syrian citizenship but under Israeli law can also sue for Israeli citizenship.

Syria, which signed a military alliance with Iran, openly hosts Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. The U.S. accuses Syria of fueling and aiding the insurgency in Iraq. Israel says Syria has been allowing large quantities of weapons to be transported from its borders to the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militia, which last summer engaged in a war with the Jewish state. Syria has been widely blamed for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has made a number of statements the past few months his army is preparing for a war with Israel, claiming the Jewish state is planning to attack first.

Last weekend, Assad reportedly called for "better cooperation" between Damascus and Tehran in "the confrontation with the Zionist regime and the USA," according to a report published Sunday by Iran's official state news agency, IRNA.

"To allow the lower court's ruling to stand exposes every public employee to outright censorship by a municipal employer for merely mentioning words such as the 'natural family,' 'marriage,' 'and 'family values,' issues which are at the forefront of national debate," said the appeal prepared by the Pro-Family Law Center.

"If we fail to get U.S. Supreme Court review, however, it will be up to each individual Christian in the United States to stand up for their rights to be heard on the issues of the day. IF WE CHOOSE TO BE SILENT, SILENCED WE SHALL BE," HE SAID.

The case involves the Good News Employee Association and two women, Regina Rederford and Robin Christy, who wanted to launch the organization among co-workers. They put up an announcement on an Oakland city bulletin board asking those interested in those "family" issues to contact them.

This came after the same bulletin board - as well as the city's e-mail system - had been used to promote speech "concerning war, health-care, peace, employee outsourcing, sports, racism, slavery, spirituality, hate, God, the Gay-Straight Employee Alliance, tolerance, homosexuality, 'coming out,' diversity, Christ, the Bible, sexuality, and a host of other topics," the appeal said.

None of those topics was a problem. However, their supervisors ordered the two Christians' announcement about Good News pulled down, and issued a warning that such "homophobic" literature could lead to PENALTIES UP TO AND INCLUDING DISMISSAL, the law firm said.

The decision was affirmed by the 9th Circuit, which issued an unpublished "memorandum." in the dispute.
It found that municipalities have a right to dictate what form an employee's speech may take, even if it is in regard to controversial public issues. "THIS INCREDIBLE AND DEVASTATING RULING HAS HAD THE PRACTICAL EFFECT OF SILENCING HUNDREDS, IF NOT THOUSANDS, OF CITY OF OAKLAND EMPLOYEES WHO SIMPLY WISH TO TALK ABOUT MARRIAGE AND FAMILY VALUES.

MEANWHILE OAKLAND'S GAY-STRAIGHT EMPLOYEES ALLIANCE "WAS OPENLY ALLOWED TO ATTACK THE BIBLE IN WIDESPREAD CITY E-MAILS, TO DERIDE CHRISTIAN VALUES AS ANTIQUATED, AND TO REFER TO BIBLE-BELIEVING CHRISTIANS AS HATEFUL. When the plaintiffs attempted to refute this blatant attack on people of faith, they were threatened with immediate termination by the City of Oakland.

"THE CITY OF OAKLAND HAS INTERPRETED THIS DISTRICT COURT'S RULING TO MEAN THAT CHRISTIANITY HAS NO PLACE IN OUR SOCIETY AND SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO PUNISHMENT. I want to believe that our Supreme Court will ultimately decide this case on the values and instructions set forth in motion by the nations Founders," said Ackerman.

"This is a very positive portrayal of Mao, and we are hoping that once the script clears the approval process, China will come forward with services and support," he said. North is hoping to begin shooting after next year's Beijing Olympics. Among the kinds of support North seeks from the Chinese government are thousands of extras.Those extras are not likely to be paid scale. China is notorious for its continued use of slave labor as well as near-slave wages.

Though Mao, like fellow dictator Fidel Castro, is still romanticized to a degree in the West, most historians would agree he ranks at or very near the top of the worst mass murderers. ABOUT 70 MILLION CHINESE WERE KILLED OR DIED AS A RESULT OF HIS BRUTAL REIGN. THAT FIGURE DOES NOT INCLUDE MILLIONS OF TIBETANS, KOREANS AND MEMBERS OF OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS AND NATIONALITIES.

In 1970, 80% of primary school-age children made the journey from home to school on their own. It was what you did. Today the figure is under 9%. Escorting children is now the norm - often in the back of a 4x4. WE ARE REARING OUR CHILDREN IN CAPTIVITY - their habitat shrinking almost daily. In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door. By 1997 it was 280 metres. Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep.

In a garden in Birchington, best friends Holly Prentice and Jojo Roberts, both aged eight, make daisy chains. The picket fence marks the limit of their play area. They wouldn't dare venture beyond it. "You might get kidnapped or taken by a stranger," says Jojo. "In the park you might get raped," agrees Holly. Don't they yearn to go off to the woods, to climb trees and get muddy? No, they tell me. The woods are scary. Climbing trees is dangerous. Muddy clothes get you in trouble.

One wonders what they think of Just William, Swallows And Amazons or The Famous Five - fictional tales of strange children from another time, an age of adventures where parents apparently allowed their offspring to be out all day and didn't worry about a bit of mud. THERE IS INCREASING CONCERN THAT TODAY'S "COTTON-WOOL KIDS" ARE HAVING THEIR DEVELOPMENT HAMPERED.

THEY ARE LIKELY TO BE RISK-AVERSE, STIFLED BY FEARS WHICH ARE MORE PHOBIC THAN REAL. Their lack of unsupervised play may also reduce the opportunity to form deep friendships in early years. Evidence presented to the Children's Society's Good Childhood Inquiry suggested the number of teenagers who don't have a best friend has risen from one in eight 20 years ago to one in five today.

Professor Judith Dunn, from the Institute of Psychiatry, chairs the Good Childhood Inquiry and believes that friendships are vital for a child's social and emotional development. "Children whose early friendships are full of shared imaginative play develop a sensibility by discussing moral dilemmas and learning to understand the feelings, welfare and relationships of other children," she argues.

A lack of close friendships among British children may be reflected in a recent Unicef report which revealed that the UK ranks at the bottom for peer relationships in international tables. In Birchington, the beach is busy with kids. But on closer observation they are almost all under the watchful eye of a parent or guardian.

And the horrifying story of four-year-old Madeleine McCann, apparently abducted from her bed in Portugal while her parents ate a meal in a nearby restaurant, is likely to mean British parents pull their children even closer to them.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero condemned Eta's move. "Eta's decision goes totally in the opposite direction of the path that Basque and Spanish society want, the path of peace," he said.

Eta declared a "permanent" ceasefire in March 2006, and had insisted it still held despite a bomb that killed two people at Madrid airport in December. But in a message printed by the Basque newspaper Berria on Tuesday, the banned group SAID "MINIMUM CONDITIONS FOR CONTINUING A PROCESS OF NEGOTIATIONS DO NOT EXIST". After the Madrid airport attack Spain's Socialist government broke off peace talks.

Eta said that from Wednesday it would defend the Basque country "with weapons and on all fronts". The announcement suggests that another big attack could be imminent, observers say. The group has killed more than 800 people in its four-decade campaign to set up an independent state in northern Spain and south-western France.

Prime Minister Zapatero launched exploratory peace talks with Eta last year, despite vehement opposition from conservatives, but there was little sign of any progress. The opposition Popular Party and victims' groups have organised big demonstrations against negotiations with Eta. The latest Eta statement blamed Mr Zapatero, saying the government had responded to its ceasefire last year "by pursuing detentions, torture and persecution".

The atmosphere was further soured by the authorities' exclusion of pro-independence politicians from local elections in the Basque country last month. Eta's political wing, Batasuna, remains banned. In the past few days, Eta has sent letters to Basque businesses urging them to help finance "the liberation and construction of Euskal Herria (the Greater Basque Country)", Spanish media report.

The so-called Six-Day War changed the geo-political map of the Middle East, establishing Israel as the region's dominant military force. BEFORE THE WAR, THE 19-YEAR-OLD JEWISH STATE HAD BEEN AWASH WITH FEAR, AS ARAB ARMIES MASSED ON ITS BORDERS.

UN peacekeepers had been expelled from the Sinai, and Egypt had closed the Red Sea to Israeli shipping.
In an extraordinary showdown on the eve of war, Israeli generals swore and shouted at the prime minister that Israel had to strike first to be sure of victory. The conflict began with air strikes which destroyed much of Egypt's air power on the ground.

By the end of the fighting, Israel had defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It captured territory three times the size of the country as it was on 4 June. The Golan Heights and Palestinian territory in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem remain under its control to this day.

The Israeli cabinet is to meet this week to discuss whether to restart peace talks with Syria. Israeli Pensions Minister Rafi Eitan told local radio that Israel should consider the Golan Heights as a bargaining chip, if Syria was sincere about negotiation.

The Israeli government marked the anniversary with Jerusalem Day celebrations last month according to the Hebrew calendar. But in Egypt there are no official events to mark the anniversary or the sacrifice of those who died - just the occasional newspaper article recalling what happened.

Egypt had been defeated and even if the country eventually recovered the Sinai peninsula, which it lost in 1967, many Egyptians remain reluctant to discuss the war, says the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones in Cairo. The reticence is in part a reflection of Egypt's demographics, our correspondent says. Most Egyptians had not even been born when the 1967 war took place.