Nuggets

"New Yorkers to study about Israel ?-- New York City Council approves curriculum on Israel initiated by Israeli Consulate in New York; curriculum to be integrated into training program for educators teaching in 1,400 (American) public high schools. The teachers will be able to register to a 30-hour course dealing with the history of the State of Israel, its economy, the high-tech industry, Israeli art and Ethiopian Jews." -- /There is no other country, but Israel on this planet that is worth studying about....! OKÉ, but will they tell about EVERYTHING? - Julia/

:: Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.

:: Many of the harsh interrogation techniques just repudiated by the Pentagon would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration, and the U.S. courts would be forbidden from intervening.

:: Mr. Bush is a wounded, deeply unpopular president, fighting a war that Americans feel has made them less safe and cost hundreds of billions of dollars and the lives of almost 3000 soldiers. The Republican-controlled Congress, virtually every poll says, is on the nose with a large majority - more than 70 per cent - who are angry and disappointed with the way their politicians are governing. And on every main issue, from the war in Iraq to the state of the economy, rising petrol prices and growing concern about illegal immigration, Americans reckon their politicians are failing them.

:: The head of Europe's human rights watchdog yesterday called for monitoring of CIA agents operating in Britain and other European countries, after President George Bush's admission that the US had detained terrorist suspects in secret prisons. Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe, said CIA agents operating in Europe should be subject to the same rules as British agents working for MI5 and MI6.