Tony Blair faces an unprecedented revolt from the wives and mothers of serving soldiers, who want British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Dozens of women whose sons, husbands and daughters are now in the Gulf or have served there, have joined a national campaign to be launched this week calling for Britain to pull out of Iraq. In a strongly worded statement passed to the IoS, they claim the war in Iraq "was based on lies", and call for British withdrawal "as a matter of urgency".

The organisers of Military Families Against the War, set up by the parents of dead armed forces personnel last year, say their movement is supported by hundreds of service families and that more than 100 families and veterans are actively involved.

Lynda Holmes, 55, a nurse, whose son is a Guardsman in Iraq, said. "Our forces are risking their lives for an illegal war. So many have been killed. I'm not anti-Army. I'm not anti what my son does. I'm just anti this war."

The PM is back from his fifth holiday at his princely pad. But just who is Girolamo Strozzi?

For the fifth time since 1998, the Blair family slipped away from a stunning Tuscan retreat this weekend. As usual, their stay at the Cusona Estate brought nothing but negative headlines. And as usual, it was highlighted that the owner of their Tuscan retreat is a right-wing Italian aristocrat. The question was asked again: why do the Blairs associate with such a man?

But exactly what kind of man Prince Girolamo Guicciardini Strozzi is remains a mystery that baffles Italy. For despite owning one of the country's grandest estates and being descended from a legendary Renaissance family, the prince of the 21st century is still a remarkably elusive figure.

Prince Girolamo is a discreet, reserved character - one of the reasons, no doubt, why he is prized as a friend by the Blairs. "He is a simple, straightforward man," said a friend, "with none of the aplomb or the detachment of an aristocrat." And yet this is a man whose forebears were at the heart of Italy's Renaissance and associated with the Medicis.

The 67-year-old law professor at the University of Florence is the heir to a heritage built by generations of politicians and statesmen, going all the way back to Francesco Guicciardini: Florentine lawyer, diplomat, statesman, historian and thinker, a friend of Niccolo Machiavelli.

Mothers' network hides young immigrants to keep them safe from deportation by Sarkozy

The auditorium is packed. The children sit two to a seat, their parents beside them. Though not all understand the language, they pay careful attention to the rousing speeches. Then their surnames are called out - Aksan, al-Amara, Avongua, Awad, Ayad, Azhar, Azed, on to Zaman, Zachihivilli, Zuheri - and they stand up to meet those who will sponsor, help and, if it comes to it, defy the full force of the French state to hide them.

The children, recent immigrants or the children of recent immigrants, are among tens of thousands in France who are, according to the Ministry of the Interior, liable for expulsion or who will become liable when they reach the age of 18.

For the moment they are safe, but on 30 June, the end of the school year, a de facto truce declared by the maverick right-wing politician and Interior Minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, will expire. Then they will be picked up by police and immigration services and deported. Around the hall, a council building in the run-down Paris suburb of Bobigny, the children's 'sponsors', all French citizens, wait to be introduced to their charges.

PODGORICA - The former Yugoslav republic of Montenegro declared independence overnight NZ time, ending a partnership with Serbia going back to 1918.

The decision by its parliament confirmed the May 21 national referendum decision to split from Serbia.

Opposition members opposed to the dissolution of the union boycotted the evening assembly session in the Adriatic coast republic in protest. Pro-independence members wore red lapel rosettes and Montenegrins celebrated outside the parliament.

The mountainous republic of 650,000 people, about the size of Northern Ireland, is the last of former Yugoslavia's constituent republics to leave the orbit of Belgrade.

In the case of Montenegro, Serbia's closest ally, the split ends a long, fraternal partnership whose dissolution was opposed by ethnic Serbs who live in Montenegro.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica responded frostily to the Montenegrin decision and on Friday rebuffed European Union offers to assist the two countries in a "velvet divorce", indicating the parting will be correct but not amicable.

His Montenegrin counterpart Milo Djukanovic, the champion of the independence drive, had invited Kostunica to Montenegro for a reception following parliament's declaration.

The right-wing Civic Democratic party of Mirek Topolanek was predicted to win legislative elections in the Czech Republic on Saturday with 38 percent of the vote, according to a first forecast.

Czech Television's forecast, released after polls closed at 2 p.m. local time, showed the Social Democratic Party of Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek trailing with 30 percent.

Civic Democrat MP Vlastimil Tlusty said the forecast suggested his party and the Christian Democrats would amass more seats in the lower house than the Social Democrats and Communists combined.

"That would be a good result," he said.

The Social Democrats had said that they could aim to form a minority government tolerated by the Communist Party.

A Dutch student who produced a spoof internet video portraying a Nazi death camp as a dance party called `Housewitz' has been sentenced to 40 hours of community service.

The 23-year-old, identified only as D.T., sparked condemnations from Holocaust organisations, Jewish groups and the Polish government when the video clip hit the internet last summer.

It purported to promote an event on 4 May 2005, the date of Holland's Remembrance Day for the victims of the Second World War, but no such party actually took place.

The clip showed pictures of `DJs Michel der Heidie en Adolf von Bauren' in Nazi uniform, over which a German accented voice-over exclaimed, "7 million party people...set their bodies on fire...literally speaking...ha, ha".

In an apparent parody of the slogan, `Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Makes One Free) - which was posted at the entrance to every Nazi camp - the video featured a cartoon representation of Auschwitz with the inscription "Tanzen Macht Frei" - `Dancing makes one free' - on the gate. And images of a gas chamber were described as "free showers" for partygoers.

...

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The prospect of the Communist Party returning to play a role in power haunts some Czechs so much they are offering voters rewards to shun the left in this weekend's election.

Sports equipment retailer Rock Point said on Thursday it would give a 20 percent discount to anyone who turned in unused ballots for the Communists and the leftist ruling party, the Social Democrats.

"Do not vote for the red coalition. Vote for a 20 percent discount," the firm said on its Web site. A similar pledge to Rockpoint's appeared at an antique store in Prague.

Graphics studio Mowshe is running a campaign urging voters to send in as many Communist ballots as possible, and said it had received about 2,500 so far, including 12 collected by one family. Czech voters get ballot papers for each party by post.

Mowshe's Michal Gregorini said the winners would receive prizes like anti-Communist T-shirts and a subscription to the weekly magazine Respekt.

The Communists have had no share of power since their Soviet-backed dictatorship ended in 1989, but the Social Democrats say after the election they may try to form a minority cabinet dependent on Communist support in some key votes.

The Social Democrats lag slightly behind the right-wing opposition Civic Democrats in opinion polls. No party stands a chance of winning an outright majority, so any winner will need partners to form a government.

Unlike their counterparts in several other former Communist countries, the Czech Communists did not change their name and have not made a clear break with their past.

A US state is to enlist web users in its fight against illegal immigration by offering live surveillance footage of the Mexican border on the internet.

The plan will allow web users worldwide to watch Texas' border with Mexico and phone the authorities if they spot any apparently illegal crossings.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said the cameras would focus on "hot-spots and common routes" used to enter the US.
US lawmakers have been debating a divisive new illegal immigration bill.

The Senate has approved a law that grants millions of illegal immigrants US citizenship and calls for the creation of a guest-worker programme, while beefing up border security.

But in order to come into effect, the plan must be reconciled with tougher anti-immigration measures backed by the House of Representatives, that insist all illegal immigration should be criminalised.

To: Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary-designate

So you decided to take the job, after all. It's no surprise that they wanted you. As the joke that's making the rounds puts it, they're so desperate they're scraping the top of the barrel. But most of us are surprised that you accepted.

No doubt you received assurances that like Robert Rubin, but unlike your predecessors in this administration, you'll get to be a real Treasury secretary. And you probably believe that those assurances can be trusted, if only because the Bush people currently need you a lot more than you need them.

But Paul O'Neill, who received tremendous acclaim from the news media when he was appointed Treasury secretary, must have believed the same thing. The fact is that you'll be treated well as long as you are perceived as someone who adds credibility with people outside the administration, and not a moment longer. Yet I'm sure you're already under pressure to say things that will fatally undermine your credibility.

Before we get to the specifics, you need to disabuse yourself of any illusion that this administration rewards loyalty. Nobody was more loyal than Larry Lindsey, President Bush's first top economist. Yet when Mr. Lindsey blurted out an inconvenient truth -- that the Iraq war was likely to cost a fair amount of money (although we now know that his estimate was only a small fraction of the true cost) -- he was fired.

Hans Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector, says that American unwillingness to cooperate in international arms agreements is undermining efforts to curb nuclear weapons.

Blix said Thursday that it was essential that Washington act to end what he called the stagnation of arms limitation. "If it takes the lead, the world is likely to follow," he said. "If it does not take the lead, there could be more nuclear tests and new nuclear arms races."

Blix, who left his arms inspection post in 2003 shortly after the invasion of Iraq, made his comments in the introduction to a report by an international commission financed by Sweden. The report was delivered Thursday to Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The panel, with Blix as chairman and members from more than a dozen countries, listed 60 recommendations for nuclear disarmament.

It concluded that treaty-based disarmament was being set back by "an increased U.S. skepticism regarding the effectiveness of international institutions and instruments, coupled with a drive for freedom of action to maintain an absolute global superiority in weaponry and means of their delivery."

Progreso Weekly: With an arrogance bordering on intimidation, the administration of George W. Bush wishes to impose its will onto Chile's sovereignty and force that country to impede Venezuela's admission to the United Nations Security Council.

That attempt came to light on Sunday, April 28, when the Chilean daily La Tercera published a report -- based on Chilean diplomatic sources -- titled "White House Ultimatum." Progreso Weekly has translated that report and summarizes it here. Words [in brackets] are PW's clarifications.

During a visit by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley to the US State Department on April 21, "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice devoted an overwhelming proportion of her meeting with Foxley to only one issue: Venezuela's candidacy to the United Nations Security Council," La Tercera reported.

"She differentiated this issue from all other regional and multilateral decisions and said its singularity is that 'it aims at the heart of US interests.' Foxley attempted to explain that Chile must consider the opinions of its neighbors and that, in any case, has not yet made a decision [...] but the Secretary of State was unequivocal: the United States 'will not understand' a vote by Chile in favor of Venezuela at the Security Council."

Across the developing world, primary education is too often a privilege and not a right. A hundred million children worldwide do not go to school, kept at home by school fees, teacher shortages, their family's need for their labor or simply a lack of understanding of the benefits of educating children, especially girls. Reaching universal primary school completion by 2015 is one of the United Nations' most important Millennium Development Goals, and most poor nations will fall far short.

But not in Latin America. Currently, 88 percent of children ages 15 to 19 have completed primary school, and by 2015 that figure is expected to rise to 93 percent. Much progress has been made in the past two decades, in large part because governments made primary education a priority.

Countries with more money -- like Mexico and Brazil -- have increased attendance through payments to families whose children go to school. But even poor countries, like Bolivia and Ecuador, have seen gains. Before the 1990's, only 65 percent of Bolivia's children of primary school age were in school. Now 95 percent are. And more than 84 percent of children entering primary school will finish the fifth grade, up from 50 percent 10 years ago. Bolivia achieved this with educational reform that focused on rural girls. It provided payments to families who kept their girls in school, provided more teachers who spoke indigenous languages and timed school vacations to coincide with the harvest season.

Mounties arrest 17 in Toronto and seize three tonnes of explosives

A terrorist plot, apparently inspired by al-Qaeda, to bomb targets across Ontario has been broken up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. In a series of co-ordinated raids Canadian police arrested 17 individuals, including five youths, who they say were planning a series of attacks. All those involved were charged with terrorism offences.

After the raids, which began on Friday night, officers revealed they had seized almost three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, the same chemical used in the Oklahoma City bombing in which 168 people were killed in 1995.

As sketchy details emerged of the arrests, a spokesman for the RCMP said it 'had arrested a number of individuals who were planning to commit a series of terror attacks against targets here in southern Ontario'.

All the men arrested lived in Canada and most were Canadian citizens, officials said. 'This group holds a real and serious intent,' RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said yesterday.

Bolivia's president has given more than 30,000 square km (18,600 sq miles) of land to indigenous peasant communities under a programme of agrarian reform.

Evo Morales launched the programme after landowners walked out of talks with the government, warning they would take action to defend their estates.

Thousands of peasants gathered in the centre of Santa Cruz to see Mr Morales launch his agrarian revolution.

They cheered and waved rainbow flags symbolising indigenous resistance.

The venue for the ceremony was carefully chosen: Santa Cruz is the home base of Bolivia's main landowners' federation, which is deeply opposed to the land reform.

When its leaders walked out of talks with the government, they warned that their members would form self-defence groups to protect their estates.

But President Morales is clearly in no mood for compromise.

...

SPIEGEL: There was great indignation in Germany when it became known that you might be coming to the soccer world championship. Did that surprise you?

Ahmadinejad: No, that's not important. I didn't even understand how that came about. It also had no meaning for me. I don't know what all the excitement is about.

...

SPIEGEL: What will happen now in the conflict between the West and Iran?

Ahmadinejad: We understand the Americans' logic. They suffered damage as a result of the victory of the Islamic Revolution. But we're puzzled why some European countries are opposed to us. I sent out a message on the nuclear issue, asking why the Europeans were translating the Americans' words for us. After all, they know that our actions are aimed toward peace. By siding with Iran, the Europeans would serve their own and our interests. But they will suffer only damage if they oppose us. For our people is strong and determined.

The Europeans risk losing their position in the Middle East entirely, and they are ruining their reputation in other parts of the world. The others will think that the Europeans aren't capable of solving problems.

Caracas based and state owned city tv VIVE covers the election 24 hours live and will also give the results. VIVE live tv program is interrupted only by occasional ads (the horror!) sponsored by  Venezuela's State Oil Corporation promoting social and cultural policies of free health care, free access to education, etc., for all citizens.

link to live stream:

http://www.vive.gob.ve/

"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819

Nearly 50 tons of mysterious red particles showered India in 2001. Now the race is on to figure out what the heck they are

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.

In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples--water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001--contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600˚F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250˚F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

Last winter, Louis sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales, who are now attempting to replicate his experiments; Wickramasinghe expects to publish his initial findings later this year.

Meanwhile, more down-to-earth theories abound. One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the "blood rains" on algae. Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - As Americans keep getting bigger, hospitals are revamping themselves to accommodate an influx of obese patients.

When these patients check into a hospital, they are increasingly likely to find themselves in a room with a wider doorway than the 42-inch standard, a bed that holds up to 1,000 pounds and a ceiling lift system to move them to the bathroom.

Toilets in such a room are extra-sturdy and mounted to the floor instead of a wall.

The number of obesity, or bariatric surgeries performed each year has quadrupled since 2000, according to the American Society for Bariatric Surgery. The procedures generally involve surgically shrinking the stomach and bypassing the intestines to cause the patient to absorb less food.

The obese -- often defined as weighing 20 percent or more than medically recommended levels -- are also more likely to suffer from chronic medical ailments like diabetes and severe joint problems, bringing them into the hospital.

As a result, more hospitals are making capital investments to set up separate wings and whole floors for obese patients to keep up with demand.

TYPICAL French chic or bare-faced cheek? The simmering diplomatic war between France and the United States has taken an ugly turn after French women accused their American counterparts of being "painted dolls".

French madames don't wear make-up, or at least pretend not to. Their new goal is to glow, with invisible pores and highly polished skin. Too much make-up, they claim, makes a woman seem older, or worse still, appear as if she makes a living walking the streets.

And they have singled out American women as the worst examples, while putting forward their own versions of perfection such as actresses Juliette Binoche and Audrey Tautou.

Led by French fashion experts, the attack will stoke tensions based on cultural differences that neither country pretends to understand. Laura Mercier, the French creator of a line of cosmetics, who lives in New York, said: "It really astonishes me the way American women wear so much make-up.

"In the US, even teenage girls are overly made up. And when you are overly made up, you send out the message that you are overly sexual, that you want to be visible to attract men."

By contrast, Mercier added: "French women are not flashy. They must be subtle. The message must not be: 'I'm spending hours on my face to look beautiful.'"

Michèle Fitoussi, one of France's leading social commentators and a columnist at French Elle magazine, branded the "painted-doll" look "vulgaire".

As a member of Opus Dei, I would like to thank Dan Brown and Ron Howard for "The Da Vinci Code." Why am I not outraged like so many other devout Roman Catholics? Because I think we could not have wished for a better result: Critics attack the film (and, retrospectively, the book) as boring and annoying and cartoonish; and because everyone is seeing it anyway, many people who would otherwise have no interest in Opus Dei are curious, allowing us to explain what we are really about.

For the record, I do wear a spiked metal band on my leg for a couple of hours a day, just like the movie's murderous Opus Dei numerary, Silas (that's always the first question). But I do not wear a robe, except at graduation ceremonies. I'm an English professor at a state university and am finishing a book titled "Modernist Aesthetics and Consumer Culture in the Writings of Oscar Wilde." So much for stereotypes.

I joined Opus Dei as a numerary, a member who has committed to celibacy and lives in an Opus Dei center, when I turned 18. My father is a supernumerary (one of the married members, who account for around 80 percent of us). He never encouraged me to join, though he and my mother taught me to pray and to love the ideas of St. Josemaría Escrivá, the order's founder, on turning work into prayer.

I knew early on that I wanted to pursue a deep communion with God, since that's what allows me to be truly happy. And I wanted to enjoy all the richness of the secular world. (All right, all except sex, which undoubtedly is one of the richest parts of living in the world.) This is where the adventure begins. Can one be totally focused on God, praying meditatively for hours a day, and also be totally focused on the world - making money, competing or collaborating with colleagues, going out with drinking buddies? The answer, for me, is yes.

Some women jam the remote control. Some release rage by shopping. But with the World Cup fast approaching, entrepreneurs have another strategy.

For soccer widows facing temporary abandonment by their sports-obsessed partners, companies are poised to offer sympathy at a price.

There's the "lifesaving Kettering Park Hotel & Spa" in Northamptonshire, England, that promises Champagne and canapés on arrival for £99, or $185, a night, or the "Ladies Power Weekend" in Basel, Switzerland, at a four-star hotel starting at 113 Swiss francs, or $93, a night.

EasyJet, the cut-rate airline, is promoting women-only World Cup getaways to the Mediterranean island of Gozo, far from Germany's soccer fields.

....

An Internet clip, downloaded more than 100,000 times from the board's Web site, www.myswitzerland.com/ en/movies/wm/, features muscular Swiss men, including Mr. Switzerland 2005 - a dairy farmer and part-time model who leans laconically against a cow.

The message couldn't be more blunt: "Dear girls, why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football and more on you?"

"We're really amazed at the reaction, since it was a low-cost production," said Edith Zweifel, a spokeswoman for the tourist board.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude