British News -- Mirror.co.uk -- BLAIR SLAMMED OVER IRAQ WAR BY HIS OWN PRIEST

Arab News : ‘Moral duty’

Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have, says its secretary-general, a “moral duty” to support the United States in its diplomatic and, if needs be, military offensive against Iraq. This odd pronouncement will not have gone down well with many NATO states.

Crimes against children More than 300 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli solders in the past few months. More than 500 have been injured and suffer from disorientation; and more than half-a-million suffer from malnutrition. Their tragedy is not the result of any natural calamity or the actions of any criminal gang. They are the direct results of the actions of Israel, hailed by the most powerful voice in the international community as the "only democracy" in the Middle East."

Vatican News -- Pope marks Christmas with call to avoid war in Middle East

Evoking the Christmas message of peace on earth, Pope John Paul II urged the world to avoid a new war in the Middle East and to quell the "spiral of blind violence" in the land of Christ's birth.
"From the cave of Bethlehem there rises today an urgent appeal to the world not to yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement, even though the tragic reality of terrorism feeds uncertainties and fears," he said.

The pope said believers of all religions are called upon to build harmony by outlawing intolerance and discrimination. He said peacemaking today presents the world with two particular challenges: "In the Holy Land, above all, to put an end once and for all to the senseless spiral of blind violence, and in the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided."