A young Palestinian was forced to play his violin to pass through an army roadblock in the West Bank as Israeli soldiers laughed, according to Israeli human rights activists yesterday.

The man arrived at the roadblock north of the West Bank city of Nablus carrying a violin case. An officer ordered him to take out the violin and play as part of a security check.

Horit Herman-Peled, a volunteer for the Israeli human rights group Machsom Watch, took a video of the Nov 9 incident and posted it on her website.

A young Palestinian was forced to play his violin to pass through an army roadblock in the West Bank as Israeli soldiers laughed, according to Israeli human rights activists yesterday.

The man arrived at the roadblock north of the West Bank city of Nablus carrying a violin case. An officer ordered him to take out the violin and play as part of a security check.
Horit Herman-Peled, a volunteer for the Israeli human rights group Machsom Watch, took a video of the Nov 9 incident and posted it on her website. >> http://www.horit.com/violin.htm

Two more of America's top spies were reported yesterday to be leaving the CIA, as an attempt to fix the troubled agency appeared increasingly to be dividing its ranks and driving out its most experienced officials.

Jailed West Bank leader Marwan Al Barghouti decided to run for Palestinian president in January elections to succeed the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, a member of the dominant Fatah faction's higher committee said on Thursday.

The Iraqi foreign minister said Thursday that the interim Iraqi government plans to meet soon in Jordan with rebel leaders to try to persuade the leaders to take part in politics.

An influenza pandemic is likely to affect every country, leaving millions dead and more than a quarter of the worlds population ill, the World Health Organisation said yesterday. And no vaccines will be available until next March, at least.

An outbreak of bird flu has killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam this year will be the most likely cause of the pandemic, but it is not clear when it would start,said Dr Klaus Stohr, who coordinates the WHO's global influenza programme.

He predicted that more than a quarter of the world's estimated 6.4 billion people would fall ill.

There are estimates that put the number of deaths in the range of between 2 million and 7 million, and the number of people affected will go beyond a billion because 25 to 30 per cent will fall ill," he told reporters at a meeting of health ministers and officials from 13 Asian nations here.
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"An influenza pandemic would spread globally and every country would be affected," Dr Stohr said. The WHO has sounded similar warnings during two waves of bird flu outbreaks across Asia this year. Dr Stohr said two American firms are developing vaccines for testing.

Officials have said a vaccine would not prevent a pandemic but could save millions of lives. "Every hundred years, there have been three or four pandemics," he said. "There's going to be another. Whether it happens this year or next, we don't know." At least 20 million died in the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.

Allegations of widespread abuse by US forces in Fallujah, including the killing of unarmed civilians and the targeting of a hospital in an attack, have been made by people who have escaped from the city.

Israeli soldiers continued firing at a Palestinian girl killed in Gaza last month well after she had been identified as a frightened child, a military communications tape has revealed.

British troops will be sent to help the US in conflict zones anywhere inside Iraq, prompting fears that soldiers could be stuck in the most dangerous parts of the country fighting insurgents for years to come.

An Iranian envoy on Wednesday said he had received Chinese support in Tehran's diplomatic campaign to block Washington from having the dispute over Iran's nuclear program referred to the UN Security Council.
The release of three United Nations workers who had been held hostage for more than three weeks took place early Tuesday in what appeared to be an orchestrated handover.

Chinese President Hu Jintao left in Havana for home Tuesday after concluding his two-day state visit to Cuba. During his visit, Hu, who arrived in Havana on Monday, held talks with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

The White House is to consider whether defence chiefs should take over CIA covert paramilitary operations.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel has agreed that Palestinians from East Jerusalem should participate in the election next year of a Palestinian leader, his office said Monday.

Iran said it was freezing its controversial nuclear fuel work in a move welcomed hailed by the head of the UN's atomic watchdog as a step in the right direction to easing fears the Islamic regime is seeking the bomb.

Yasser Arafat's medical records don't show the cause of the Palestinian leader's death, his nephew said on Monday, but they appear to rule out traditional poison. Instead, the Israeli's are believed to have used special DNA-based technology to erode the health of the well known Freedom Fighter to the point of death.

The US-controlled interim Iraqi government has scheduled general elections for 30 January and said that nearly 200 political groups would take part.

Gunmen on Monday assassinated a member of an influential Sunni clerics' group that has called for a boycott of national elections, just a day after Iraqi officials announced the balloting would be held Jan.