Germany is taking part in a UN peacekeeping mission,Israel has denied that shots were fired during an incident in which Israeli fighter jets were alleged to have buzzed a German naval vessel.

Israel confirmed that an incident took place but denied reports that the Israeli jets fired two shots.

The two countries' defence ministers have reportedly discussed the incident.

Germany sent navy but not ground forces to join the Lebanese peacekeeping mission because it wanted to avoid any chance of a clash with Israeli forces.

Sensitivities remain over Germany's Nazi past.

Helicopter alert

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel revealed that an incident took place on Tuesday this week, quoting a German junior defence minister as saying two Israeli F-16 fighters had flown low over the German ship, firing twice.

The German ship - an unarmed reconnaissance vessel - adopted defensive measures, the report said.

"There was no such incident," an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.

She said Israeli jets were scrambled when a helicopter took off from a German vessel close to Israeli waters without identifying itself.

The pilots realised what had happened and returned to base without incident, she said.

But in Germany opposition lawmakers demanded further explanation.

Birgit Homburger, of the opposition Free Democrats, which opposed Germany's deployment to the region, asked the government to say what would happen if Israeli jets overflew German ships again.

Germany's navy is part of the UN peacekeeping force deployed to the Israeli-Lebanese border following the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah earlier this year.


Israel has denied that shots were fired during an incident in which Israeli fighter jets were alleged to have buzzed a German naval vessel.

Israel confirmed that an incident took place but denied reports that the Israeli jets fired two shots.

The two countries' defence ministers have reportedly discussed the incident.

Germany sent navy but not ground forces to join the Lebanese peacekeeping mission because it wanted to avoid any chance of a clash with Israeli forces.

Sensitivities remain over Germany's Nazi past.

Helicopter alert

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel revealed that an incident took place on Tuesday this week, quoting a German junior defence minister as saying two Israeli F-16 fighters had flown low over the German ship, firing twice.

The German ship - an unarmed reconnaissance vessel - adopted defensive measures, the report said.

"There was no such incident," an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.

She said Israeli jets were scrambled when a helicopter took off from a German vessel close to Israeli waters without identifying itself.

The pilots realised what had happened and returned to base without incident, she said.

But in Germany opposition lawmakers demanded further explanation.

Birgit Homburger, of the opposition Free Democrats, which opposed Germany's deployment to the region, asked the government to say what would happen if Israeli jets overflew German ships again.

Germany's navy is part of the UN peacekeeping force deployed to the Israeli-Lebanese border following the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah earlier this year.

Can the US administration say, "we were wrong"? This administration can never admit to mistakes. A real leader and a mature administration can say, "we made a mistake. We failed in our policy. We have to rethink it and do it better." It takes a mature leader to admit mistakes and the American people would actually be happier if George Bush admitted that the administration was over-optimistic about Iraq.

Ironically, George Bush's great hero in history is Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister. Bush is always talking about Churchill but he does not realise that Great Britain, in the course of World War II, suffered many great defeats and was driven out of France in 1940, nearly lost Egypt in 1941, and Malay and Singapore in 1942. Nonetheless, Churchill went to parliament to say, "we failed. We lost. And we are going to have to change our policy and pick ourselves up and work harder."

Churchill did not say, like Bush today, "Oh everything is going okay and we are winning." Actually, few people in the outside world believe Bush, and a large number of Americans started not to believe him. He is blinkered and not able to say, "we made a real mistake."

Will the US withdraw from Iraq anytime soon?

It seems to me that Bush will leave it to his successor to pull out. The successor will then get the blame -- he will be the weak one, the appeaser, the one who did not stay the course; the same course that was wrong headed and desperately unfair. In a recent speech, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the US would stay unflinchingly in Iraq until the job gets done. That means more casualties and more American overstretch.

Will anything be left of Iraq?

It is already gone. I cannot see how to put the different ethnic and religious groups together again, especially the Kurds in the north.

It seems that reforming the United Nations, especially the Security Council, is an elusive aspiration. Do you agree?

I have two different covers for my last book on the United Nations, The Parliament of Man. The American cover stresses the United Nations of hope, of vision, of international cooperation, and of idealism. The British edition cover says we hope for peace and prosperity but you have to be realistic.

There are always big powers and when those powers agree you get lots done. When the big powers disagree, much less is done. We know that there are three countries, the United States, China and Russia, who feel if they want they can act independently. There is nothing the rest of the world can do about it. It is no use saying to China, "you must change your policy on Tibet," or telling Mr Putin, "you must change your policy on Chechnya." Both countries will tell you go away.

I would rather say the United Nations is always the scapegoat and if it were not there we would invent it.

Doesn't the international community need a strong central actor?

I think we need to achieve a balance between the two visions. It does not have to be quarrelling all the time or deadlock or gridlock, but it will never be ideal either. We have to be realistic and accept that sometimes there will be little or no progress because one of the great powers is threatening to veto. We are making very slow progress in terms of sending UN forces to Darfur because the Chinese government has a lot of reservations on it. Do not expect too much. People need to understand where the UN can work and where it does not. The UN can work in Lebanon if we get in 15,000 UN-NATO troops, and if Hizbullah and Israel do not break the ceasefire.
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Bush accepts Iraq-Vietnam echoes, Bush discusses Iraq, President George W Bush has accepted that the surge in violence in Iraq may be equivalent to America's traumatic experience in the Vietnam War. Mr Bush told ABC News that it could be right to compare Iraq's situation to the 1968 Tet offensive, widely seen as a key turning point in the conflict.
But he denied that the rising number of Iraqi and US military deaths meant the Iraq campaign was failing.

October is on course to be one of the bloodiest months for US forces in Iraq.

So far about 70 troops have died, and with an average of three Americans dying every day this is one of the highest casualty rates sustained by the US military since January 2005.

Psychological blow

In an interview with ABC News, Mr Bush was asked if he agreed with a newspaper columnist who had written that the current fighting in Iraq may be compared to the Tet offensive in Vietnam.


TET OFFENSIVE
Launched on 31 January 1968 - Tet holiday - by North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong
Five major cities and 36 provincial capitals attacked simultaneously
Onslaught surprises US troops, is quickly repelled
US public opinion turns against the war
President Johnson's popularity falls
He withdraws as candidate for re-election in March

"He could be right," Mr Bush said. "There's certainly a stepped up level of violence and we're heading into an election."

During the Tet offensive, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies launched a combined assault on US positions.

Militarily, the assault failed but it was a huge psychological blow for the Americans and their allies, and eroded political support for the then president, Lyndon Johnson.

Mr Bush appeared to suggest that steadiness of nerve could avoid a repeat of history, says the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington, although any comparison with Vietnam raises eyebrows in the US.

The White House later sought to clarify Mr Bush's comments.

"The full context was that the comparison was about the propaganda waged in the Tet Offensive...and the president was reiterating something he's said before - that the enemy is trying to shake our will," spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.

In the interview, Mr Bush reiterated that US troops would stay despite the casualties.

"Al-Qaeda is still very active in Iraq...They are trying not only to kill American troops but they're trying to foment sectarian violence. They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause (the) government to withdraw."

Difficult task

With the latest opinion polls suggesting that Mr Bush's Republican Party faces defeat in next month's mid-term congressional elections, the president is doing his best to fight his corner, our correspondent says.


I define success or failure as whether we're seeing a democracy grow in the heart of the Middle East
President Bush

The enemy defined success or failure by the number of casualties, Mr Bush said.

His definition was whether Iraqis could defend themselves, whether schools were being built, hospitals being opened.

"I define success or failure as whether we're seeing a democracy grow in the heart of the Middle East."

Pulling out troops from Iraq would be the equivalent of surrender, he said.

"I'm patient. I'm not patient forever...But I recognise the degree of difficulty of the task, and therefore say to the American people we won't cut and run."

Report: Latin immigrants to send 45 bln USD back, About 13 million Latin American immigrants living in the United States will send home a total of around 45 billion U.S. dollars this year, up from some 30 billion dollars in 2004, according to an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report released on Wednesday.

That money, known as remittances, is five times as large as official development assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean.

The percentage of immigrants sending money on a regular basis has increased from 61 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2006, said the bank, and the average amount of each remittance also grew, from 240 dollars to 300 dollars.

The bulk of the remittances comes out of such traditional immigrant gateway states as California and Florida, but remittance growth is fastest in such places as New Mexico, Louisiana and Virginia, according to the IDB.

Migrants earned an average of 150 dollars a month in Latin America, but their first U.S. job paid six times more, according to the IDB survey.

Most of the immigrants said they did not have full-time jobs in their countries when they moved to the United States, but most of them found work within a month of arrival, and 38 percent found it in less than two weeks.

Most of the money immigrant workers send to their families is used for basic needs, such as food, medicine and shelter, but more than half of the immigrants surveyed by the Inter-American Development Bank said that they would like to invest a portion of that money.

But the majority of Latin America's financial institutions don't have programs that help the families of migrant workers open savings accounts or start small businesses.

Governments and international development groups have busily debated how to leverage remittance flows to create jobs and lasting investments.

Sadat nephew in court appearance, A nephew of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat has appeared in court accused of spreading false rumours and insulting the armed forces.
The charges relate to Talaat Sadat's accusation of complicity by the army in his uncle's assassination in 1981.

He denies the charges and says he is being prosecuted because he opposes the government. The case was adjourned.

Egypt's ally the US said the case was against freedom of speech, calling it a "keystone of a democratic society".

Correspondents say the controversial opposition MP arrived in a black Cadillac said to have once been owned by the late president.

"This is a dictatorial regime that is consolidating itself in power against people's will," Mr Sadat was quoted saying on his way into court.

"There is political enmity between me and the minister of interior because this man is terrorising the people of Egypt."

Interview allegations

Mr Sadat has called the 1981 assassination by Islamist extremists at a military parade an "international conspiracy" including some of the late president's personal guards and army commanders, as well as the US and Israel.

"No-one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial," he said in an interview with Saudi TV.

The US state department said it was concerned about the prosecution, which comes after Mr Sadat was stripped of his immunity as an MP.

"The keystone of a democratic society is the right of free speech, including to criticise one's government, and that extends to the military," said spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos.

Mr Gallegos added that the accusation of US complicity was "offensive and patently false. But in our view he should not be prosecuted for expressing his views."