Bailey Mail Roundup of Main Global News
by Liam Bailey
2008-03-06 19:10:00 **news**
8 killed at Religious School in Jerusalem
8 Israelis were killed today and scores more were wounded when Palestinian gunmen attacked a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. One of the attackers reportedly wore a suicide bomb belt which he failed to detonate. From being seemingly close to ending last year the Israel-Palestine conflict is returning to the levels of bloodshed we saw in its darkest days when the second Intifada was launched and suicide bombings were almost a weekly occurrence.
The school shooting was obviously a revenge attack for the Israeli onslaught that killed over 120 Palestinians, a quarter of them children in Gaza. The operation ended in the main at the weekend, but has continued sporadically from the air as rockets continue to be fired from Gaza.
U.K. Government's Apparent Climb-down on ID Cards
The British government today announced that carrying a biometric ID card is not going to be compulsory for British citizens after all. Airport staff will have to carry them first, immigrants from outside the EU will be next and students will pretty soon be encouraged to carry them. The government said of its apparent climb-down that passports could instead carry the biometric data. Channel 4 news wonders if it is really a climb down or an attempt to introduce the ID cards by stealth.
ID cards have proven to be one of the most controversial policies the current British government has attempted to put in place, and as Brits are already the most heavily watched citizens in the world it is little wonder the plan had people screaming at further reduction of their civil liberties in what is supposedly the free world.
Nicaragua Severs Ties with Columbia, Mounting Regional Tensions
The situation in Latin America worsened today when Nicaragua's President Ortega severed ties with Columbia in a motion of solidarity with their Ecuadoran allies. The statement comes after the Organisation of American States passed a resolution that was supposed to go some way towards easing the tensions. Tensions started by the Columbian army launching an unauthorised cross border raid into Ecuador and killing seventeen anti-Columbian rebels.
Nicaragua now joins sides with Ecaudor and Venezuela, the latter having sent troops and tanks to its border with Columbia just a day after the raid. The common belief is that Columbia would have U.S. support in the event of any attack.
