Israelis protest over Lebanon war

Tens of thousands of Israelis are rallying in Tel Aviv, calling for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to quit over his handling of last year's Lebanon war.

Demonstrators filled Rabin Square three days after an official interim report sharply criticised Mr Olmert's role in launching and running the war.
Followers of political parties from across Israel's often bitter political divides were attending the rally.
Mr Olmert says he will stay in office and implement the report's proposals.
But on stage in Tel Aviv a large banner carried a message directly aimed at the country's leaders: "You failed, go home."
They were elected to bring hope and all they brought is disappointment
Shevah SalnerProtester
Organisers, who said 100,000 protesters were at the event, banned politicians from taking to the stage, but said politicians from all parties were welcome in the crowd.
"There are no politicians here, but this is a political event," said Uzi Dayan, a retired general and one of the organisers.
Olmert 'weak'
Many people in the crowd made clear the widespread anger at the government's handling of the 34-day conflict with Hezbollah militants.
"All this government needs to go - including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert," one protester, Shevah Salner, told the BBC in the square.

Views from Tel Aviv protesters
They were elected to bring hope and all they brought is disappointment."
The prime minister's aides say he will not be moved by opinion polls or rallies, the BBC's Tim Franks reports from Tel Aviv.
There are some who say Mr Olmert can draw strength from the fact he remains in office today, our correspondent says.
But, he adds, the Israeli prime minister's position does remain weak.
Edan Mehallel, 16, from the northern city of Haifa, told the Associated Press he lived through Hezbollah rocket attacks and had come to make a difference.
"The more people there are, the more influence the demonstration will have," he said.
Knesset support
Earlier, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, held an extraordinary session to debate the report's findings.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu called for Mr Olmert to resign, but Kadima MPs backed the prime minister and a vote of no-confidence was not held.
The report, issued after a six-month investigation led by retired judge Eliahu Winograd, accused Mr Olmert of "serious failure in exercising judgement, responsibility and prudence".
On Wednesday Mr Olmert's own Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, called for the prime minister to resign, offering to stand as his replacement.
Defence Minister Amir Peretz and the former military Chief of Staff Dan Halutz were also heavily criticised by the report.
The inquiry, commissioned by Mr Olmert, did not explicitly call for resignations.

US, Iranian officials exchange greetings

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt, May 3 (UPI) -- Amid very tense relations and a complex war ravaging in Iraq, the top U.S. diplomat for the first time exchanged greetings with her Iranian counterpart.

Officials attending a conference on Iraq in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheik resort Thursday said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met at the same lunch gathering hosted by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit told reporters Rice and Mottaki only "exchanged pleasantries" over lunch, and U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack added that the two only "said hello, that's about it."

Though few words were exchanged, they nevertheless were at the highest level between the two countries, which have not had diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and whose relations have been deteriorating over Iran's role in war-torn Iraq and Tehran's nuclear program.

The additional significance of this non-political greeting on the sidelines of a political, economic forum of Iraq's friends and neighbors in the Egyptian Red Sea resort is that it came shortly after Rice met with Foreign Minister Walid Moallem of Syria, a staunch Iran ally that has been another thorn in Washington's side.
A high-level Egyptian diplomat told United Press International the two met to discuss Syria's role in tightening its borders with Iraq against infiltrating anti-U.S. fighters, and to discuss the easing of its influence on the Hezbollah-led opposition in Lebanon, a country gripped by a political crisis.

This has been the first U.S.-Syrian meeting of its kind in years, as Arab analysts see the Bush administration might be, after all, heeding some of the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report that proposed engaging Syria and Iran in a dialogue to resolve the Iraq crisis and the Middle East conflict.

Rice Meets Syria Minister in Highest Talks Since 2005

By Daniel Williams

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met privately for 30 minutes with Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, opening talks with a Middle East adversary that the Bush administration had long rejected.
No similar talks will be held with officials from Iran, another country at odds with the United States, Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said in a briefing to reporters.

``Syria clearly says stability in Iraq is in their interest, but actions speak louder than words,'' Rice told reporters after the meeting. ``We have to see how this develops. We don't want to have difficult relations with Syria. There needs to be a better basis for relations, concrete steps that show on the Iraq issue that there will actually be action.''
The last high-level meeting took place in January 2005, between then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

Al-Moallem stayed away from the morning session of the conference, and when he arrived in mid-afternoon, was ushered quickly into a meeting room with Rice, a U.S. State Department official said.
``We talked about Iraqi border issues and bilateral relations,'' al-Moallem told reporters as he left the discussion. ``This meeting is only a start. We hope the Americans are serious because we in Damascus are serious.''
Rice said the meeting with al-Moallem was ``professional,'' adding, ``I didn't lecture him, and he didn't lecture me.''
U.S. Accusations

The Bush administration has accused Syria of facilitating the passage of anti-U.S. fighters and terrorists into Iraq. The administration also implicated Syria in a series of assassinations in Lebanon, including the 2005 car-bomb killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Hariri had been pressing for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the end of the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

Talks yesterday between Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnous and Rice's Iraq policy coordinator, David Satterfield, heralded today's meeting, Syria's official SANA news agency said.

In effect, the Bush administration has gone part way toward complying with one of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group chaired last year by former Secretary of State James A. Baker. The bipartisan committee advised that the U.S. talk with Syria and Iran about pacifying Iraq.
`Ostrich Policy'

In Washington, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee praised Rice for meeting with her Syrian counterpart.

``This is a marked improvement in the administration's ostrich policy approach, and a tacit admission of how wrong it was last month in criticizing the speaker of the House and congressional colleagues, including myself, for going to Damascus,'' Representative Tom Lantos of California said in a statement.
Crocker, the ambassador to Iraq, was vague about whether more bilateral talks with Syria will be held. ``It's going to be an evolving situation,'' he said.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice exchanged greetings with Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki today, and that no policy issues were discussed.
The administration has accused military elements in Iran of arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq, while stopping short of saying that the Iranian leadership is directing the effort.
Crocker said that neither ``we nor the Iranians are actively seeking a bilateral meeting here.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Williams in Sharm el-Sheik at

dwilliams41@bloomberg.net . Last Updated: May 3, 2007 14:36 EDT

The Parisian train has not had time to brake at station

After the arrival on East station of Paris the passenger train from Chateau-Thierry has not had time to brake in time and ran into the buffer established in the end of a way, transfers agency Reuters.

Incident has occured on Thursday, on April, 5th. Though impact was not strong, easy wounds were received by 71 passenger. 58 person have been sent in hospitals.

Victims have got off bruises, dislocations and stretchings. At one passenger the nose, but as a whole of anything terrible " is broken, - summarized an event Michel Cros, the press-secretary of the Parisian firemen to which in France carrying out of saving operations also is assigned.

" All over again we thought, that there was an accident, however, fortunately, anybody seriously has not suffered ", - it has added. The train ran into the buffer on small speed.

Microsoft will attach keyboard to Xbox 360

The Company Microsoft will release the additional keyboard module for controller Xbox, communicates on put Gizmodo.com. The Device is intended for use in service of the instant messages Windows Live Messenger, which will be an available owner to consoles by springtime 2007.

To internet-Pager will possible be connected with already existing account writing the service Windows Live Messenger with conservation of the list contact. The Users of the attachment will be able to communicate during play or viewing film, at set of the messages will be realized by means of screen or USB-keyboards. Also support чата is declared with six times participant simultaneously.

Spring updating for Xbox 360 also will include function of uploading of a content in the background mode, disconnecting the most part of modules of the console (except for network connection and a hard disk) during transfer of the information.

48 Hrs.

Police (Nolti) hunts for run from prison bandit-psychopath (Remar), which, in turn, hunts for lad, knowing, where lies the large amount of the money - a mining the robbery. To leave on trace of the murderer, Nolti вытаскивет from prison for fourty eight hours loquacious black man co-owner of this amount (Merfi), which at all does not want to his(its) подельник lost these dollars. So police and criminal become for some time pertner. Tense and funny situation is enough. One of the best comedy hit about police and бандитов.