Generally speaking you would imagine that Pope Benedict XVI, not known as a stupid man, would approach comments about Palestinian terrorism very carefully. The Catholic Church's relationship to Israel is delicate at best, and at worst non-existent, as was the case before diplomatic relations were re-established in 1993. And Ratzinger is surely bright enough to realize that as a German, any clumsy remarks he makes about the Jewish state will have especially fractious results.

But none of that has stopped him releasing comments which, diplomatically speaking, are not terribly far away from giving Israel a very un-Catholic middle finger. During mass on Sunday the Church's leader created a furor in Israel by missing out the suicide bombings in Netanja, which on July 12 killed five people, when he condemned the recent attacks in London, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq.

While this could have been forgiven as a clumsy oversight -- after all the pontiff can't be expected to include all the horrors of the world in one sermon -- it's what has come since then that has really incensed the Israeli government. Rather than simply condemning all terrorism, the Vatican released a subsequent statement saying that it is impossible to publicly condemn every attack on Israel because the state reacts to bombings in a way which is not compatible with international law. This is presumably a reference to attacks on Palestinian homes which Israeli troops would often carry out after a suicide bombing before the ceasefire in February.

For a slick operation the Vatican says some pretty unslick things. And this is one of them. For many the Pope's words are being interpreted as tantamount to an acceptance of attacks on Israel.

What is particularly frustrating is that Benedict XVI is destroying everything that John Paul II achieved by bravely getting down on his knees, in Jerusalem in 2000, to beg for forgiveness for the harm done to Jews by the Church. (3:10 p.m CET)

Not So Stiff Upper-Lip

Anyone who has lived in London knows that if you commute to work every day on the city's creaking public transport, your journey is bound to be disrupted somehow. Over the last few weeks though, every time the train carriage gets stuck, the lights flicker or a station is closed, the irritated rolling of eyes has started to be replaced by nervous glances.

Since the failed second attacks, the capital's stoic resilience, which so impressed the world after the attacks of July 7, and which went down so well with journalists keen to write a tidy little story which fit people's conception of the stiff upper-lipped Brits, is being replaced by a more than sensible jitteriness as to when the next attack will come.

And also who is going to carry it out. The city is such an ethnic mix that it would be absurd to talk of nervousness every time a South Asian gets on a train. Yet, the CCTV picture of 18 year-old Hasib Mir Hussain on the way to Tavistock Square has become so ingrained in the public consciousness that it is unfortunately hard not to look twice at any young Pakistani man carrying a rucksack.

According to the German daily newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung people are, where they can, avoiding public transport all together. And sales of bicycles have doubled over the past three weeks. Even the streets are emptier, with one association of 600 retailers in Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street reporting a drop in turnover of 17 percent.

Although "emptier" is of course relative -- compared to most cities London is still positively bursting. But by the capital's own overpopulated standards it appears that, given the choice, many people are opting to stay out of the city center. And although the police have massively increased their visible presence, most Londoners are slowly realizing just how vulnerable they are and that no amount of British phlegm can help prevent the next attack. (1:30 p.m. CET)

A Peaceful IRA?

After 30 years of attacks the IRA announced on Thursday that they would stop all use of violence. The statement was welcomed by Tony Blair as "a step of unparalleled magnitude," saying that it is what everybody has "striven for and worked for throughout the eight years since the Good Friday Agreement."

Over the last few decades the terrorist group, which called for a united Ireland and an end to the British presence in Northern Ireland, have killed an estimated 1,800 people. Since the 26.5 million pound bank robbery in December and the killing of Robert McCartney in January, the IRA has been under increased pressure to end violence.

Unsurprisingly, Ian Paisley, who as virulent leader of the protestant DUP party has rarely been a placating force in the peace process, was skeptical. "We will judge the IRA's bona fides over the next months and years based on its behavior and activity." (11:35 a.m. CET)

"Give Yourself Up," Pleads Karadzic's Wife

Speculation as to where former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has fled to, has become as ubiquitous as sightings of Elvis. Was that him with his wife Ljiljana in south-eastern Bosnia in May and then again with his brother Luka in Belgrade? Or is there another grumpy-looking bloke with a Liberace hair-do spending time with the fugitive's Missus?

No-one is quite sure, but Mrs. Karadzic has had enough of being hassled by police to reveal the whereabouts of one of the world's most wanted men -- on Thursday she dragged in the Bosnian Serb TV cameras to her home and made an appeal to surrender to the United Nations war crimes tribunal.

According to the BBC she opened her plea with the words "this is a message to my husband, Radovan Karadzic. I have to address you this way because there is no other way." Presumably when they got together in May, as some people suspect they did, they had so many other things to catch up on that there was no time to discuss the minor issue of surrendering to international law.

"Our family is under constant pressure from all sides," she continued. "We are being threatened in every way, our lives and our property. We are living in a constant atmosphere of concern, pain and suffering. "That is why, between loyalty to you and loyalty to our children and grandchildren, I had to choose and I have chosen.

"I find it painful and hard to ask you, but I beg you with all my heart and soul to surrender. That will be a sacrifice for us, for our family.

"In the hope that you are alive and that you are free to make the decision yourself, I beg you to make the decision and do it for all our sakes. In all my helplessness and my weakness, the only thing that I can do is beg you."

Karadzic is accused of genocide in the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995. He has been on the run for the past eight years -- and for most of that time international security authorities have had their sights on his family, even pulling his son in for questioning for ten days in July.