The New York Times is reporting Jordan is worried that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will force all of the Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan under the cover of a U.S. war in Iraq. King Abdullah II and his advisers are asking the Bush administration to assure this will not happen. They’re also asking for help in securing a cheap flow of oil, which the country now buys at preferential prices from Iraq. Abdullah said recently he would use troops to prevent Palestinians from entering. The Jordanian information minister also recently suggested Jordan will use troops to keep Iraqi refugees fleeing a war from entering the country. Around half of Jordan’s 5 million people are Palestinians, and as many as 400,000 are Iraqis. An influx of refugees during an unpopular war could destabilize the monarchy.

The Saudi foreign minister indicated this weekend Saudi Arabia will let the U.S. use its military bases for an attack on Iraq if the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution backing military action. Saudi Arabia’s U-turn comes as family members of those killed in the September 11 attacks are expected to release a new list linking senior members of the House of Saud to al-Qaeda. Family members are suing senior Saudis for involvement in the September 11 attacks. According to The Scotsman, Prince Saud has already traveled to London to ask Prime Minister Tony Blair what steps can be taken to dispel the allegations. He’s said to have offered evidence aimed at implicating Iraq in September 11.

The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said Saturday Iraq will let United Nations weapons inspectors return only under a comprehensive agreement that would prevent an attack by the U.S. and if U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait are lifted.

The Scottish Sunday Herald is reporting a right-wing U.S. think tank called Project for the New American Century created a secret blueprint for President Bush’s Cabinet to attack Iraq in September of 2000, long before President Bush took power in January 2001 and long before the September 11 attacks. The blueprint was drawn up for Dick Cheney, now vice president; Donald Rumsfeld, now war secretary; Paul Wolfowitz, now Rumsfeld’s deputy; and Lewis Libby, now Cheney’s chief of staff. The plan suggests Bush’s Cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region, whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says, “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The blueprint also supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that says the U.S. must “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”

The Washington Post reported Sunday that U.S. and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a stake in Iraq’s oil reserves. Iraq has some 112 billion barrels of crude oil, the largest in the world outside Saudi Arabia. The importance of Iraq’s oil has made it potentially one of the Bush administration’s biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council. All five permanent members of the Security Council — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said, “It’s pretty straightforward. France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we’ll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them.” He said, “If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday the White House is quietly but quickly negotiating proposed free trade agreements with strategic allies, such as Morocco and Singapore, and is working on a new trade pact with Jordan. The agreements have flown largely under the radar of a press and public preoccupied with homeland security. In some cases, the trade talks have been dragging on for years, but the Bush administration is now more urgently pursuing closer economic ties with some Muslim states.

Two U.S. F-16 pilots have been charged with manslaughter over a so-called friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in which four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight others wounded. They are the first U.S. military personnel to be charged in the Afghanistan campaign, where there have been a series of mistaken attacks.

Five U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent were arrested in Lackawanna near Buffalo, New York, this weekend, and a sixth Yemeni has been detained since yesterday in the Gulf emirate of Bahrain. All six have been charged with providing material support to terrorist groups for allegedly attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan last year. The criminal complaint shows two men broke down in interrogations only last week. After months of denials, they said they had attended the Afghanistan camp. The Justice Department has found no evidence the men were involved in the 9/11 attacks, and have no evidence that they are planning to attack. The young men were well known in the Yemeni community in Lackawanna, and family members and friends have come out in their defense. A Yemeni man identified by Pakistani and U.S. law enforcement as a senior operative of al-Qaeda named Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan. Bin al-Shibh is believed to have played a key role in planning and carrying out the September 11 attacks.

Six days after the polls closed in Florida, election officials are still counting ballots in the much-contested Democratic gubernatorial primary. Bill McBride’s lead over former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno was cut by a quarter over the weekend, but with certified results due Tuesday, McBride is still expected to be victorious. After the 2000 presidential election debacle, the Florida Legislature passed a package of election reforms and gave local officials $32 million to prepare for the 2002 elections. Reno blamed new computerized machines for missing hundreds, if not thousands, of votes.

The New York Times is reporting that for the first time in six years, the annual federal report on air pollution trends has no section on global warming. The decision to take out the section was made by top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency with approval by the White House. Environmental groups say the omission reflects the administration’s close ties with industry, and lobbyists for the oil and coal industries are praising the decision.

The Mirarr Aborigines of northern Australia have won a five-year-long battle against British mining giant Rio Tinto. The company is abandoning its plans to develop a large uranium mine on the Mirarr’s land, following fierce opposition from Aboriginal representatives at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

The London Independent is reporting that Britain’s Department for International Development has quietly funded a $20 million program to create a new generation of genetically modified animals, crops and drugs throughout the developing world. The so far unpublicized program has financed research in more than 24 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe into at least 80 GM projects, ranging from long-life bananas to fast-growing pigs and fish, from disease-resistant rice to stopping tsetse flies carrying sleeping sickness. The scale of the long-running program has taken even experts by surprise, with one government adviser accusing the department of deceiving the public about the program.

MTV says it will not play Public Enemy’s new music video called “Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need,” because of its references to Mumia Abu-Jamal. It started a couple of weeks ago, when MTV told Chuck D that he had to take out all references to Mumia Abu-Jamal. He refused, and then they came back. They said he could refer to Mumia Abu-Jamal, but not say “Free Mumia.” Needless to say, Public Enemy will not be playing their music video on MTV.