■ Bush anti-terror message stalled by sex scandal. President George W. Bush?s campaign strategy of painting Democrats as soft on terrorism has been stalled by a congressional sex scandal, jeopardizing Republican hopes of holding the House of Representatives, analysts say. Analysts said the timing of the scandal, a month before the November 7 elections, could be trouble for Republicans who already have been feeling heat from voters over the Iraq war. After a difficult summer of bad headlines out of Iraq, Bush appeared to be getting his footing in the weeks surrounding the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. But right now, the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who sent sexual messages to teen-aged congressional aides, is burning up the air waves. Panicked Republicans are fearful of losing control of the House and possibly even the Senate. Democrats need only 15 seats to command the House for the first time since they were shoved out in 1994.

■ Israel seeks to shoot down rockets with rockets. Two Israeli arms firms are developing systems that would use miniature rockets to shoot down the rockets favored by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militants, security sources said yesterday. Rafael?s ?David?s Shield? and Israel Military Industries? ?Magic Shield? would use radars to detect incoming Katyusha-sized rockets as well as their launchers. The latter data would be used to direct retaliatory fire at rocket crews. In parallel, the Defense Ministry may revive a Nautilus, a laser-beam missile-killer that its Mafat unit developed with U.S. arms firm Northrop Grumman in the 1990s but shelved for budget reasons. Israeli media have also reported Defense Ministry interest in Skyshield, a rapid-fire cannon made by U.S. arms firm Lockheed Martin that could shred incoming rockets mid-air.

■ North Korea warns catastrophe after border incident. North Korea warned of catastrophic consequences yesterday if South Korea?s military engaged in ?unforgivable military provocation? like the weekend skirmish at a heavily fortified border between the two Koreas. South Korean troops fired warning shots on Saturday after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed over the border, adding to mounting tension after Pyongyang said on Wednesday it planned to conduct a nuclear test. The North Korean soldiers retreated without returning fire, the office of the South?s Joint Chiefs of Staff had said. KCNA said North Korean soldiers were executing ?normal? military duties on its side of the border when South Korean guards fired 60 machine gun shots at them.

■ Britain may loosen Internet gambling law. Britain may bring in legislation allowing London-listed Internet gambling companies to move their headquarters to Britain, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. The paper said it had seen documents in which the government said the move would provide Britain?s online gamblers with ?a safe, well-regulated environment?. The paper also said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had been lobbying the Treasury to introduce a favorable tax regime for online gambling companies.

■ Turk PM raps French genocide bill, warns businesses. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has added his voice to a growing chorus of Turkish protests over French plans to make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered ?genocide? at the hands of Ottoman Turks in World War One. The French parliament is due to discuss the bill, proposed by the Socialist opposition, on October 12. Turkey strongly denies charges that some 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of Ottoman Turks in a systematic genocide, saying large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan conflict raging at that time. ?What will you do when Turkey?s prime minister goes to France and says ?there was no Armenian genocide?? Are you going to put him in prison?? the state Anatolian news agency quoted Erdogan as telling a group of French businessmen in Istanbul. Large French companies including Renault and Carrefour have large investments in Turkey, which has a fast-growing economy and is a candidate to join the European Union. Total bilateral trade amounted to nearly 10 billion dollars in 2005. Recognition of the Armenian ?genocide? is not a condition of its EU membership, though some EU politicians including French President Jacques Chirac have suggested it should be.