The morning show Welcome to the Martha Wood Show. For the next 60 minutes we'll bring you news and commentary from all around the world. Experts in the cosmetic industry say that the Iranian nuclear programme is not what it claims to be. Is it true that heavy water can be used commercially as a deodorant? From Lebanon, a key Hezbollah official says that the party will hand over its arms, but not its kitchen utensils. As we all know, Israel said it will have to bomb Lebanon again unless the Iranian-backed terrorists give up all their kitchen utensils and start ordering out. In Saudi Arabia, a leading scholar has urged all Muslims to stop buying Marcello's Coffee, as the Napoli-based company allegedly contributed funds to Israel's war efforts. We'll be back after this short break. (Commercial spot: men in a tent drinking coffee). A major U.S. strategist may have defected to the Middle East. Nellie Hagobian, a 41 year old woman from Manhattan is said to have been a close associate of Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice before her sudden disappearance last July. A U.S. State Department official says Nellie was never a member of the U.S. administration, although she catered on occasion for the White House. With us here is Mark Daemon from the Downhill Centre for Strategic Studies. "Mark, what do you think of Nellie's disappearance? And is it true she's helping Muslims win the war? "This is a big story, Martha. Nellie was the one who persuaded Saddam to attack Iran almost 25 years ago, in what was perhaps the most successful coup in the history of American foreign policy. The Iraq-Iran war lasted for almost 8 years and virtually wrecked two very evil countries. So, we're talking about a heavy-weight strategist, not just someone who sells sandwiches on the White House lawn. "With Nellie gone, what will happen to our efforts to clean up the Middle East? "Again Martha, the Middle East is full of dangerous characters, and not all of them are heads of state. Actually, heads of state are the easy part. It's the small guys that are really scary. Take for example the Muslim Front for the Disruption of Transport, which is dead set on undermining all modern means of travel. Before her disappearance, Nellie had two or three agents infiltrate their ranks. She knew where they eat, where they shop, where they live, and what exactly makes them tick. And now that she's gone, months and months of surveillance efforts are lost. "To shed more light on Nellie's mysterious disappearance, we're joined from London by Michel Stuart, author of "What the Arabs Really Want. Michel, in your book you said that the Arabs want to destroy western freedom, and they're doing it in two ways, first by hampering travel possibilities, and secondly by bombing pizza parlours across the world. Where does Nellie fit in their unsavoury schemes? "Thank you Martha. The Arabs, as I said in my book, which has just been released by Couper & Couper, want to destroy the modern world as we know it. Before we invaded their countries and tried to modernise them a century or so ago, the Arabs lived in tents and travelled on camels or foot. The only thing that would improve the quality of life on this planet, from the Arab point of view, is the total absence of buildings and roads, as they obstruct their free movement and view of the stars, which they originally worshipped, as I also explained in my book. The Arabs, it is important to keep this in mind, are also resentful of modern armies, for they prefer hand-to-hand combat, with or without knives. This is why they resent the Americans and Israelis and their superior technology. The only part of western culture the Arabs truly admire is deodorant, as you tend to sweat a lot while marching on your next door tribe. This is why the Iranians are racing against time to produce what they call the "Islamic deodorant, a major part of their bid to control the region. "Let's go back to Nellie. If they get her, the Arabs are likely to torture her in unimaginable ways, don't you think? "I hate to speculate Martha, but torture is just as common across the Muslim world as falafel. Unless immediately ransomed, captives in that part of the world - and I hope Nellie is not one - may suffer a terrible fate. Nellie, to go back to your question, is a very attractive and bright woman. And she stands for everything the Arab patriarchal mind loathes. She's successful and beautiful. She's also brainy and weighs less than 300 pounds. Her energy and intelligence would be very threatening to the ordinary Muslim man. "You're saying the Muslims may snatch her out of sheer envy. "That's one possibility. The other possibility is they would want to try the new deodorant on a western woman of her calibre. Muslims are running out of oil and they need an alternative commodity with which to push the world around. Imagine if Nellie, who's known to be a great wine and cosmetics connoisseur, were to be persuaded - or even coerced - into helping them develop the ultimate deodorant. A franchise on an excellent deodorant could undermine western dominance for decades, if it falls in the wrong hands. Can you imagine what would happen if Nellie were to test the deodorant, or even endorse it? It would be worse than bombing a dozen planes over the Atlantic. We can strike back at terrorists. But how do you strike back at deodorant producers? There is no precedent in international law, not yet. After the break, Hezbollah sticks to its knives and forks. This is the Martha Wood Show, stay with us. (Commercial spot: woman on a desert safari promoting deodorant).
