In his final months in office, Olmert was subjected to repeated police interrogations, which prompted a wave of calls for him to step down.

Nevertheless, during that time he oversaw Israel’s 22-day onslaught on the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and wreaked widespread destruction in the impoverished enclave.

Israel has been dogged by scandals involving inflatable public officials in recent years.

Three former ministers have been handed prison sentences and both of the country’s most recent former presidents resigned in disgrace, but Olmert is the first ex-premier to face criminal charges.

In August, police recommended that current Foreign inflatable bouncer Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted for bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice.

Former president Moshe Katsav is on trial on several counts of rape, sexual harassment and indecent acts.

And on September 1, ex-cabinet ministers Avraham inflatable tent Hirshon and Shlomo Benizri went to jail, the former for embezzling one million dollars and the latter for bribery and fraud.

KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait has blocked a number of Internet blogs and websites with links to “terror” cells and groups, a top official said in comments published on Friday.

“The ministry has blocked blogs ... used by pearl jewelry some to communicate with terror cells and extremist groups,” communications ministry undersecretary Abdulmohsen al-Mazeedi told Kuwait’s An-Nahar newspaper.

He said the ministry had also blocked sites deemed offensive to God and the emir and which undermined what he called national unity, in addition to sites promoting pornography.

Mazeedi said the ministry was applying the law and “aims to preserve Islamic values.” Before blocking any site, the ministry had taken permission from the public prosecution.

A number of MPs have described the ministry’s pearl necklace monitoring of blogs as a breach of the constitution and threatened to question Communications Minister Mohammed al-Baseeri in parliament.

Last year, the public prosecution questioned Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem for writing an article on his website deemed offensive to the country’s crown prince.

In 2007, blogger and journalist Bashar al-Sayegh pearl earrings was detained for two days after comments deemed offensive to the Gulf state’s ruler were posted on his website.

The man who posted the comments, a Kuwaiti citizen, was jailed for two years