"The attorney-general, with the agreement of the state attorney, reached the conclusion that there is sufficient prima facie evidence to indict the president," the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

The scandal erupted last year when several former staffers filed complaints with police, accusing Katsav of sex crimes. The ministry said an indictment would include the charge of raping one of the four women who accused Katsav of sexual assault.

In the statement, Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz gave Katsav a last chance to present legal arguments before a final draft of the indictment, proposing a hearing at which he promised to hear the president's response with an "open heart and a willing soul".

Asked on Channel 10 television if Katsav intended to resign, his lawyer, Sharon Nahari, said: "I think it is too early to say. What is important is that this is a very difficult day for Israel. We hope all will become clear after the hearing."

The ministry said a date for the hearing would be set soon.

While serving as president, Katsav can be put on trial only if he is impeached by parliament. He has said he would suspend himself from office if indicted.

Katsav has been president since 2000 and is due to stand down in July.

A coalition of businesses and environmental groups on Monday called for federal legislation to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In a letter to President Bush a day before his State of the Union Address, the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) advocated a "cap and trade" system, in which companies whose emissions exceed mandatory limits could buy credits from companies that produce less pollution. "This approach will ensure emission reduction targets will be met while simultaneously ... stimulating investment and innovation in the technologies that will be necessary to achieve our environmental goal," USCAP wrote in A Call for Action, a 16-page report released by the group Monday. Specifically, USCAP recommended that Congress set short-term and long-term targets for cutting emissions, ranging from a 10 percent reduction within 10 years to as much as 80 percent by 2050.

Scientific research suggests that man-made greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. USCAP's 14 members include large corporations such as Alcoa, BP America, DuPont and General Electric as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the World Resources Institute [advocacy websites]. Its report is the culmination of a year-long effort. White House press secretary Tony Snow responded to the USCAP proposal  during his daily briefing, noting that although Bush opposes mandatory CO2 limits, he will discuss alternatives to fossil fuels in his address to Congress on Tuesday. AP has more. C-SPAN has recorded video of the USCAP press conference.

Monday's opinion faulted plaintiffs for making "no compelling reason" for the Court to depart from Eldred's holding and explained the Court's stance on copyright term duration as determined by weighing the impetus provided to authors by longer terms against the benefit provided to the public by shorter terms. That weighing is left to Congress, subject to rationality review. The CTEA also retroactively extended statutory copyright protection by another 20 years beyond the original term of the author's life plus 50 years, thus decreasing the number of works entering the public domain. Ownership of orphan works is often difficult to determine, and archives such as Google, Yahoo!, and academic libraries have lobbied for less stringent copyright laws in order to increase the amount of information open to the public domain.

Ramadan lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano argued Sunday that the Appeals Chamber improperly relied on Article 24 of the IHT statute when directing the trial chamber to increase Ramadan's sentence.