Unbeknownst to the main stream media, the remarks by President Obama concerning the recently disclosed nuclear plant being constructed at Qum were written the night Bibi Netanyahu addressed the UN and told the world that he would not accept the President’s desire to halt construction of settlements on Palestinian land. In fact, Netanyahu told the President that Israel had no intentions of seeking peace with the Palestinians.
It comes as something of an embarrassment to one, who prides himself on a certain independence of spirit, that I can so completely agree with anyone as much as I agree with Gore Vidal. Whenever I read his essays or hear him in interviews, I find myself in accord with nearly everything he says—even those things I do not always have the courage to express myself. His outrageous opinions cannot be matched by anyone on the scene today.
On Thursday, 22 Democratic congress members introduced a bill to deny funding to any escalation of war in Afghanistan, and 60 Democratic senators voted that Congress should not even speak to a general about that war until after the president has decided whether to escalate it. These two actions come out of very different understandings of war powers.
In the last two days, I attended two conferences, one in An-Najah National University in Nablus on American Studies in Palestine and one at Al-Quds University on the future of Palestine. The first was an interesting conference that showed there are so many Palestinians in different universities here who were educated in the US and who understand perfectly well how the US system works (sometimes their ideas are deeper and more relevant to US future than American Professors) and what it takes to change US foreign policy. The second conference was rather timely.
Rescuers are continuing to dig through the rubble of collapsed buildings on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, several days after a deadly earthquake struck the region, but officials say hopes of finding survivors alive are rapidly diminishing.
Typhoon Parma is battering the northern Philippines, toppling trees and cutting off power and telephone lines, as its rains threatened to bring more misery to millions of flood survivors in the country.
Barack Obama, the US president, has agreed to abide by a 40-year policy of allowing Israel to keep nuclear weapons without opening them to international inspection, according to a US newspaper.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) not to accept the findings of a UN report into Israel's war on Gaza because of fears it might scupper attempts to restart peace talks, Palestinian sources say.
News_Alerts 
Rescuers are continuing to dig through the rubble of collapsed buildings on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, several days after a deadly earthquake struck the region, but officials say hopes of finding survivors alive are rapidly diminishing.
Typhoon Parma is battering the northern Philippines, toppling trees and cutting off power and telephone lines, as its rains threatened to bring more misery to millions of flood survivors in the country.
