It has hardly been worth the effort. In fields targeted by the Israeli air force, the burnt land can scarcely support a harvest and the return is expected to be very low.
“They’ve poisoned our land. Nothing can be done, not even with fertiliser. Where we used to harvest 20 kilogrammes, we are not getting more [...]

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A former U.S. ambassador explains how both countries worked to rebuild their long-standing friendship in the wake of 9-11.
Why things got better
The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia has improved in many ways during the past three years, and not just on the security front. It is a significant but not well-known success story in the [...]

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According to Israeli intelligence analysts, Syrian patience will hold out until early 2009. Assad is counting on a Democratic White House lifting the embargo on Syria and convincing Israel to renew negotiations. By then, Syria will have completed its arms procurement program, and Iran may also have completed its nuclear program. On the other hand, [...]

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SYDNEY (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s flurry of meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders here in recent days inspired the inevitable headline in at least one Australian daily: “The Russians Are Coming.”
On the sidelines of a regional summit along with 20 other world leaders, Putin had a slightly different message: the Russians are here to [...]

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What’s so nefarious about Jews exercising their right to speech?
A crop of Israel’s critics–most prominently Jimmy Carter and now Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”–have managed something of a feat: They express no concerns about the massive pro-Arab effort, funded in significant measure by foreign oil [...]

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VIENNA, Austria — Chief nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei is coming under intense pressure for his handling of the Iran file, with the United States and key allies accusing him of overstepping his authority, diplomats said Sunday.
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Pakistan remains big buyer, but from artillery systems to missiles, combat aircraft to guns and ammo, Dhaka now tops China’s list of importers; India’s only export: six anti-aircraft guns to Lanka in ‘05
NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 8:While Islamabad remains Beijing’s traditional business partner when it comes to weapons and military equipment, it’s Dhaka that’s emerging as [...]

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Daniel Yergin’s first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there, The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of [...]

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Syrian military has chemical weapons but won’t be quick to use them.
In December 1991, then IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak stated that Syria’s chemical capability “is greater than that of Iraq.” Two plants manufacturing chemical weapons are located in Allepo in northern Syria, and Scud missiles armed with chemical weapons are deployed in al-Safir [...]

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Israel’s Ambassador to UN: This was first all-out war between secular democracy and fanatic regime.
The Second Lebanon war was a confrontation between Israel and Iran, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman said Sunday morning during an international conference on counter-terrorism in Herzliya.
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UNITED NATIONS – Syria is racheting up its war rhetoric, declaring it will have quick but unspecified “series of responses” to what it said was an infringement of its air space last week by Israel, while Jerusalem stuck to its uncharacteristic policy of not addressing the incident.
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Best of all, Opec now knows that it can count on Vladimir Putin to help it in two ways – one intentional, the other unintentional. Putin will cooperate with Opec because high oil prices make it easier for him both to provide Russia’s people with butter and his military with guns. He is also inadvertently [...]

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Like all empires before it, the U.S. will slip from the top of the heap. Let’s start getting ready.
In Washington these days, people talk a lot about the collapse of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus that existed during the Cold War. But however bitter today’s disputes are about Iraq or the prosecution of the so-called [...]

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In theory, the administration ought to derive a political benefit from this: The president has “kept America safe.” But, in practice, the placidity of the domestic front diminishes the chosen rationale of the conflict: if a “war on terror” has no terror, who says there’s a war at all? That’s the argument of the left [...]

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Those sources say Syria has mobilized armored, missile, air crews and air defense units - partly in readiness for repeats of alleged Israeli incursions of Syrian airspace and partly in response to the partial call-up in Israel which began beginning last Thursday, Sept 6. The Syrian armed forces are on full alert.
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China for the first time became Iran’s biggest trade partner in 2006, replacing Japan, according to customs-cleared trade and other data.
This shows China, facing growing energy demand, is deepening its economic relationship with oil-rich Iran at a time when Japanese companies are refraining from new investment in the Middle Eastern country under U.N. sanctions over [...]

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