“The stakes are too high, the pain too deep, and the issues too complex”

This article is one of few that is giving a realistic approach of what is actually going on regarding a peace process between Palestine and Israel. The fact is that Israel will never give up what it has already gained. The settlements and the walls they have built that isolate every village across the West Bank is a clear indication. The ten month settlement freeze was just another act to the international community to distract from other cases Israel was being critiqued of such as the ship raids. It is just another real politik play by Israel.

As for the Palestinians, they are becoming restless, slowly but surely there will come a time that will lead to collision between the two groups…and I doubt there will be enough international power to bring peace in the region once it’s destabilized. As Secretary Hillary Clinton said, “the stakes are too high, the pain too deep, and the issues too complex” and that’s too true. If there is going to be anything serious that the U.S. wants to achieve in that region, it needs to get its act together and seriously push the two groups towards serious things, the same way Kissinger did when he was the secretary of state.

a Bulgarian woman plans to deliver a baby whose biological mother is an anonymous European egg donor, whose father is Italian, and whose birth is being orchestrated from Los Angeles.

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Illustration by Edel Rodriguez for The Wall Street Journal

She won’t be keeping the child. The parents-to-be—an infertile Italian woman and her husband (who provided the sperm)—will take custody of the baby this summer, on the day of birth.

The birth mother is Katia Antonova, a surrogate. She emigrated to Greece from Bulgaria and is a waitress with a husband and three children of her own. She will use the money from her surrogacy to send at least one of her own children to university.

Mr. Rupak is a pioneer in a controversial field at the crossroads of reproductive technology and international adoption. Prospective parents put off by the rigor of traditional adoptions are bypassing that system by producing babies of their own—often using an egg donor from one country, a sperm donor from another, and a surrogate who will deliver in a third country to make what some industry participants call “a world baby.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703493504576007774155273928.html

Kenya is an example of this. An African country that has been more or less stable and has maintained power in the region, it has interesting concern in US foriegn policy. Before reading some of these links i knew only that kenya was home to lions, giraffes, hippos, and an effective AIDS programme. Kenya is also a nation with a share of questionable dealings and corruption. Here are some of the diplomatic cables wikileaks released from the american ambassador to kenya:

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/01/10NAIROBI59.html

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/10/08NAIROBI2290.html

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/02/10NAIROBI181.html

Some of the US’s foreign policy objectives are obvious here. First is the US interest in principles; fight against corruption, and the “culture of impunity” obvious in the Kenyan government. The US has its concerns also with Kenya’s democratic process. Second are US interests in Peace; Sudan has been supplying the Southern Sudanese with arms to fight the oppressive Sudanese government. This has changed however, given that the Sudanese government in the north has more recently decided to allow Southern Sudan to secede. The US was opposed to Kenya’s exporting of arms and its support of the liberation front, mainly because of the possibility for a breakdown of peace to occur. Finally the US is concerned with Power in the Chinese presence in Kenya. The Chinese have been supplying arms and intelligence to Kenya via a corrupt official, and the US is wary of this, and would like it to stop.

Once again, Haiti has erupted in violence due to false election results. Understandably though because in many places people were unable to vote due to centers closing early, fear of violence, actual violence and many other reasons. A majority of the candidates wanted the election results annuled, but results were announced and violent protests ensued.

The Haitian government can either distort election results to maintain the status quo or deal with incredible amounts of violence in this poverty stricken country. With all it has to deal with, natural disasters, an inheritance of violence and opposition and a desperately poor population it makes more sense to me that the government should just give the people better elections. In the millions of dollars in aid money that goes to Haiti, I feel that they should just use as much of it as they need to set up elections with enough protection for the people to vote and enough resources so everyone can vote. This way the people get what they want, they avoid violence and maybe a better leader actually comes into power. Peace, prosperity and even principles are desperate odds with Power here if we are to apply the 4 P’s in analyzing Haiti right now.

Many people are criticizing the violence happening in Haiti, but of course they’re protesting. It’s all they’ve known in over 200 years of being an independent state. Furthermore they have very little experience with democracy. The people are incredibly poor and have been for years, foreign aid seems to be doing little especially with all the natural disasters hitting Haiti, they’re desperate they literally have little to lose. The government should realize all of this, and attempt to put down the violence not through repression, but through new elections. Furthermore, it would probably make the country a little more stable, which would attract foreign investment which is arguably what Haiti needs more than aid, but that’s another subject altogether.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Police say the death toll from a car bomb outside a hospital in northwestern Pakistan has climbed to 10.

Police official Islam Gul says Friday’s bombing partially damaged a Shiite hospital that was under construction in the Pass Kili area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Hangu district.

Senior government official Khalid Khan Omarzai says several people were also wounded in the blast.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704457604576011181137673742.html

John M. Koenig, the American deputy chief of mission in Berlin, issued a pointed warning in February 2007 urging that Germany “weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.” in the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent. Mr. Masri said he was held in a secret United States prison in Afghanistan and tortured before his captors acknowledged their mistake and let him go. …

Mr. Masri was seized on Dec. 31, 2003, as he entered Macedonia while on vacation; border security guards confused him with an operative of Al Qaeda with a similar name. He says he was turned over to the C.I.A., which flew him to Afghanistan, where he says he was tortured, sodomized and injected with drugs. After five months, he was dropped on a roadside in Albania. No charges were brought against him.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/world/europe/09wikileaks-elmasri.html?_r=1

Mr. Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the delivery was evidence that last week’s assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist and the wounding of another in mysterious bombings won’t hamper Iran’s nuclear progress.

“Today, we witnessed the shipment of the first domestically produced yellowcake … from Gachin mine to the Isfahan nuclear facility,” said Mr. Salehi, whose comments were broadcast live on state television.

Iran is under four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions that forbid the supply of nuclear materials to Tehran. In 2009, Western nations claimed Iran was running out of raw uranium for its nuclear program. Tehran issued denials but, whatever the truth, has in recent years sought to extract uranium from its own deposits.

Iran acquired a considerable stock of yellowcake from South Africa in the 1970s under the former U.S.-backed shah’s original nuclear program, as well as unspecified quantities of yellowcake obtained from China long before the U.N. sanctions.

Mr. Salehi, who is also the country’s vice president, said the step meant Iran was now self-sufficient over the entire nuclear fuel cycle—from extracting uranium ore to enriching it and producing nuclear fuel.

So finally after such a long silence, Iran has mined its own uranium. Who does Iran’s neighbors feel about this, now that it’s no big secret anymore? Will this be an opportunity for other groups to know where they can get parts for nukes?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703814404576000803936276700.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories