* ‘Iran, Syria continuing nuke projects’ “Iran and Syria are secretly working on nuclear technology in a manner which risks peace in the region and the world.

* Clinton urges stronger China ties Hillary Clinton has called for a deeper US-China partnership, on her first overseas tour as US secretary of state.

* PA official: US has given green light for Hamas-Fatah talks The new US Administration has given the Palestinian Authority a “green light” to talk to Hamas about the possibility of forming a Palestinian unity government.

* Credit crunch plays into China’s shopping plans With the world suffering through a major credit crunch, China has suddenly gone shopping..

* Hamas gives Kerry letter to Obama Hamas official Ahmed Yousef on Saturday said he wrote a letter to US President Barack Obama, which was received by Senator John Kerry during a visit to Gaza.

* Kerry, Assad meet in Syria The United States and Syria are exploring the possibility of better relations after years of tension.

* Bibi: Let’s join hands in unity gov’t After the failure of his last-ditch effort to muster Kadima leader Tzipi Livni’s support for a unity government on Friday, President Shimon Peres formally entrusted Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu with the task of building a coalition.

* What is behind Turkey’s antagonism toward Israel? There are many different theories about Turkey’s increasingly harsh criticism of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.

* Israel responds to Lebanon rocket A rocket fired from Lebanon has lightly wounded three people in northern Israel.

* Hamas: Israel picked ‘most dangerous’ politician to lead it A Hamas spokesman on Friday said Israel had picked the “most extremist and most dangerous” to lead the country.

* Iran holds enough uranium for bomb Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb.

* Netanyahu to form Israel cabinet Mr Netanyahu said Israel faced “great challenges” including the global economic crisis and what he said was Iran’s wish to obtain nuclear weapons.

* Mitchell could support PA unity gov’t US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell expressed support for Egyptian efforts to forge a Palestinian national unity government.

* PA wants new gov’t to honor old pacts The Palestinian Authority’s official spokesman, Nabil Abu Rodaina, responded Friday to President Shimon Peres’ decision to charge Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu with the task of forming the next government.

* ‘Processed uranium found at Syrian site’ UN nuclear agency samples taken from a Syrian site suspected of being a secretly built reactor have revealed new traces of processed uranium.

* Clinton arrives for Chinese talks US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Beijing for wide-ranging talks with China’s leaders.

* Analysis: Turkey’s shift toward Iran, Syria is no short-term blip Last weekend, a conference held under the title “Gaza the victory” took place at hotel near Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.

* US will consider Russian missile defense concerns U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that Russian concerns will be taken into consideration as the Obama administration decides the fate of planned missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.

* Jews hail expulsion of Holocaust-denying bishop World Jewish leaders on Friday praised Argentina’s decision to order the expulsion of an ultra-traditionalist Catholic bishop who caused an international furore by denying the full extent of the Holocaust.

* Iraqi cleric hopes elections will help push out US A prominent anti-American Shiite cleric said Friday he hopes recent provincial elections will help unite Iraqis to push out the United States.

By: Sana Abdallah – Middle East Times

AMMAN — The Kurds in the northern autonomous region of Iraq are worried that the U.S. forces will leave the country without intervening in resolving key disputes with the central Baghdad government, amid warnings that the unresolved questions could erupt into an Arab-Kurdish war.

SCREWING UP — An Iraqi worker turning a valve at the Shirawa oil field outside the northern city of Kirkuk. A U.S. think tank has warned the Barack Obama administration of screwing up if it doesn’t move quickly to avert “violence and instability in Iraq” over the growing oil dispute in Kurdish territory. (AFP via Newscom)

The latest warning came Tuesday from the Kurdish regional government’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, who told reporters there “will be war” if Washington does not resolve the “outstanding problems in Iraq and help the Iraqis confront these problems.”

He said such a U.S. role should be part of what U.S. President Barack Obama describes as a “responsible withdrawal.”

Obama indicated he might pull out American troops from Iraq before the deadline set in a U.S.-Iraqi security pact, signed with the George W. Bush administration in November, which states that all the forces will quit Iraq by the end of 2011.

The Kurds, who set up their own autonomous region with U.S. help in 1991 under Saddam Hussein’s regime, are concerned that the Obama administration will not do enough to pressure the Arab-dominated central government to make concessions to the Kurds.

Barzani identified three main disputes that have been put on hold: Article 140 of the new constitution, the oil law, and the law on distribution of its oil wealth.

All these issues are linked to the status of Kirkuk, the center of northern Iraq’s oil industry that sits on 13 percent of the country’s known oil reserves.

Kirkuk is a mixed province, whose 900,000 people are made up of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Christians. The Kurds are seeking to annex it to their autonomous region, but the Arabs and Turkmen say the oil wealth is a national, not a regional, wealth and should therefore remain under the control of the central government.

The Kurds want to revoke what they see as the demographic distortion caused by Saddam’s “Arabization of Kirkuk” in the 1970s, during which thousands of Arab families were moved to the province and reportedly expelled Kurds from their homes to other regions to consolidate Arab control of the oil fields.

Many Kurds also have a historic claim to Kirkuk, describing it as their “historic capital” because of ruins in the area dating back thousands of years.

Resolving the thorny status of Kirkuk has been delayed, including Article 140 of the constitution that calls for a settlement of the territorial disputes dating back to the Arabization policies.

Plans to hold a referendum on the issue have been repeatedly delayed, namely because it seeks to remove Arab families who had been settled there under Saddam’s program from Kirkuk to their original home regions before carrying out a census, and then a referendum on whether the area should become part of the autonomous Kurdish region. The constitution set 2007 as a deadline to hold the referendum.

Kirkuk and the three northern Kurdish-controlled regions were not part of last month’s local elections. And Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab, seems to have consolidated his power when his candidates swept much of the polls.

Maliki has previously made it clear that the constitution gave too much power to the provinces and has called for amending it in a way that would give more authority to Baghdad.

In recent months, he has also moved Iraqi troops into areas claimed by the Kurds – something Kurdish leaders see as a warning from the central government that it seeks to spread its power across the entire country, threatening the autonomous status of the Kurdish region and weakening its claims over Kirkuk.

As for the clash on the oil law and distribution of oil wealth, the Kurdish regional government wants the freedom to develop its own oil fields, but Baghdad insists on a centralized national system – a dispute that has delayed the endorsement of the oil legislation for two years.

With no signs that the central government and the Kurds are about to resolve their differences, the Kurds are counting on the Americans to resolve their problems for them.

Although U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden visited Iraq and Kirkuk in January, a week before he and Obama took office, the administration so far seems to adopt a hands-off policy in this regard.

U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said last week that “there are ways for people in Iraq to bring the concerns that they have to the levers of power. It’s a democracy, and it’s not really up to the United States to reassure anyone.”

A Washington-based think tank disagrees. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in a report, published on Feb. 10, that the United States should “move quickly” on these issues before it loses its influence with the U.S. withdrawal.

It recommended a number of U.S. policy steps to resolve the Kirkuk dispute and other issues, insisting the “United States has to take the lead, because it remains, despite its mistakes, the only power with the requisite capacities to cajole, convince and pressure governments and groups to act.”

The think tank warned, “If ignored or mishandled, Kurdish aspirations have the potential to ignite violence and instability in Iraq, as well as the region.”

Iraqi politicians in Baghdad have brushed aside these types of warnings by Kurdish leaders, saying such statements “don’t serve national interests” and that these disputes are best resolved “according to the rule of law.”

By: Etgar Lefkovits – The Jerusalem Post

Muslims view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s showdown with the West as essentially a religious conflict, an expert on Islam said recently.

“I think that in the Muslim perception, [the conflict] is basically a religious conflict,” said Prof. Bernard Lewis in an address at the sixth annual Jerusalem Conference. “It is to decide who will dominate Islam, and whose version of Islam will prevail in the Islamic world.”

The world-renowned historian and Princeton University professor emeritus said that the Iranian nuclear threat has led moderate Arab countries in the Middle East to forge quiet alliances with Israel, as was evident in the recent military operation against Hamas in Gaza.

“This represents a mortal threat to established Arab regimes in the region, and like Sadat in his day – but for even more compelling reasons – they are looking to Israel for help in dealing with what they see as the major threat,” Lewis said.

He made the remarks at the concluding session of the conference in a half-hour-long conversation with Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Lewis said the recurrence of what he dubbed the “Sadat gambit” – a realization that other threats were far more dangerous than Israel – came as for the first time in centuries, the predominantly Sunni Muslim world was seeing Shi’itism as a “mortal threat” to Sunni ascendancy, which has prevailed in the Muslim world since time immemorial.

The nonagenarian historian, who first used the phrase “the clash of civilizations” 11 years before the 9/11 terror attacks on the US, noted that nuclear weapons in the hands of an Islamic regime with an “apocalyptic mind-set” represented an unprecedented danger.

“Mutual assured destruction was the main deterrent preventing the use of nuclear weapons by the Soviets,” Lewis said. “For [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and his group, with their apoclayptic mind-set, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent but an inducement.”

He said there was a woeful lack of awareness of both the magnitude and threat of the jihadist goal of radical Islam, stemming from both ignorance and a provincial colonialist outlook of the threat as “some local trouble.”

Lewis said that the best hope for the future in the Muslim world was the spread of democracy in places where previously it would have been inconceivable – a phenomenon he dubbed “the Sharansky effect” after former MK and prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky, who has argued that democracy is the basis for peace.

“It is still limited, precarious and dangerous, but it is happening, and that is the best hope for the future,” he concluded.

By: –

An expected move by Jordanian parliamentarians to file a petition with the International Criminal Court at The Hague accusing senior Israeli figures of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead does not reflect the kingdom’s official position, experts say.

The petition is expected to be filed this week by the head of Jordan’s Parliamentary Legal Committee, Mubarak Abu Yamin, against several Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, Arab media reported this week.

“Jordan is an absolute monarchy, not a constitutional monarchy, which means the king has the power of authority over the government and the parliament,” said Samer Libdeh, an Amman-based senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Liberty in the Middle East, a think tank that promotes democracy in the region.

“The parliament does not have decision-making leverage over foreign policy issues,” he said.

The move does, however, reflect increasing tension between those within the country who seek to inch closer to Hamas and its supporters, rather than to the more moderate Fatah and its supporters.

“The major issue is that the majority of parliamentarians, as well as the current establishment in office from the palace and leading intelligence officers, have been calling to have close ties with Hamas,” Libdeh said.

The rise of Islamism in the region is also influencing Abdullah, who has traditionally sided with the moderate camp and who appears to be at a crossroads, Libdeh said. Jordan is now flirting with the idea of moving closer to Islamic resistance movements and the countries that have supported them, such as Syria and, more recently, Qatar, he said.

This was evident during Operation Cast Lead, when Jordan initially took a harsh stance against the offensive but then appeared to swing back to the Saudi-Egyptian camp.

Although Abdullah did not allow protesters to demonstrate during the second intifada, he did allow Islamists to take to the streets during Israel’s recent military operation in the Gaza Strip, Libdeh said.

But the king decided at the last moment not to attend the Doha summit on Gaza, which was attended by states that sympathize with Hamas and was boycotted by Saudi and Egyptian officials.

“Till this moment, he is swinging” between the two camps, Libdeh said. “He’s not really clear about the direction that Jordan will go in, in the long run.”

The pressure Abdullah faces from conservative elements is also reflected in recent staff shuffles.

In October, the chief of the Royal Court, Basem Awadullah, a reform-minded politician who had challenged the conservative establishment, left his job and was replaced by conservative tribal politician Nasser Lawzi. The post is among the country’s top positions. Recently, the Royal Court has been taking the lead on the peace process, Libdeh said.

And in December, chief of intelligence Maj.-Gen. Muhammad Dahabi, who held clandestine talks with Damascus-based Hamas political bureau member Muhammad Nazzal in Amman months earlier, was replaced by the more liberal Maj.-Gen. Muhammad Ratha’n Raqqad.

King Abdullah likely brought in Raqqad in an effort to take a more balanced position following a row that occurred between the more conservative Dahabi and the more liberal Awadullah over who should take charge of the peace process file.

“The king is caught between these two movements… the liberal and the conservative elements,” Libdeh said.

But as the debate continues among the elite on where Jordan is headed, America’s $600 million a year in aid – which would certainly be in jeopardy if Jordan shifted to the “the axis of resistance” – weighs heavily as a consideration.

“Jordan cannot escape this fact,” Libdeh said.

* Netanyahu PM bid wins key support Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel’s right-wing Likud party, has won the backing of a leading far-right party for his bid to become PM.

* U.S. Plan: Ask Syria to Disarm Hizbullah United States Senator John Kerry said Wednesday that the new U.S. administration plans to take a new tack in the effort to disarm Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah.

* US faces fresh Afghan obstacles Kyrgyz MPs have voted to close a key US base supplying troops in Afghanistan, hours before Nato chiefs meet to study a US plea to boost troop levels.

* Dichter Warns Israel Faces Two New Arab States: Hamas and Fatah Israel faces the danger of a “three-state solution” with Hamas in control of Gaza and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority responsible for Judea and Samaria.

* Iraq’s Kurds Call for U.S. Mediation With Baghdad The Kurds in the northern autonomous region of Iraq are worried that the U.S. forces will leave the country without intervening in resolving key disputes with the central Baghdad government.

* Pope tells Nancy Pelosi life must be protected Pope Benedict XVI received Nancy Pelosi, one of the most prominent abortion rights politicians in America, and told her Wednesday that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life “at all stages of its development.”

* Financial crisis slowing enlargement, Prague warns Despite “fatigue” setting in amongst EU member states as a result of the ongoing economic crisis, the process of enlargement of the bloc should not be neglected.

* Clinton: U.S. Preparing for Possible Regime Change in North Korea The Obama administration and America’s Asian allies are preparing for a possible regime change in North Korea.

* Iran envoy calls for global nuclear disarmament An Iranian enovy called on Thursday for global negotiations aimed at total nuclear disarmament.

* John Kerry leads congressional visit to Gaza Three congressional Democrats, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, visited Gaza on Thursday.

* Peres to consult parties on prime minister pick President Shimon Peres will begin consulting with all the parties on Wednesday on who should be the next prime minister.

* ‘Syria building chemical weapons plant’ Syria has been conducting extensive construction work on a chemical weapons facility in the country’s northwest.

* IAEA: Iran, Syria must cooperate more International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Tuesday that Iran was still not cooperating enough.

* Obama to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he would send an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer.

* Islam expert: Conflict seen as mainly religious Muslims view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s showdown with the West as essentially a religious conflict.

* Clerics urge new jihad over Gaza At a weekend meeting in Istanbul, 200 religious scholars and clerics met senior Hamas officials to plot a new jihad centred on Gaza.

* Analysis: Amman caught between Hamas and Fatah An expected move by Jordanian parliamentarians to file a petition with the International Criminal Court at The Hague accusing senior Israeli figures of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead does not reflect the kingdom’s official position.

* Czech lower house passes EU treaty The Czech Republic took the first step toward ratification of the EU’s new set of institutional rules on Wednesday (18 February).

* Syria urges better ties with US President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has urged the US in a newspaper interview to engage in talks with Damascus and restore full diplomatic ties.

* Clinton seeks to improve US image with Muslims Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is continuing the Obama administration’s efforts to rehabilitate America’s image abroad.

By: Robert Maginnis – Human Events

Defeating jihadists in Afghanistan and preventing nuclear-armed Pakistan from falling into the hands of Islamic extremists may depend on whether President Obama can perform a miracle with either the Russians or Pakistanis.

And — gauged by the Russians’ apparent success in interrupting our logistical lines to the battlefield –Vladimir Putin has prohibited miracles in southwest Asia.

Pakistan appears to be imploding from an insurgency which threatens our supply routes into Afghanistan. There have been several damaging raids against American ground supply lines through Pakistan. One of the other routes on which we rely heavily is the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Actually, thanks to Russian interference, the word “rely” in the preceding sentence should be replaced with “relied”: past tense.

During the presidential campaign, Obama committed to make the war in Afghanistan a top priority. Unfortunately, his emphasis on that war coincides with the deterioration of the situation in next door Pakistan, which coincidentally provides our lifeline to the land-locked war zone.

The vulnerability of our resupply routes through Pakistan, which jeopardizes our Afghanistan mission, makes finding alternative routes critical, but the options are few. Afghanistan can also be accessed from the west through Iran — an unlikely route for forces opposed to terrorism — or the north through Russia, the Caspian Sea and Moscow’s Central Asia allies: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

But any resupply route through the north gives Moscow leverage over the Obama administration for a variety of geopolitical concessions. And granting significant concessions to the Russians so early in the Obama administration could make America the underdog in future American-Russian negotiations.

Unfortunately, the Afghan war is heating up, which makes America’s commanders anxious to increase our forces and creates the need for increased supplies. Thus the new commander-in-chief is being pressured to surge more troops now and simultaneously find a reliable alternative resupply route to sustain those forces even before he has announced his strategy to win the war.

Geographically, Pakistan provides the shortest resupply route to Afghanistan from the Indian Ocean. Currently, most of the supplies bound for the war zone are delivered to the port of Karachi, Pakistan and then trucked hundreds of miles through semi-hostile territory crossing at two points into Afghanistan. Those crossing points have become the focus of Taliban attacks.

Until recently, Pakistani insurgents have been confined to the border region. But Dennis Blair, the national intelligence director, told Congress that Pakistan is losing authority over its border areas and other areas were coming under the sway of Islamic radicalism. Fortunately, Pakistan’s military has a firm grip on most of the country but that, too, is changing. That’s why the U.S. is providing Pakistan with arms and training in hopes of blunting the insurgency before it destabilizes the entire country.

Unless Pakistan’s insurgency is contained, resupplying our troops using routes through that country will be a security nightmare. And Obama knows that expanding our ground war as promised will require even more bulk supplies like ammunition and petroleum that rely on ground transportation — mostly trucks threading their way through mountainous, insurgent plagued Pakistani roads.

Any supply route through the region would be vulnerable to local criminal elements and subject to sudden closure. The roads and railroads in Uzbekistan, for example, are reasonably good for a less developed country thanks to the former Soviet Union. But any deal to use these countries could be very expensive because of the long distances and the need for more engineer work, an army of logisticians and security forces.

Petraeus and other American officials have visited the Central Asian republics in their attempts to find suitable alternatives to flow huge quantities of supplies to our growing force in Afghanistan. No matter where they go, however, Moscow seems to have undermined their efforts.

Kyrgyzstan illustrates Moscow’s regional influence. That country’s Manas Air Base hosts U.S. cargo and refueling aircraft which support Afghan operations. In December, the U.S. offered to increase rent for the base from $64 to $150 million, but then the Russians countered with a $2 billion “loan” for Kyrgyzstan. Now, even though the U.S. counter-offered with another $64 million and a $25 million signing bonus, the Kyrgyz government issued an eviction notice.

Russia was quiet about U.S. operations at Manas and other Central Asian facilities until recently. Admi.William Fallon, the former head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, said he believes Moscow’s motivation for encouraging the closure of Manas and playing hard-ball with other regional governments is to reassert influence in Central Asia and remove a visible U.S. presence from former Soviet Republics.

Russia is being two-faced about America’s quest for a northern resupply route. Russian president Dmitri Medvedev said “The Russian Federation … [is] ready for full-fledged, comprehensive cooperation with the United States … in combating terrorism in the region.” He appeared to link that cooperation to American policy changes — the price for Russian cooperation.

Moscow hasn’t been shy about the changes it seeks. Some of Medvedev’s cabinet officials and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have warned against America’s plans to place a radar facility in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland. Other officials have expressed their opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion and want America to acknowledge the existence of Russia’s sphere of influence among its former satellites.

So how does Obama persuade the Russians to facilitate a northern resupply route without conceding too much to Moscow? That task was confused somewhat last weekend when vice president Joe Biden announced to a security conference in Munich, Germany, that it was “time to press the reset button” and revisit many of the areas where the U.S. and Russia can work together.

Biden’s statement was music to ears of Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s deputy prime minister. But Biden’s promise to “reset” relations seemed to explicitly exclude from compromise NATO expansion and ballistic missile defense, both hot button issues for Moscow.

Given Moscow’s interference, Iran’s influence in the area and the instability of Pakistan, the odds are enormous against Obama pulling off a diplomatic miracle in securing a reliable northern resupply route without compromising America’s security interests.

* Israel launches covert war against Iran Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program.

* Nasrallah: Let’s see what Lieberman’s got Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah made his first comments on Monday about the results of last week’s general election.

* Livni: Give up half of ‘Land of Israel’ Kadima leader tells convention of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem Israel must come forward with its own peace plan.

* Blair wins $1m leadership prize Former prime minister Tony Blair has won $1m (£697,000) for his leadership on the world stage.

* EU citizenship concept to be ‘fleshed out’ EU citizenship should mean freedom of movement, consular protection abroad and trans-national voting.

* Obama May Force Israeli Unity Coalition To Gain US Leverage US President Barack Obama may pressure Kadima prime ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni to enter into a coalition with Likud’s Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

* New U.S. Administration Disappoints Israel As predicted by seasoned analysts both in the U.S. and Israel, it appears the Barack Obama administration and Israel could be heading on a collision course in several areas.

* EU neighbour Ukraine at risk of going bust Bank analysts predict that Ukraine is heading for a historic default on its national debt.

* Financial crisis tests European Commission authority EU economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia will this week name the first group of states to receive disciplinary action by Brussels for breaching the rules underpinning the euro.

* Race for ‘God particle’ heats up Europe’s particle physics lab, Cern, is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, or “God particle”, its US rival claims.

* Defense establishment: Iran No.1 threat to Israel IDF chief presents defense minister with military’s work plan for 2009, says Tehran near-nuclear capabilities, existing ballistic aptitude and terror contacts pose ‘existential threat’ to Israel

* World duped by Hamas death count Four weeks after the cessation of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF finally opened its dossier on Palestinian fatalities on Sunday for the first time.

* Russia to hold Mideast summit Russia will not invite Hamas or push a “Syrian track” at a Middle East peace conference it hopes to hold in Moscow by mid-year.

* Nuclear subs collide in Atlantic A Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic, the MoD has confirmed.

* Arabs promise $1.5 billion to rebuild Gaza Arab countries have pledged nearly $1.5 billion to rebuild the war-torn Gaza Strip and more funds are expected to be promised at the international donors conference set for next month in Cairo.

* Irish poll shows swing in favour of Lisbon treaty A new poll has shown a swing in favour of the Lisbon treaty in Ireland as the main political parties argue about when would be the best time to hold a second referendum on the document.

* G7 provides few answers to economic crisis Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven industrialised nations (G7) met over the weekend in Rome to discuss the ongoing financial crisis and economic slowdown.

* Kadima okays Israel Beiteinu’s demands; Bibi urges unity gov’t Kadima accepted Israel Beiteinu’s list of coalition demands and Avigdor Lieberman’s party said it hoped Likud would soon follow suit.

* Pakistan Agrees to Islamic Law in Swat Region Pakistan government officials said they struck a deal to accept a legal system compatible with Shariah law in the violent Swat region in return for peace.

* Israel takes control of more West Bank land Israel has taken control of a large chunk of land near a prominent West Bank settlement, paving the way for the possible construction of 2,500 settlement homes.