JERUSALEM

Israel

The Israeli government is unwilling to divide Jerusalem, held to be the political and religious centre of the Jewish people. It stands by the 1980 basic Israeli law that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel". In the past there has been room for manoeuvre on the margins. In talks in 2000 and 2007, the then Israeli governments proposed exchanging some outlying annexed districts.

Palestinians

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which was controlled by Jordan before being captured by the Israelis in 1967, as the capital of a Palestinian state. The Old City contains the third holiest place in Islam, the al-Aqsa mosque, and the Dome of the Rock, from where Mohammed is said to have visited heaven on his winged steed Burak.

United States

The US does not recognise the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem and maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv. President Barack Obama has opposed the building of housing for Israelis in East Jerusalem though he said before becoming president that dividing the city would be "very difficult to execute".

BORDERS

Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts that there should be a Palestinian state and that there will have to be an Israeli withdrawal from parts at least of the West Bank (captured by Israel in 1967) to accommodate this. Israel has already withdrawn from Gaza. Israel would like the borders to include Jerusalem and the major Israeli settlements that have grown up on the West Bank.

Palestinians

They want the talks to start from the basic position that all the land occupied by Israel in 1967 belongs to a future Palestine. Any land given to the Israelis would have to be compensated for by a balanced land swap.

United States

The US agrees that the starting point but not the end point should be the 1967 lines and that a land swap will have to be the basis of any agreement. It will encourage this.

SETTLEMENTS

Israel

The Israeli government insists on keeping the major Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Any departure from this would break up the coalition which forms the government. An immediate problem is that an Israeli moratorium on West Bank settlements is due to run out on 26 September.

Palestinians

Ideally, the Palestinians would like all settlements to be abandoned as they were in Gaza. However, they appear to accept that some will have to stay but they will argue for a minimum number and a land swap for any that are left. They threaten to leave the talks if the Israeli moratorium is ended on 26 September.

United States

As with the annexation of East Jerusalem, the US has not recognised the international legitimacy of the Israeli West Bank settlements. But it accepts their reality and will press for compromise. It is also trying to reach a compromise on the moratorium problem.

REFUGEES

Israel

Israel rejects the idea that Palestinian refugees from previous wars should be allowed any "right of return" to their former homes. They say that this is a device to destroy the state of Israel by demography in order to re-establish a unitary state of Palestine. For that reason Mr Netanyahu has called for Israel to be recognised as a Jewish state.

Palestinians

Formally, they maintain the "right of return", arguing that without it a great injustice would not be put right. However, there has been regular talk among Palestinians that this "right" could be met by compensation. They refuse to recognise the concept of Israel as a "Jewish state", saying that this is unnecessary and that it ignores the Israeli-Arab citizens of Israel.

United States

The US understands the Israeli refusal to take back refugees and hopes that this can be resolved by compensation and development aid for those who cannot go back to their previous family homes.

SECURITY

Israel

The Israeli government is afraid that a Palestinian state might one day fall into the hands of Hamas and will be used as a stepping-stone to turning Israel into Palestine. Therefore it is insisting that it keeps a large measure of security control, including in the Jordan Valley, and that a state of Palestine be largely demilitarised.

Palestinians

They argue that security will come from a stable two-state solution not the other way round. They want as many attributes of a normal state as possible. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fears that client-status would be untenable and open to a Hamas takeover.

United States

The US accepts the Israeli need for security but also the need for Palestinian statehood and reconciling these is the aim of its diplomacy. It is unlikely, however, to recognise a state of Palestine which has not emerged from negotiation.

Even so, Mr Abbas is still insisting that Israel must stop building homes for Jews in the occupied Palestinian territories. Mr Abbas has threatened to walk out of the talks on the settlement issue. It's not clear where the compromise will come from. Warm words alone won't do it - but perhaps Mr Netanyahu's were a start.

There might not be room for many more failures. The conflict is changing. A religious war is now being grafted on what used to be fundamentally a competition for territory between two national movements. You can make deals with nationalists. IT'S MUCH HARDER WITH PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEY'RE DOING GOD'S WORK.

It's rare to get an actual surface meteorological sampling from the stronger parts of a hurricane with no land to weaken it. Eyewall hits on buoys are rare, though it's likely the winds would have been even stronger if it were on the Northeast side. Prior to this, the biggest waves witnessed live from buoy readings were 47 feet with Hurricane Katrina. The buoy either stopped transmitting due to damage from the waves, or the data was cut off by quality control algorithms when over 50 feet.

Several computer forecast models are predicting that Hurricane Earl will become a Category 4 storm, something that's only happened 9 times since 1966 off the Southeast coast.

It was projected then to curve back out to sea, perhaps swiping New England or far-eastern Canada. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it is sending staff up and down the East Coast to help prepare communities potentially affected by the hurricane.

The agency said that it has supplies strategically located across the country, including water, meals, tarps, blankets, generators and other essential items. It also said that people along the eastern seaboard should be prepared in case evacuations are necessary later this week.

"We're taking steps to aggressively prepare should a hurricane make landfall along the East Coast," FEMA Director Craig Fugate said in a statement distributed by the agency. The US National Hurricane Center is warning coastal residents to watch the storm closely. "Any small shift in the track could dramatically alter whether it makes landfall or whether it remains over the open ocean," said Wallace Hogsett, a meteorologist at the center. "I can't urge enough to just stay tuned."

The blue-chip index shed 4.3% this month as investors lowered their economic-growth expectations in response to a flood of weak data. The Dow's performance this month is its worst since May, and the measure's first down August in five years. Small-capitalization stocks, seen as a leading indicator of the economy, took an even bigger hit in August. The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks posted its worst August in 12 years, down 7.5%.

Crude-oil prices also fell, dropping 3.7% on Tuesday to bring the month's decline to 8.9%, just north of $70 a barrel. Gold, meantime, gained $11.20 on Tuesday to approach its all-time record high. On Tuesday, the stock market lost its intraday gains after minutes of the August 10 Fed meeting showed most policy makers agreed that the new strategy of reinvesting maturing or refinanced mortgage-related securities was necessary given the weakening economic recovery.

The number of banks at risk of failing rose by 53 to 829, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said in its quarterly survey of the nation's banking system. Thats nearly double the 416 banks that were on the FDIC's watch list a year ago and is up from 775 in the first quarter of this year. So far this year, 118 banks have failed, with 45 closings during the last quarter.

In other words, in the past two years, tax revenues alone would have proven insufficient by over half to fill the budget gap. In yet other words, the US Treasury is now the functional equivalent of the entire US population and then some, when it comes to keeping the US economy afloat. From another perspective, with an average take down of roughly 50% of each recent auction by Indirect bidders, nearly a quarter (half of half) of US budget deficit needs is funded directly by foreigners.

Should trade wars escalate, and should the US see an embargo of foreign debt participation, then overnight a quarter of US spending will be unfundable: this includes such critical key expenditures as defense and social security spending. Also, it is important to recall, that of the $3.35 trillion in debt issued over the prior two year period, the Fed has directly (via UST purchases) and indirectly (via MBS purchases, and thus the forced rotation of MBS securities into UST securities for agency holders such as PIMCO) purchased the other half.

Thus between foreigners, and the Fed, the US consumer's traditional contribution to funding the US economy has been diluted by half. And unfortunately, absent some dramatic deux ex machina, there is no chance this trend in which US debt issuance is the functional equivalent of taxpayer contributions, will ever end.

We are being told that such measures are needed to battle illegal drug traffic, to catch tax evaders and to fight the war on terror. But are we rapidly getting to the point where we will have no financial privacy left whatsoever? Should we just accept that we have entered a time when the government will watch, track and trace all financial transactions? Is it inevitable that at some point in the near future ALL transactions will go through the banking system in one form or another (check, credit card, debit card, etc.)?

The reality is that governments around the world are getting very, very sensitive about large amounts of cash and they are not messing around. They don't want all of us running around with big piles of cash. They want our money in the banks where they can track it, trace it and keep a close eye on it. On the one hand, it is a good thing to catch criminals and terrorists, but on the other hand how much privacy and freedom are we willing to lose just so that we can feel a little safer?

And as cash becomes criminalized, are all of us going to be forced into the banking system whether we like it or not? If we cannot pay for things in cash, what other choices are we going to have? The truth is that the more you think about this issue, the more disturbing it becomes.

In the USA, as Jeff Schnepper explained in an article for MSN Money, if you are in business and you receive over $10,000 in cash in a single transaction you must report it to the IRS or you will go to prison... If you're in a business and receive more than $10,000 in cash from a single transaction, or from related transactions within a 12-month period, you have to file Form 8300 and report the buyer to the IRS. Don't file, and you go to jail. The IRS isn't kidding. I had a client who was a dealer in Corvette sports cars. He told me he didn't have time to file the forms. I told him several times to file. He thought he knew better. He went to jail. So did his children who were involved in the business. This is very, very serious.

Now, there's nothing wrong with buying stock. My parents hold lots of BP stock, and they are hardly guilty of dumping the 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. But this is one more step in a long line of actions by the Gates Foundation in which it is advocating policies and agricultural technologies that will directly benefit and profit Monsanto while screwing over the most vulnerable people on earth: hungry subsistence farmers in developing countries.

I wrote a piece recently about what happens when American industrial agriculture collides with poor, uneducated subsistence farmers in the developing world and it ain't pretty. In fact, it's tragic. It's criminal. For a corporation to prey upon such a vulnerable population for its own gain, when the result is the starvation, continued impoverishment, or loss of land and lifestyle of the poor.

Perhaps Gates thinks he is doing something good for the world with his advocacy of biotechnology and industrial agriculture. No doubt all of the executives from Monsanto and other biotech and chemical companies tell him that every day. He should instead listen to the 400 scientists who spent 3 years performing the most comprehensive study of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology in the history of the world, the IAASTD report. The report recommends agroecology - what many in the US would refer to as "organics" (even though the term is more nuanced than that).

The priest admits that many will be "concerned" about metal lyrics praising Satan and mocking Christianity, but insists it is just a form of "play-acting". Miss Mann, priest-in-charge of St Nicholas's, Burnage, writes in this week's Church Times: "Since Black Sabbath effectively created it in 1969 by using the dissonant sound of the medieval 'Devil's chord', heavy metal has been cast as dumb, crass, and on occasions satanic; music hardly fit for intelligent debate, let alone theological reflection."

"And yet, as both priest and metal musician and fan, it strikes me that the Church, especially at this agonized time, has a serious gospel lesson to learn from this darkest and heaviest music." Miss Mann says that heavy metal songs, characterized by distorted guitar sounds, "intense" beats and "muscular" vocals, are "unafraid to deal with death, violence and destruction".

There have been Christian heavy metal bands, such as the 1980s American act Stryper and the more recent Evanescence, but few have enjoyed much critical acclaim or crossover success. By contrast many of the biggest heavy metal artists have used anti-Christian or satanic imagery in their lyrics and album covers. In the 1990s, followers of Norway's "black metal" scene went further by burning dozens of churches.

The Al Faw Palace in Baghdad is a relic from the reign of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. This Wednesday, it will be the scene of a significant moment in the history of American involvement in the country, when US General Raymond Odierno hands over the command of US forces in Iraq to his successor. The ceremony will mark the penultimate step of the US withdrawal from Iraq.

Only 50,000 US troops will remain in the country, out of a total of over 170,000 soldiers that were in Iraq at the high point of the American deployment.

They are staying mainly to support the Iraqi security forces as advisers and trainers, and are also due to return to their homeland at the end of 2011. No one expects much dancing in the streets of Baghdad this Wednesday. The streets are deserted these days. It is not only the infernal heat of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) which keeps people in their homes. It is also the fear of what will happen once the Americans are gone.

Visitors to Baghdad can sense the fear that many people have of a new civil war. That fear is underscored by the daily news reports on television. Last week, at least 56 Iraqis died at the hands of suicide bombers and snipers in around two dozen terrorist attacks. In August, an average of five policemen or soldiers died every day.

The decision to leave the country has not been called into question for one moment, despite the Iraqis' new-found affection for their occupiers, Corson says. "You can't please the Iraqis. If you're here, you are the evil occupier. If you leave, you are letting them down. Then it's better to just leave at some point."

They may now have to wait until 2014 before prices recover enough to make their homes worth more than they paid. The organisation, which campaigns for affordable housing, also said prices are still too high for many buyers. According to the NHF, house prices will dip again next year by 3%, before steadily climbing thereafter.

They expect prices to rise some 22% by 2014, bringing the average price of a house to 226,900 pounds. According to NHF chief executive David Orr, prices will "inevitably increase in the long term because of the huge under-supply of housing". But even at current depressed prices, he cautioned that houses remain unaffordable for most low-to-middle income families, thanks in part to tighter mortgage lending standards.

"There's a very real risk that an entire generation will be locked out of the housing market for the foreseeable future," he said.

"It would be inappropriate for us to comment about what actions Israel may take or how they will use their fuel," Marine Corps Major Chris Perrine, a public affairs officer at the Department of Defense, told WND. "I would note, however, that it would take a lot more than fuel to attack a country or wage a regional war."

"The proposed sale of the JP-8 aviation fuel will enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its aircraft inventory," the notification to Congress said. "The unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel will be used for ground forces' vehicles and other equipment used in keeping peace and security in the region. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this additional fuel into its armed forces."

By comparison, the last fuel order Israel placed with the US was July 15, 2008, when Israel ordered 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel, 54 million gallons of diesel fuel and 28 million gallons of unleaded gasoline at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion.

Prior to that, Israel ordered 90 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and 42 million gallons of diesel fuel August 24, 2007, for an estimated cost of $308 million; and an unspecified amount of JP-8 aviation jet fuel July 14, 2006, for an estimated cost of $210 million.

Israel's last two military operations were the summer 2006 Lebanon War that lasted a little over one month and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza from December 27, 2008, to January 21, 2009.

In his role as a spokesperson for the Protest the Pope Campaign, Tatchell then went on with a long laundry-list of Church teachings, which he described as harsh and extreme. Tatchell has also been chosen by the television station Channel 4 to front a 60-minute program on the Pope, which will be broadcast around the time of the papal visit, the Telegraph newspaper reported on June 4.

It won't be the only television special critical of the Catholic Church. The BBC is working on an hour-long documentary on the clerical abuse scandals, the Guardian newspaper reported August 3. Along with the unsurprising opposition to the visit from the Orange Order of Ireland and Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, the British government also got caught up in an embarrassing instance of anti-Catholic prejudice.

The Foreign Office had to issue an official apology after a government paper on the visit became public, the Sunday Times reported on April 25. A document that was part of a briefing packet sent to government officials suggested that the Pope should sack "dodgy bishops," apologize for the Spanish Armada, and open an abortion clinic.

The attacks have not gone unanswered. Although not official representatives of the Church, a group of Catholic speakers was set up under the name of Catholic Voices. Under the leadership of Jack Valero, who is a director of Opus Dei in the United Kingdom, the team of speakers are offering themselves to defend the Church's teachings.

The residents complain that there are no schools, either, in the camps, and that many of the children have to work to sustain their families. Those who remain in the villages sell their belongings for food and require aid from the UN and the Syrian government. The World Food Program (WFP) has begun distributing food to more than 200,000 people who stayed on the farms, and the Red Cross is funding delivery of water to them.

"We don't want to provide assistance to these people where they are now, and create a dependency syndrome," says Muhannad Hani, WFP country manager, regarding the refugees who reached the camps. "Those people are farmers," he told the BBC. "We're working in partnership with the government to make sure that those people return to that place and resume what they've been doing for decades and centuries," he said.