Thursday

One of Israel's best-known authors and outspoken peace activists, David Grossman, is to receive this year's prestigious German Book Trade Peace Prize, the association said Thursday.
Read more: See Under: Love, Peace Prize, Authors, David Grossman, Israel,

With public attention focused on everything from the oil disaster, the diplomatic isolation of Israel, to Al and Tipper's separation, the final legislative push for financial reform begins this week as House and Senate conferees commence their work. This is the moment when lobbyists for the banking industry hope to kill provisions that they were unable to block in the House or Senate. This is no time for reformers to relent.

On Thursday, Fox News' Glenn Beck devoted a segment of his television program to attacking me for condemning the Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound relief flotilla.

A reporter and producer for the Arabic news organization Al Jazeera who was on board the Gaza-bound aid flotilla during Monday's deadly raid gave a firsthand account of the grisly scene aboard the ship to the network Thursday.

Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell may prohibit the translation of his popular books into Hebrew after the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, he said in an interview published on Thursday.
Read more: Henning Mankell, Writers, Gaza, Authors, Israel Gaza,

(photo credit: Office of the Prime Minister, Government of Japan)

Japan Prime Minister and Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, whose amazing electoral victory last year unseating the long dominant Liberal Democratic Party, has announced that he is stepping down from his position for failing to deliver on a key campaign promise to the Japanese people about moving the US Marine Futenma Air Station off of Okinawa.

I will be arriving in Tokyo tomorrow (on Thursday) and will be in Naha, Okinawa this next Monday.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is asking Congress to approve $205 million to help Israel speed up deployment of a new short-range rocket defense system called the "Iron Dome," the White House said Thursday.

The funds are in addition to the $3 billion Obama requested in the 2001 budget, which are part of a larger 10-year, $30 billion 2007 military aid agreement known as the memorandum of understanding.

On Thursday, Yedioth Achronoth, the mass circulation Israeli daily, revealed that the foreign ministry was sending the word out to Israeli diplomats worldwide that the best way to "get" South African Justice Richard Goldstone for writing his Gaza war crimes report was to link him to the apartheid regime.

The Israelis will never tire of their obsession with Judge Richard Goldstone. Because he had the temerity to write a United Nations report calling Israel's actions in Gaza "war crimes," they are utterly unhinged by the man.

Proximity talks, geared at renewing negotiations toward a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, are expected to launch within two weeks, Army Radio quoted Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as saying on Thursday.
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