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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 11:40am May 4, 2002 EST (#2002 of 2043)

Senior Republican calls on Israel to expel West Bank Arabs

Dick Armey, majority leader in the House said he was "content to have a Palestinian state", but argued that such an entity could be set up inside other Arab countries.

"There are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state. I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,709919,00.html

Thread : Guardian Talk International

lchic - 11:57am May 4, 2002 EST (#2003 of 2043)

FRANCE : Some have threatened to wear rubber gloves to hold their voting slips on Sunday to show their distaste - prompting a warning from the constitutional council that such a gesture would risk a fine.
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3YDNNFS0D&live=true&tagid=FTDO9DHMZJC

MEast
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=291711
Fisk (above) reference : http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=291708

lchic - 05:01pm May 4, 2002 EST (#2004 of 2043)

"" .. But, Mr Shoval said: "If the idea is to hold a sort of international conference, where Israel finds itself sitting on one side of the table with all the Arab governments, and Palestinians and different Europeans with specific agendas in the Middle East and the anti-semitic atmosphere in some of those countries and the UN on the other side, this is something Israel would reject."

A former Israeli foreign minister, David Levy, told Israel Radio that such a conference would award Mr Arafat a prize for terror.

Mr Sharon will arrive in Washington with his own plan for a conference and for a Middle East deal, albeit one that is widely seen as a non-starter because he has no intention of evacuating a single settlement in the West Bank and Gaza. ""
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,709946,00.html

rshow55 - 05:46pm May 4, 2002 EST (#2005 of 2043)

From the same article: US call to negotiate unsettles Israel by Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,709946,00.html

"There has been an important breakthrough in international efforts as regards the Middle East," the European commission spokesman Gunnar Wiegand said.

"We clearly had no peace process up until yesterday."

If Israel has nothing to hide, it ought to find ways to discuss, at the levels of detail closure takes, what its justifications are. To make peace, you have to talk to enemies, not only friends.

Israel Has Nothing to Hide By YUVAL STEINITZ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/opinion/04STEI.html

If it has nothing to hide, it should be willing to talk - and if there are areas of dispute -- to make its positions clear, for the world to see.

And for the world to question -- as other positions are subject to question.

rshow55 - 05:54pm May 4, 2002 EST (#2006 of 2043)

U.S. to Renounce Its Role in Pact for World Tribunal by NEIL A. LEWIS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/international/05TRIB.html

"The "unsigning" of the treaty will be a decisive rejection by the Bush White House of the concept of a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for war crimes."

Is the United States of America retreating into a fortress mentality? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee9b7ef/0 shows a striking list.

lchic - 06:26pm May 4, 2002 EST (#2007 of 2043)

The opting OUT of international agreements is a way of stepping sideways, avoiding meeting issues head on that need to be thought through, and is taken by the world as a failure to see the need to work together to build and progress. Also raises the point as to what the USA has to HIDE!

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