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WASHINGTON — The United States has obtained an agreement from Israel and Saudi Arabia for an interim Palestinian state whose borders would be finalized by 2007. Concessions were granted to both Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to diplomatic sources who provided details of the plan. The White House announcement of the plan, scheduled for yesterday, was delayed by the series of Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel. The announcement is now expected as early as Friday. Diplomatic sources said President George Bush has discussed his plan to allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2003. The state would consist...

<p>JERUSALEM — The death of a 23-year-old Israeli-Arab student in a Palestinian suicide bombing this week is threatening to drive a deeper wedge between the Arab minority in Israel and Yasser Arafat's leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.</p>

MANASSAS, Va. – Ten-year-old Alison Spann was baptized in Christ here about four months after her father, CIA agent Johnny Michael Spann, was shot by rioting Taliban prisoners, the first American killed in Afghanistan by enemy fire. When John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, was 10, by comparison, his Birkenstock parents moved him to Marin County, Calif., a leafy liberal enclave where religion is optional and all religions – and value systems – are the same. John Walker Lindh Not long after his Catholic mother started practicing Buddhism, Lindh converted to Islam, adopted the Muslim name Suleyman and began wearing...

Mr. President, PLEASE listen to this Democrat! http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | The U.S. gives financial aid to friends AND enemies. That we taxpayers give money to our nation's friends is easy to understand. That we give it to those who hate us, despise us and who cheer when airliners crash into our buildings is not. New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from Brooklyn and Queens, is saying it again. The U.S. should cut off financial aid to Yasser Arafat's band of hoodlums. We should stop feeding the dog that bites us at every opportunity. As the Congressman points out, American...

<p>U.S. leaders worked the phones as Middle East violence claimed four more Israeli lives yesterday, while in Israel the governing coalition was deeply divided over a plan to reoccupy parts of the West Bank.</p> <p>President Bush called for "more security" for Israel and renewed his demand for Palestinian action against terrorism during a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.</p>

The mendacity that pollutes Middle Eastern discourse, or,: How to guarantee more violence http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Whenever a massacre occurs in Israel, Palestinian spokesmen rush out to say: "Yes, this is terrible, but this is what happens when you have a people with no hope for an end to the occupation." Apologists in the West invariably echo this exculpation/explanation. Of all the mendacity that pollutes Middle Eastern discourse, this one is the worst. It assumes that the listener is not only stupid but amnestic. Two years ago at the Camp David summit, in the presence of the president of the...

<p>A political battle has erupted over the Federal Election Commission's ongoing efforts to establish rules for the new federal campaign finance law that will ban large, unrestricted contributions known as soft money and issue-advocacy ads during an election.</p> <p>In a joint statement from the chief sponsors of the McCain-Feingold bill, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, sharply criticized the FEC's efforts yesterday, charging that the agency "has taken upon itself the task of rewriting" the law.</p>

<p>Last week, the U.S. Senate showed its undemocratic stripes once again. A vote to make the elimination of the estate tax permanent lost by vote of 54-44. Does that mean a majority of the senators voted against it?</p> <p>Absolutely not. A strong majority of 54, including almost all Republicans and nine Democrats, voted to do the sensible thing, which is to make the tax cut permanent and spare people the agony of knowing exactly when to die. Under the present tax law, passed last June, if one dies in 2010, all their estate will be passed on to their heirs. But if one has the audacity to live another year (or even a few months more) into 2011, the tax law reverts back to its 2001 proprotions and the government confiscates a good hunk of the money.</p>

WASHINGTON, Jun 20, 2002 (Kyodo via COMTEX) -- The United States would want to make sure that Japan and the European Union (EU) would be prepared to release their oil reserves to prevent supply disruptions if it launched a military attack against Iraq, a senior U.S. government official said Thursday. In testimony before the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, Alan Larson, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs, said Middle East oil producers would be unlikely to halt oil supplies to the U.S. in case of a U.S. military attack against Iraq. The administration of President George...

<p>Ted Turner is getting blasted with his own bomb.</p> <p>In an ill-timed British newspaper interview on Tuesday, the CNN founder dropped a heavy opinion.</p> <p>"The Israelis, they've got the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing," Mr. Turner told the London-based Guardian. "So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are engaged in terrorism."</p>

<p>Our ship of state, which recent storms have threatened to destroy, has come safely to harbor at last.</p> <p>In Kabul, we have been breathlessly watching a veritable Babel of people of varying ethnic and religious groups voluntarily meet to relaunch the Afghan ship of State. Some 1,600 delegates have been meeting under the sprawling canopy of a Munich Oktoberfest tent, a good way for Germany to continue building its influence in Kabul.</p>

<p>The chairmen of a joint congressional committee investigating pre-September 11 intelligence failures said yesterday they had asked the attorney general to investigate whether the panel leaked classified information.</p> <p>"We will cooperate with the FBI in any way possible," while the Justice Department and the FBI investigate if or how such leaks occurred, said Rep. Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.</p>

<p>A major reason people are so confused about the future of the economy is that they are confronted with a huge amount of misinformation on a daily basis by all too many in the press, as well as an endless babble of ignorance and deliberate distortion oozing from the political class.</p>

<p>Democratic lawmakers said Hispanics will see through President Bush's efforts to try to win their votes, despite his current strong showing in polls of the Hispanic electorate.</p> <p>"The Bush administration is making a very overt, I think fairly craven, crass effort to appeal to Hispanic Americans," said Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat and one of a handful of Democrats exploring a run against Mr. Bush in 2004. He spoke to about 100 Hispanic elected officials and community leaders at Senate Democrats' third annual Hispanic outreach summit. It was held at the U.S. Capitol.</p>

<p>The United States will perfect a missile defense system now that it is free from the ABM treaty, the director of the Missile Defense Agency said yesterday.</p> <p>"Our goal is to have limited defenses against long-range missiles and robust defenses against short-range missiles," MDA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said in a briefing at the Heritage Foundation.</p>

<p>It turns out that on the morning of September 11, 2001, two FBI agents were monitoring phone calls from the home of a madam of a New Orleans brothel. Yes, the prostitution supervised by one Jeannette Maier so concerned the feds, who suspected it involved drug trafficking and organized crime, that wiretap authority had been duly secured. But with the terrorists attacking back East, the agents shut down the wiretap. They were back listening the next day, and in March a dozen women were indicted on charges including money laundering, racketeering, prostitution and marijuana possession. Last month, Ms. Maier and her mother, Tommie Taylor, pleaded guilty to prostitution conspiracy.</p>

<p>School's out. What did your children learn this year? Across the country, one poisonous lesson was pumped into the systems of self-esteem-inflated students: There is no such thing as failure.</p> <p>Christine Pelton, a now-famous former biology teacher at Piper High School in Piper, Kan., resigned last month when her school board — pressured by angry parents — refused to support her flunking of nearly 30 students who plagiarized. Two lesser-known teachers also refused to play along with the education establishment's dumbing-down games. They tried to give out F's, too. Their reward for showing children that slacking off has consequences? Humiliation, intimidation and litigation.</p>

<p>MILAN, Italy — European prosecutors say that documents identifying Marc Rich — the American fugitive who won an 11th-hour pardon from President Clinton — have turned up during a crackdown on money laundering and the Russian mafia.</p> <p>While Mr. Rich has not been named as a suspect, prosecutors do not rule out issuing a subpoena or even an arrest warrant for him as their investigation develops.</p>

Don't Do It, Mr. President: Palestinian State Under Present Circumstances Will Only Make Matters WorseFrontPageMagazine.com | June 21, 2002IF PRESS ACCOUNTS ARE TO BE BELIEVED, President Bush is determined to commit his administration to the recognition of a "provisional" Palestinian state as soon as there is a moment when its unveiling -- not to say its logic -- is not shattered by yet another murderous terrorist attack against Israeli civilians. On their face, these reports seem implausible. After all, in the months since September 11 in particular, President Bush has conveyed too clearly his appreciation of several principles that completely...

<p>One of the problems that urgently needs some serious thought by President Bush's proposed new Homeland Security Department is the problem of what to do about enemies already living within this country. Our legal system has not yet faced the grim implications of that fact.</p>