Two packages containing explosive devices originating in Yemen and bound for two places of Jewish worship in Chicago set off a global terror alert on Friday. One package was found at a FedEx facility in Dubai, and another was found early Friday morning at an airport in Britain, sparking a day of dramatic precautionary activity in the United States.

Speaking at the White House Friday afternoon, President Obama called the packages a “credible terrorist threat against our country,” and confirmed that they “did apparently contain” explosives. Earlier reports had said that the device found in Britain did not.

The wide-scale alert spread to the United States on Friday morning, when officials isolated two cargo planes at airports in Newark and Philadelphia and searched them for packages originating in Yemen, and New York police searched a delivery truck in Brooklyn. None of the shipments reaching the United States from Yemen were found to contain explosives.

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The Vatican on Tuesday (Oct. 26) called for former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to be spared the death penalty, and suggested it might intervene diplomatically on his behalf.

“The position of the Catholic Church on the death penalty is known,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office. “It is therefore truly hoped that the sentence against Tariq Aziz will not be carried out, precisely in order to favor reconciliation and the reconstruction of peace and justice in Iraq after the great sufferings undergone there.

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Mutual distrust leads many Palestinians and Israelis to think of peace as a mirage. Since religion plays a significant role in justifying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, politicians need the help of religious leaders in their search for a solution.

The problem is that often the patriarchal figures of the three faiths are too focused on “protecting” the community from erosion of piety or the threat of assimilation to pay enough attention to moral empowerment. Too many leaders defend ownership of land at the expense of justice, rationalize war and its spoils, and remind their people to track the enemy vigilantly using partial interpretations of sacred texts for this purpose.

Religious leaders from outside the region oftentimes also fuel the conflict, sometimes without even being aware that they are doing so. Based outside of the area and free from the considerations of local day-to-day life, these authorities too often espouse hardline positions. The American charismatic church, for example, supports Israel automatically, even at the risk of threatening long-term Jewish security. To become enablers of peace, religious authorities will have to shift from a preoccupation with protecting the tradition from change to becoming agents of inter-communal reconciliation.

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Iran has begun loading fuel into the core of its first nuclear power plant, state television has reported.

It marks a key stage in the firing-up of the Bushehr plant, which is set to produce electricity from 2011.

Russia will operate the facility in southern Iran, supplying its nuclear fuel and taking away the nuclear waste.

Iran’s separate uranium enrichment programme has alarmed Western nations, who distrust Iran’s claims it is solely for peaceful purposes.

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President Hamid Karzai admitted on Monday that his chief of staff had taken money from the Iranian government, confirming a report in The New York Times. He said the cash was used to pay for presidential expenses

His government will continue to receive the payments, which amount to no more than about a million dollars twice a year, he said at a news conference with President Emomali Rahmonov of Tajikistan, adding that the money is part of a relationship between neighbors.

“They have asked for good relations in return, and for lots of other things in return,” said President Karzai.

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The words of the Lord Jesus may be applied to Christians in the Middle East: “There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12:32). Indeed, even if they are few, they are bearers of the Good News of the love of God for man, love which revealed itself in the Holy Land in the person of Jesus Christ. This Word of salvation, strengthened with the grace of the Sacraments, resounds with particular potency in the places in which, by Divine Providence, it was written, and it is the only Word which is able to break that vicious circle of vengeance, hate, and violence. From a purified heart, in peace with God and neighbor, may intentions and initiatives for peace at local, national, and international levels be born. In these actions, to whose accomplishment the whole international community is called, Christians as full-fledged citizens can and must do their part with the spirit of the Beatitudes, becoming builders of peace and apostles of reconciliation to the benefit of all society.

Conflicts, wars, violence and terrorism have gone on for too long in the Middle East. Peace, which is a gift of God, is also the result of the efforts of men of goodwill, of the national and international institutions, in particular of the states most involved in the search for a solution to conflicts. We must never resign ourselves to the absence of peace. Peace is possible. Peace is urgent. Peace is the indispensable condition for a life of dignity for human beings and society. Peace is also the best remedy to avoid emigration from the Middle East. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” we are told in the Psalm (122:6). We pray for peace in the Holy Land. We pray for peace in the Middle East, undertaking to try to ensure that this gift of God to men of goodwill should spread through the whole world.

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Seven long months after parliamentary elections, Iraqis still don’t have a government. Yet Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was on another international road trip Monday ”” this one to Tehran, where he was soliciting the mullahs’ support for his bid to maintain power in Baghdad.

Mr. Maliki also was just in Syria and Jordan and is expected to visit Egypt and Turkey. Reuters reported that he is offering Arab states investment deals if they nudge his rival, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, toward accepting Mr. Maliki’s leadership. Mr. Allawi, whose Sunni-backed, secular-Shiite coalition called Iraqiya bested Mr. Maliki’s Shiite State of Law bloc by two seats in the election, has also been on the road trawling for support.

Iraq needs good relations with its neighbors. But more than anything it needs a legitimate government able to address its many deep problems. Rather than trading unseemly favors with other countries, Mr. Maliki should be working full time with Mr. Allawi and other leaders to break the political impasse at home. Mr. Allawi needs to be open to compromise.

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When Nuri Kamal al-Maliki began his bid for re-election as prime minister ”” exactly a year ago on Saturday ”” he pledged to unite a population splintered and suspicious after years of war. He has not, and while he is hardly alone in blame, the consequences could haunt Iraq for years to come.

The purging of ballot lists before the election, the contentious and inconclusive challenges to the results, and the protracted delay in forming a new government since then have all deepened the ethnic, sectarian and societal cracks in a newly democratic state as fragile as an ancient Babylonian vase.

Sunni leaders in particular are angry at the prospect that they may be disenfranchised once again.

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The Palestinian leadership said Saturday that four-week-old direct talks with Israel should be suspended as long as Jewish settlement housing was being built in the West Bank. It called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop the construction.

A statement issued after a meeting of about 35 Palestinian leaders ”” the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the central committee of the main Fatah movement and a handful of others ”” held at the compound of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that Israel was responsible for the deadlock.

“The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior P.L.O. official said after the three-hour meeting. “The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations.”

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Despite tragic violence and discouraging developments, there are signs of hope. Majorities of both Israelis and Palestinians still support a two-state solution. Arab states have declared their commitment to peace in the Arab Peace Initiative. There are U.S. diplomatic efforts to restart Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Lebanese negotiations for peace. Official and informal negotiations have produced the outlines of concrete compromises for resolving the conflict, including the final status issues: borders and security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders both here and in the region reject the killing of innocents, support a just peace, and believe sustained negotiations are the only path to peace.

As we said two years ago, there is a real danger that cynicism will replace hope and that people will give up on peace. With the resumption of direct negotiations, clarity is demanded. So let us be clear. As religious leaders, we remain firmly committed to a two-state solution to the conflict as the only viable way forward. We believe that concerted, sustained U.S. leadership for peace is essential. And we know that time is not on the side of peace, that delay is not an option.

The path to peace shuns violence and embraces dialogue. This path demands reciprocal steps that build confidence. This path can lead to a future of two states, Israel and a viable, independent Palestine, living side by side in peace with security and dignity for both peoples, stability in the region, and a comprehensive peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors.

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Saying that they are people of hope who “refuse … to give in to cynicism or despair,” a group of interfaith leaders delivered a declaration to the White House and State Department Sept. 29 uniting in support of “active, fair, and firm U.S. leadership for Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was among the 28 Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders who signed the statement.

Alexander D. Baumgarten, director of government relations for the Episcopal Church, represented Jefferts Schori at the meeting with General James Jones, United States national security adviser, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

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The US says it is “disappointed” by Israel’s decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been sent to the region in an attempt to salvage direct peace talks that were restarted earlier this month.

The 10-month moratorium came to an end at midnight (2200 GMT on Sunday).

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The U.S. and other western delegations walked out of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s U.N. speech Thursday after he said “most people around the world” believe the United States government was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Mr. Ahmadinejad told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly that it was mostly U.S. government officials who believed a terrorist group was behind the suicide hijacking attacks that brought down New York’s World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon.

Another theory, he said, was that people “within the U.S. government” orchestrated the attacks to reverse the declining American economy and to save what he called Israel’s “Zionist regime.”

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Renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are opening in Egypt, amid concern over the imminent expiry of Israel’s partial ban on West Bank settlement building.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are holding three-way talks with Hillary Clinton in Sharm-el-Sheikh.

Before the talks began the US secretary of state had said Israel should extend its freeze on West Bank construction.

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In the months ahead, direct negotiations will be taking place between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities. This will be a critically important test for those directly responsible and a heavy responsibility lies on them to move the situation forward from the tragic patterns of recrimination and retaliation that have become so familiar. It will also be a time of testing for Jews, Christians and Muslims in this country. Shall we be able to pray together for peace and justice; shall we be able to refrain from words and actions which are partisan rather than reconciling and thereby model to the wider world how a deep commitment to each other can be sustained? It is my hope and prayer that this will be so.

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This country, which had sought to show solidarity with Islamist groups and allow religious figures a greater role in public life, has recently reversed course, moving forcefully to curb the influence of Muslim conservatives in its mosques, public universities and charities.

The government has asked imams for recordings of their Friday sermons and started to strictly monitor religious schools. Members of an influential Muslim women’s group have now been told to scale back activities like preaching or teaching Islamic law. And this summer, more than 1,000 teachers who wear the niqab, or the face veil, were transferred to administrative duties.

The crackdown, which began in 2008 but has gathered steam this summer, is an effort by President Bashar al-Assad to reassert Syria’s traditional secularism in the face of rising threats from radical groups in the region, Syrian officials say.

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Iraq ranks fourth in the Middle East on the Index of Political Freedom from The Economist’s Intelligence Unit ”” behind Israel, Lebanon and Morocco, but ahead of Jordan, Egypt, Qatar and Tunisia. Nearly two-thirds of Iraqis say they want a democracy, while only 19 percent want an Islamic state.

In short, there has been substantial progress on the things development efforts can touch most directly: economic growth, basic security, and political and legal institutions. After the disaster of the first few years, nation building, much derided, has been a success. When President Obama speaks to the country on Iraq, he’ll be able to point to a large national project that has contributed to measurable, positive results.

Of course, to be honest, he’ll also have to say how fragile and incomplete this success is. Iraqi material conditions are better, but the Iraqi mind has not caught up with the Iraqi opportunity.

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Iraq’s prime minister has said the country is “independent” as the US formally ends combat operations.

Nouri Maliki said the country’s security forces would now deal with all threats, domestic or other.

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The outgoing commander of American forces in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said Sunday that a new Iraqi government could still be two months away and warned that a stalemate beyond that could create demands for a new election to break the deadlock that has lasted since March.

While General Odierno said he believed negotiations had picked up and would prove successful, he predicted politicians still required “four to six to eight weeks.”

“That’s a guess,” he said in an interview at his headquarters, whose plaster roof is still engraved with the initials of Saddam Hussein. “If it goes beyond 1 October, what does that mean? Could there be a call for another election? I worry about that a little bit.”

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More than 30 people have been killed and dozens injured in a series of bomb attacks across Iraq.

There have been several blasts in Baghdad, including one in which 15 people died. At least 15 were killed in a suicide attack in Kut in the south.

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For now, 50,000 troops will remain ”” combat ready but assigned primarily to training Iraqi forces, a shift made somewhat awkward by Obama’s rigid deadline. It will force the State Department, for instance, to hire an army of private security contractors to take over functions that would more appropriately be handled by the military.

That is odd and troubling. But it doesn’t alter the fact that a large combat force is no longer needed. By every measure in the comprehensive Iraq Index maintained by the Brookings Institution, violence has plummeted. Civilian casualties are down to 1,366 so far this year vs. 34,500 in 2006, the year before President Bush’s “troop surge” strategy reversed the course of the war. U.S. military fatalities stand at 43 this year in Brookings’ July measure, just 1% of the 4,415 who’ve given their lives since the invasion began in 2003. This year, 280 troops have been wounded, vs. 6,412 in 2006.

Stability, the overriding U.S. priority after post-invasion blunders sent Iraq tumbling into chaos, has been achieved. But whether Iraqis can keep it is an open question.

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Trucks rumbled into Iran’s first reactor Saturday to begin loading tons of uranium fuel in a long-delayed startup touted by officials as both a symbol of the country’s peaceful intentions to produce nuclear energy as well as a triumph over Western pressure to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

The Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant will be internationally supervised, including a pledge by Russia to safeguard it against materials being diverted for any possible use in creating nuclear weapons. Iran’s agreement to allow the oversight was a rare compromise by the Islamic state over its atomic program.

Western powers have cautiously accepted the deal as a way to keep spent nuclear fuel from crossing over to any military use. They say it illustrates their primary struggle: to block Iran’s drive to create material that could be used for nuclear weapons and not its pursuit of peaceful nuclear power.

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The Baha’i International Community said the harsh prison sentences meted out against seven Iranian Baha’i leaders are an unjust punishment against innocent people and an entire religious community.

The five men and two women imprisoned were arrested in May 2008 and later charged with “spying for foreigners,” as well as “spreading corruption on Earth” and “cooperating with Israel.”

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose Defenders of Human Rights Center represented the Baha’i defendants, said she was “stunned” by the seven- to 20-year jail terms.

“I have read their case file page-by-page, and did not find anything proving the accusations, nor did I find any document that could prove the claims of the prosecutor,” Ebadi said in an interview with the BBC.

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Israel had been “Promoted” in may and is no longer considered an emerging economy. This was simply a technical adjustment by Harvard Asset Management – to adjust for the fact that Israel was no longer classified by MSCI as a developing economy.( index maker MSCI moved Israel from emerging country to developed country back in May). The sell-off was just part of a re-balancing between their emerging economy to their developing economy accounts.

John Longbrake, Sr. Communications manager at the Harvard Management Company emailed the following confirming that it was not a divestment.

the Management Company’s most recent S.E.C. filing details changes in holdings, as is routine, but no change in policy. The University has not divested from Israel. Israel was moved from the MSCI, our benchmark in emerging markets, to the EAFE index in May due to its successful growth. Our emerging markets holdings were rebalanced accordingly. We have holdings in developed markets, including Israel, through outside managers in commingled accounts and indexes, which are not reported in the filing in question”.

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Russia says it will begin to load fuel into the reactor at Iran’s first nuclear power plant on August 21.

A spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency made the announcement Friday, saying loading the reactor with fuel will be a key step toward starting the power plant in Bushehr. But he said the reactor will not be considered operational from that date.

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Iraq’s top army officer has criticised as premature the planned US troop withdrawal by the end of next year.

Lt Gen Babaker Zebari warned that the Iraqi military might not be ready to take control for another decade.

The US says it is on target to end combat operations by the end of August and meet its deadline for removing all troops by the end of 2011.

It has 64,000 soldiers in Iraq. About 50,000 will remain until 2011 to train Iraqi forces and protect US interests.

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… the film tracks the story of Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a 4-month-old Palestinian baby suffering from a rare immune deficiency. Moved by the baby’s plight, Eldar helps the infant and mother go from Gaza to Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital for lifesaving bone-marrow treatment. The operation costs $55,000. Eldar puts out an appeal on Israel TV and within hours an Israeli Jew whose own son was killed during military service donates all the money.

The documentary takes a dramatic turn, though, when the infant’s Palestinian mother, Raida, who is being disparaged by fellow Gazans for having her son treated in Israel, blurts out that she hopes he’ll grow up to be a suicide bomber to help recover Jerusalem. Raida tells Eldar: “From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You’re free to be angry, so be angry.”

Eldar is devastated by her declaration and stops making the film. But this is no Israeli propaganda movie. The drama of the Palestinian boy’s rescue at an Israeli hospital is juxtaposed against Israeli retaliations for shelling from Gaza, which kill whole Palestinian families.

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In a country that endorses Islam as the official religion, bans conversion to other religions, and punishes Christian proselytizing by death, Saudi Arabia’s recent welcome of an American Christian scholar is a landmark.

Leonard Swidler, a professor of Roman Catholic thought and interreligious dialogue at Philadelphia’s Temple University, is the first such scholar invited to exchange views with faculty at Al Imam Muhammed bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh ”“ the citadel of Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservative brand of Islam.

Dr. Swidler’s visit in late June underscores a shift toward greater openness in some official Saudi religious institutions, which previously had been leery of contact with outsiders of different faiths.

“Maybe it’s not exciting for some people, but it’s a very big change in Saudi Arabia,” says Fahad al-Alhomoudi, a faculty member at Al Imam who helped arrange Swidler’s visit.

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Fifteen young American religious scholars and 14 teaching assistants from Al Azhar University – one of the oldest and most influential Islamic institutions in the world – spent two weeks together this month at Georgetown University in an attempt to bridge the divide between the Muslim world and the United States.

The potpourri of young religious scholars studied the legal foundations of American democracy and religious diversity in the U.S. and met with political figures, including White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim American elected to Congress.

“I met people that I love, and I consider them as my brother, my sister, my mother,” said Ibrahim Elbaz, 30, from Mansoura, Egypt.

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Iran said today it planned to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, state television reported, at a time when the West is demanding that Tehran suspend sensitive nuclear work.

In 2006, Iran said it was pressing ahead with research tests on nuclear fusion, a type of atomic reaction which has yet to be developed for commercial power generation, but this was the first mention in years that the work was continuing.

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