We’d be far too modest to claim to have made peace in the Middle East, but…

It’s been a lively week down at the Dead Sea, a short drive downhill from the Reuters bureaux in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Our colleagues Douglas Hamilton and Ali Sawafta do appear to have played some small part in shifting some political roadblocks that threatened to thwart plans to get the lowest place on earth voted in as one of the seven wonders of the natural world.

Back in March, Douglas reported how political tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, which share the coastline of the famously salty lake, threatened to wreck its entry to the online poll to choose the Seven Wonders of nature. With a deadline looming, our team checked again this week and found that Palestinian objections to dealing with Jewish settlers on the West Bank stretch of the Dead Sea shoreline were indeed about to bin the bid.

The good news, though, is that our story was widely picked up in local media, which also voiced disappointment at the outcome - enough it seems to change some minds, as we finally were able to report yesterday.

If you want to go further and cast a ballot, you might want to visit the site here.

Of course, it’s not all good news in this part of the world. Take a look at some other stories we’ve been covering at and around the Dead Sea in just the past couple of weeks:

The sewage pollution of the Jordan river, which flows into the lake from the Sea of Galilee.

Plans for a canal to bring water to the Dead Sea from the Red Sea, that have caused controversy. (The World Bank had to deny a report this week that it had agreed to finance part of a such project.)

Trouble between Israeli troops and Bedouin Arabs living in the Jordan valley.

Controversy over Israel declaring land by the Dead Sea available for settlement.

And finally, the easing of Israeli military checkpoint controls at Jericho, the Palestinian city just north of the Dead Sea, which claims to be “The World’s Oldest”.