Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Tales from the Trail:
Mideast peace veterans and handshake diplomacy
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly referred to them as "veterans" of the Middle East peace process.
That description is probably one thing everyone can agree on. The process to bring Israelis and Palestinians to a lasting peace agreement has been going on for decades and every U.S. president hopes he's the one who will finally achieve what those before him tried and failed.
President Barack Obama is the latest to take up the baton. He's already won the Nobel Peace Prize, but will he be The One to triumph on Middle East Peace?
"We are under no illusions," Obama said on Wednesday when he met with leaders ahead of today's talks. "Passions run deep. Each side has legitimate and enduring interests. Years of mistrust will not disappear overnight."
That last sentence is another thing that probably everyone can agree on.
But if the Israeli-Palestinian leaders' handshakes over the years are any kind of indicator, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope.
Seventeen years ago in September 1993, President Bill Clinton practically forced Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to shake hands at the White House while observers held their collective breath wondering will they or won't they?
Groundbreaking new cancer report?
The President’s Cancer Panel has issued a new report saying that Americans are being bombarded — their words — with carcinogens.
Advocates of more research into the potential chemical causes of cancer had been waiting for the report, which they call groundbreaking. But it’s made less of a splash than they expected. Asked about the report, one White House spokesman replied,
“What report?”
The National Cancer Institute remained stolidly silent, even though the NCI logo is on the report. The chemicals industry spent languid hours writing a terse response and only one member of Congress jumped on the bandwagon.
PhotoCredit: REUTERS/Chip East (The New York City skyline is seen behind part of a chemical plant at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, May 27, 2005)
And what, exactly, was the purpose of this 97-word filler piece? This isn’t a story, it’s the preface to a story. Where’s the actual article? Or doesn’t anybody write those anymore?
from Tales from the Trail:
Nobel award to Obama required lengthy U.S. Constitution check
When President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last October it caught most by surprise and sent his lawyers scurrying to quietly make sure that the president could receive the prestigious award without running afoul with the U.S. Constitution or federal law.
A provision in the Constitution, known as the Emoluments Clause, bars the receipt of any present, emolument, office or title of any kind from a "King, Prince or foreign State". When the Nobel prize was established more than a century ago, Alfred Nobel's will specified that the recipient of the peace award was to be chosen by a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian parliament known as the Storting.
However, Justice Department lawyers told the White House in a 13-page legal memorandum -- sent to the White House counsel last December and released late Thursday -- that the U.S. Constitution and federal law did not bar Obama from receiving the prize.
The memo went through various legal arguments, such as whether congressional approval was needed -- no was the answer -- and the level of involvement by the Norwegian government in the selection process. The lawyers determined that the Storting had "no meaningful role" in selecting the prize recipients or funding the $1.4 million award.
Plus, the Justice Department lawyers added to their reasoning past precedent -- noting that two previous sitting presidents (Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson) had won the Peace Prize as well as a sitting vice president, Secretary of State, and a U.S. Senator.
It applied similar reasoning to determine that Obama could accept the award under a federal law that limited circumstances under which he could receive certain gifts and decorations.
Always good to check.
A return of “ignore Germany” under Obama?
It’s not quite as bad as it was back in 2003 when Gerhard Schroeder publicly chastised George W. Bush for invading Iraq and Condi Rice introduced a new policy in the White House called ”ignore Germany” (France was to be punished and Russia forgiven for their opposition to the war).
But relations between Berlin and Washington are probably as poor as they’ve been since Angela Merkel replaced Schroeder in 2005 and set Germany on a course of reconciliation with the United States.
After becoming accustomed to dinners in the White House, barbecues and back-rubs with Bush in his Europe-friendly second term, Merkel and her advisers in Berlin are agonising over a series of slights (perceived or real) from Obama since he came to office in January.
First came the message from Washington that Obama might not continue the regular videoconferences Merkel held with Bush. In the end the White House came around, but it took two months to set one up.
Berlin also got the cold shoulder when Merkel tried to arrange a trip to Washington ahead of a G20 meeting in London at the start of April. Messages from Berlin with proposed dates went unanswered for days until Merkel’s team abandoned the idea completely, an official close to her told me.
This week came the latest signal, at least from Berlin’s perspective, that the Obama team is not taking German concerns seriously.
The rescue of Opel, the German unit of U.S. carmaker General Motors, has become the central theme of a slow-to-get-started German election campaign that pits Merkel against her Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. A misstep on Opel and Merkel’s bid for a second term could be doomed.
Tough bananas, I say. I just think Obama thinks Germany can take care of itself. But Germans love to get their knickers in a twist about how everyone ignores them when after all aren’t they so superior?
And have you noticed? The cold war is over, so all this stuff about Commies and Socialists does not resonate the way it used to.
Too many human lives have been sacrificed for a peace which was all the time at the door step, but both the party pretended to be blind and acted to have overlooked it, not only that the broker of peace were but fake the worst was the Ex-President who ensured one side to go on a killing spree.
For some Peace was a desert mirage. For some it is God gifted. Particularly to those who respected what God asked humankind to obey and do even amidst obstruction and threats.
There will always be devils to divert people set to make deal for peace. It all depends on sincerity and determination to stick to belief on God particularly when both the party is of God gifted sister religious followers. Both these people have their own homegrown enemies who are averse to any peace between them.
Those who are trying to obstruct the peace can be dealt with with the support of God Almighty Himself later but first get the peace to enter the home and then together get the obstructionist never to be devilish again.