Haaretz, August 27 - UN: Lebanon-Syria Border Still Wide Open to Smugglers; Israel: Hizbullah Building Network of Fortified Bunkers - Barak Ravid and Yoav Stern - Lebanon's eastern border with Syria is wide open to smugglers, according to a report submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday by a task force he appointed to study the issue.

The report harshly criticizes both Lebanon and Syria, saying there has been no improvement over the past year despite promises by both countries to address the issue. There are several well-known unofficial border crossings, which is where much of the smuggling occurs.
   
Israel says Hizbullah has built a network of sophisticated underground bunkers in some 150 villages throughout south Lebanon in recent months. These bunkers can hold up to 15 fighters, plus rockets and rocket launchers. Neither the UN forces in Lebanon nor the Lebanese Army has done anything to stop construction of these bunkers

Haaretz, Aug,28 - An American Base on Israeli Territory? - Aluf Benn - The agreement last month for the deployment of a U.S. radar system in the Negev, which will bolster Israel's defence against Iranian or Syrian surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, will have historical significance as the first American base on Israeli territory. Israel has always had reservations about such a possibility and preferred to "defend itself by itself" and retain maximum freedom of action. The radar will be operated by civilians employed by the company that builds the system, and by two U.S. soldiers.
   
Anyone who tries to attack Israel with missiles will consider the radar a priority target. Anyone attempting such a strike will have to take into account the likelihood of harming the American crew, and the implications of such an action. This will increase Israel's deterrence, to a certain extent. Israel, too, will have to take into account the risk to the lives of the American radar operators. Israel will not be able to take action without early and explicit approval from the White House. The minute the base is set up,it will be like handcuffs on Israel's freedom of action.

Jerusalem Post, Aug.27 - "Unparalleled Cruelty" - Editorial - On any given day, Israeli prisons are hosting Red Cross representatives, journalists, lawyers and prisoners' advocates, as well as family members of convicted Palestinian prisoners.

Gilad Shalit, the Palestinians' lone Israeli prisoner, is not a terrorist but a simple soldier who was guarding sovereign Israeli soil when he was abducted on June 25, 2006. The IDF soldier - who under international law should be treated as a POW - is not allowed to see Red Cross representatives, and his parents are forbidden to visit him.
   
Meanwhile, Israel released 198 long-serving Palestinian prisoners, including several killers, in a gesture to boost Mahmoud Abbas' standing. Abbas used a Ramallah ceremony welcoming the men to say: "We will not rest until [all] the prisoners are freed and the jails are empty," specifically citing Marwan Barghouti, serving five consecutive life terms for murder; Ahmed Saadat, imprisoned for the assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi; and Aziz Duaik, a Hamas politician taken into custody in response to Shalit's abduction. It is sobering to remind ourselves that Abbas reflects the most moderate of Palestinian opinion.
  
Writing in Yediot Ahronot on Monday, novelist and playwright Yoram Kaniuk, a government critic who has long expressed compassion for Palestinian suffering, did what Abbas should have done. He urged ordinary Palestinians to call for better treatment of Shalit: "Keeping a young person imprisoned without trial, without his parents being able to visit him, is unparalleled cruelty." It is.

ISRAEL  AND  CHINA

Haaretz, Aug 27 - China passes Germany to become No. 2 exporter to Israel, By Ora Coren - Some say that China is becoming the second economic superpower after the United States, and certainly as far as Israel is concerned, it's coming true. In 2007, Chinese exports to Israel passed Germany's for the first time.

Imports from China grew to $4.6 billion in 2007, up from $3.2 billion the year before, according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Germany had ranked second in 2006 with exports to Israel of $3.2 billion. Its exports rose to $3.3 billion last year.

The U.S. remained the sole real superpower in exports to Israel: $8.1 billion in 2007, compared with $6.2 billion the year before.

However, for years China has been gradually closing the gap with America in terms of exports to Israel, at least. Meanwhile, Israeli exports to China aren't growing much. The pattern of exports to Israel complies with Beijing's policy of driving growth through exports.

Shauli Katznelson, deputy director general at the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute, believes that China is fated to supplant the U.S. as the main exporter to Israel. "It won't happen in two or three years," says Katznelson. "China's rise will take a long time. But the direction is clear," he adds.

Chinese manufacturing had been characterized by low-cost products of dubious quality, Katznelson says. Their safety had also been questioned. But in recent years Chinese manufacturers have been improving quality and are also making products of increasing sophistication. The result is that their products cost more.

GAZA

Telegraph -- UK Aug 25 - EU Aid to Palestine Is Funding the Conflict - Daniel Hannan - The EU is to increase its aid to the Palestinian Authority by 40 million, in order to pay the salaries of government employees. The EU's generosity with our money - it has paid the Palestinian Authority 256 million so far this year - creates two problems.

First, the PA in Gaza is run by Hamas, which is on the EU's list of designated terrorist operations. Under Brussels rules, funding such an organization is a criminal offence. Euro-lawyers have sought to circumvent the letter of the law by funnelling aid money through NGOs, but this is sheer sophistry.

Telegraph -- UK Aug 25 - EU Aid to Palestine Is Funding the Conflict - Daniel Hannan - Second, it is becoming increasingly clear that overseas aid is arresting a political settlement in the region. Palestinians receive more assistance, per capita, than any other people on Earth, and live in one of its most violent spaces. The two facts are connected.

Telegraph -- UK Aug 25 - EU Aid to Palestine Is Funding the Conflict - Daniel Hannan - The idea that aggression can be buried under a landslide of euros sounds reasonable, but it is based on a false premise, namely that political violence is caused by economic deprivation.

Telegraph -- UK Aug 25 - EU Aid to Palestine Is Funding the Conflict - Daniel Hannan - Palestinians are a naturally enterprising people who, in other Arab states, often form the professional and administrative class. A capitalist Palestine, in which citizens looked to themselves rather than to the state, would be more stable. Its propertied classes would have a stake in civil order. Its businessmen would have an incentive to remain on cordial terms with their customers, including those in Israel.

Telegraph -- UK Aug 25 - EU Aid to Palestine Is Funding the Conflict - Daniel Hannan - None of this will happen, however, as long as Palestinians remain trapped in the squalor of dependency. The author is a Conservative Member of the European Parliament.

Guardian-UK, Aug 28 - Showboating over Gaza - Ron Prosor - Israel last Saturday permitted two boats of protesters to land in Gaza, disappointing the more aggressive agitators in the party, as they hankered for a confrontation with the Israeli navy that never came. Having thoroughly assessed the security risks, Israel granted the ships safe passage.

Ironically, just three weeks earlier, scores of Palestinians were at the Israeli border, fleeing for their lives. Eleven Palestinians died and more than a hundred were injured in fierce fighting between Hamas and its Fatah rivals. Facing slaughter by Hamas forces, nearly 200 Fatah members fled to Israel for refuge.

The portrayal of Israel as the villain and as the sole cause of conflict in the Middle East is jeopardizing the search for real solutions to complex problems. In Gaza, Hamas has ruthlessly crushed its rivals, stifling criticism and ransacking its opponents. Human Rights Watch recently reported on Hamas' rule, citing "arbitrary arrests, tortured detainees, clamping down on freedom of expression and assembly."

Contrary to popular distortions regarding humanitarian aid, food and fuel supply, millions of litres of fuel are made available every week at the Nahal Oz fuel depot. Thousands of tons of food supplies, medical equipment and building materials are transported through the Sufa and Karni crossings weekly. Where does the aid and the fuel go?

It is time to realize that bashing Israel will not build Palestine. Showboating designed to vilify Israel will not steer the Palestinians through the choppy waters to statehood. Instead, the world must encourage the Palestinians to build their infrastructure and develop governing institutions. The extremists who sabotage this must be held to account.

The writer is the Israeli ambassador in London.

Palestinian Media Watch - Palestinian TV Teaches Children of a World Without Israel - Palestinian children are taught to see a world in which "Palestine" replaces all of Israel. A children's quiz broadcast Sep. 3 on Fatah-controlled PA television shows Palestinian children routinely identifying every Israeli city and landmark as part of "Palestine."

Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat are described as Palestinian ports, the Sea of Galilee is said to be a Palestinian lake, and the area of the Palestinian state is said to be 27,000 sq. km. Since the total area of Gaza and the West Bank is 6,200 sq. km., the larger figure includes Israeli territory. "Palestine" is said to border Lebanon and the Red Sea; in fact, these are Israel's borders.
   
RUSSIA
   
Yedioth Aharonot, Aug.29 - Russia is not the Soviet Union - By invading Georgia, Russia caused itself economic and political damage that may take years to repair. The investors who lifted the Russian economy are simply running away now: $12 billion was taken out of Russia in the past two weeks. Moreover, at this time Russia is closely associated with Israel no less so and possibly more so than with Syria. A million and a half former Russians reside in Israel, and Israel's high-tech industry is highly important for the Russian economy. The writer is head of Middle Eastern Studies at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.

Jerusalem Post,  Aug 29 - Russia Aware of Israel's Low Profile in Georgian Crisis - Herb Keinon - Anatoly Yurkov, the charge d'affaires at Russia's embassy in Tel Aviv, told the Jerusalem Post in an interview that Moscow appreciated the balanced position Israel had taken throughout the Georgian crisis, as well as its "low profile."

After Russia's recognition of the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, the dominant position in Jerusalem is that this is not Israel's fight, that it has critical strategic interests in its relationship with Moscow, and that it is not a superpower that needs to sound off on every issue. Jerusalem, which has already sent humanitarian aid to Georgia, has offered to send humanitarian aid to North Ossetia in Russia to help it deal with the influx of refugees there.
   
New York Herald Tribune, 6 - Ukraine government near collapse - The Western-leaning governing coalition in Ukraine, which has endured repeated tumult since the Orange Revolution in 2004, appeared once again near collapse.

ENERGY

Enerzine - Japan is betting on ethanol in order to get rid of its rice - Dating from 2009, Japan will use all its extra rice in order to produce ethanol.   

The Dalai Lama has been asked: “From your point of view, what is most surprising in humanity?”  - And the answer was the following:
Men, because they spoil their health accumulating money, then they lose money in order to recover their health.
They so anxiously think about future that they forget the present altogether.
Consequently, they live neither the present nor the future.
They go on living just as if they were never to die, and they die just as if they had never lived.