756 million people endorse cooperation
Loved Ones…while the American presidential candidate McCain is making jokes about our exported cigarettes effectively killing Iranians other world leaders who are in fact responsible leaders of their respective governments are working towards cooperation with their global neighbors.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has said that Israel and the Palestinians have "never been this close" to a peace deal, at a press event before the launch of a revamped Euro-Mediterranean union.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said that both sides were "serious and wanted to achieve peace", at the conference hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.

Olmert and Abbas were among 43 foreign leaders present on Sunday in Paris at the launch of the Union of the Mediterranean, which will facilitate co-operation on pollution, migration, energy, education, research and business.

Heads of state and government from 27 EU nations and an arc of countries from Morocco to the Balkans, representing some 756 million people, are set to endorse the project.

"It doesn't mean that all of the problems are resolved of course," Sarkozy said ahead of the summit.

"But the goal of the summit ... is that we learn how to love each other in the Mediterranean, instead of continuing to hate and wage war."

"We would like, in the future, to speak as equals about their problems with Mediterranean rim countries and also to help resolve European problems," Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said on Saturday.

The union is first set to discuss modest goals of cleaning up pollution in the Mediterranean, building highways and sea lanes, disaster response projects, developing solar energy, boosting education and research, and helping to foster business.

Arab countries, led by Algeria, managed to secure guarantees in the final declaration of the founding summit that the Union will not allow a creeping normalisation of ties with Israel.

Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, said on Saturday that Syria and Lebanon, who are both present at the conference, had agreed to establish diplomatic relations, opening up embassies in each country's capitals for the first time since independence.

Relations between Israel and Syria have been in conflict since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, although they have moved to revive peace efforts through indirect talks, with Turkey as a mediator.

Assad went as far as referring to the predominantly Jewish state as "Israel" and not the "Zionist entity" for the first time in public, hinting that Syria was willing to engage in a form of dialogue with its Middle East neighbor.

"The Syrian president's willingness to build ties with Lebanon, which have been strained for so long, is music to French ears,” she said.

"This is also something that Sarkozy will take credit for, and essentially see this as a diplomatic breakthrough."

The UK, Germany and the US welcomed the decision by Lebanon and Syria to open diplomatic relations,

but a US state department spokesman said Washington would "continue to limit [US] diplomatic engagement unless Syria takes concrete actions to end its destabilizing tactics in the region".

Despite the three-decade military presence in its smaller neighbor, which ended in 2005, Syria has never had diplomatic relations with Lebanon, which it has long regarded as part of its own territory wrongly separated by ex-colonial power France.

Ahmed Fatfat, youth and sports minister in the former Lebanese government, said: "We've been demanding the opening of embassies for a long time and it's something that should have happened years ago.

"Syria needs to start conducting its relations with Lebanon on a state-to-state basis and can no longer treat us as a fiefdom."

Amr Mussa, chief of the Arab League, which could be granted observer status in the union, said on Friday that the new union must not ignore the Palestinian issue.

"When the UFM (Union of the Mediterranean) examines the situation in the Mediterranean region, it must not ignore the Palestinian cause."

Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said Abbas would raise the question of "colonies" on Palestinian territory, and call once more for Israel to "end them", particularly in east Jerusalem.

"No issue has been settled, hence the necessity of greater efforts from the US administration and from the international community to avoid the region falling into uncontrollable chaos," Abu Rudeina said.

Loved Ones…we (residents of these States United) are in fact funding and are in some part spiritually responsible for the actions of those identified as our “leaders”.

At this time I petition for the White Light of the Holy Spirit to surround and protect all persons working towards world peace and I petition that those individuals functioning on pure greed for control to learn all their lessons with the least amount of pain…I petition and ask that in the name of Mother God.
Samuel Joseph Bell
www.angelicinfusion.com
- posted by Samuel Bell @ 4:59 AM