News stories by Pierre Klochendler, page 16

When last December Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, delivering to an international conference in Herzliya outside Tel Aviv what has become the equivalent of Israel's 'State of the Union' address, chose to focus not on Iran's nuclear ambitions or on the prospects of Middle East peace, but on 'the need to re-enforce our national heritage,' his vision was dismissed by supporters and critics alike as inconsequential.

The U.S. is raising the stakes in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear programme, putting the issue on a 'pressure track', says top U.S. general David Petraeus. The U.S. and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran for its refusal to comply with repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and to agree to a deal involving UN-backed nuclear fuel.

An Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, Israel's 'Ajami', is a tragic, yet realistic, pointer to the multi-layered conflict of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians.

Backed by armed security men, the municipal inspectors race their jeeps through the narrow alleyways and up a hillside crowded with buildings.

Scores of Palestinian women and their children carefully sift through the desert sands. They are looking for hard nuggets.

When Benjamin Netanyahu dug a spade here and in another West Bank settlement this week, some thought the Israeli Prime Minister was actually digging a hole into current United States-sponsored peace efforts.

A week after the devastating Haiti earthquake, Israelis watched proudly as their TV channels showed the New York Fire Department rushing two young boys, extricated from the rubble of a building, to a field hospital set up by the Israeli army in Port-au-Prince.

Salam Fayyad turned civil society activist this week. In Salfit, on the West Bank, the Palestinian prime minister threw onto a giant bonfire goods made in Israeli settlements.

A bizarre diplomatic incident - even by the Byzantine-like standards of the old near East - has threatened already strained relations between Israel and Turkey.

One year after the devastating attack on Hamas in Gaza a new wave of reports castigating Israel for war crimes has emerged.