With the formation of a new government in Israel, what are the chances for peace in the Middle East? Last Friday, as director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution, I invited to Columbia University Shlomo Ben Ami, a historian and former foreign minister of Israel, to talk about the chances for peace in the region. The lecture reflected the depth of knowledge, the intellectual honesty, and the wisdom that has marked the academic life as well as the political carrier of Ben Ami. The thoughts he expressed in the …

There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb’s impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform is exactly that. Webb’s interest in the issue was prompted by his work as a journalist in 1984, when he wrote about an American citizen who was locked away in a Japanese prison for two years under extremely harsh conditions for nothing more than marijuana possession. After decades of mindless “tough-on-crime” hysteria, an increasingly irrational “drug war,” and a sprawling, privatized prison …

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and all those with a stake in their survival need to take more hard steps to help the struggling automakers restructure for the future.
Obama, in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” broadcast Sunday, said the companies must do more to receive additional financial aid from the government.
“They’re not there yet,” Obama said.
The president was set to announce a plan Monday for the government to provide more money in exchange for tough concessions from union workers, bondholders and others.
“We …

SYDNEY — Thousands of poisonous cane toads met their fate Sunday as gleeful Australians gathered for a celebratory mass killing of the hated amphibians, with many of the creatures’ corpses being turned into fertilizer for the very farmers they’ve plagued for years.
Hundreds of participants in five communities across northern Queensland snacked on sausages, sipped cold drinks and picked up prizes as the portly pests were weighed, measured and killed in the state’s inaugural “Toad Day Out” celebration.
“To see the look on the faces of the kids as we were handling …

Mr. Biden has settled into a role of what Mr. Obama compares to a basketball player “who does a bunch of things that don’t show up in the stat sheet,” the president said in an interview Friday. “He gets that extra rebound, takes the charge, makes that extra pass.” [...]
“There’s, I think, an institutional barrier sometimes to truth-telling in front of the president,” Mr. Obama said. “Joe is very good about sometimes articulating what’s on other people’s minds, or things that they’ve said in private conversations that people have been …

Old friends of Sarah Palin think her new, inexperienced advisers are doing the governor harm, Politico reported Sunday.
Interviews with Alaska and Washington-based GOP political professionals who are familiar with the Palin operation describe the governor’s team as a gang that couldn’t shoot straight, a staff whose failure to execute basic political maneuvers too often entangles the governor in awkward and embarrassing situations that could have easily been avoided.
Fox News host Greta van Susteren and her husband, John Coale, came in for particular scrutiny. Coale helped Palin put together a Political …

The high-profile policy duel between Tim Geithner and Paul Krugman came to a head on Sunday. Following the Treasury Secretary’s appearance on ABC’s “This Week (read/watch that interview here), Krugman participated in the panel session and made clear that he hadn’t yet been convinced.
“It’s a plan to rearrange the deck chairs and hope that that keeps us from hitting the iceberg,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist said of Geithner’s bank plan. “They’ve been some things very fast, but they’ve been very small things … There’s no way this could be enough.”
Watch:
On …

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s plans to launch a rocket as early as this week in defiance of warnings threatens to undo years of fitful negotiations toward dismantling the regime’s nuclear program.
The U.S., South Korea and Japan have told the North that any rocket launch _ whether it’s a satellite or a long-range missile _ would violate a 2006 U.N. Security Council Resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from any ballistic activity, and could draw sanctions.
North Korea said sanctions would violate the spirit of disarmament agreements, and said it would treat the …

LONDON — Britain’s Home Secretary apologized Sunday for putting five pay-per-view movies on her parliamentary expense account _ including two X-rated ones screened by her husband.
Jacqui Smith admitted she should not have claimed any of the movies and said all the money would be paid back. She attributed the mistake to not being careful enough with a service package that included both Internet and TV.
“I am sorry that in claiming for my Internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it,” Smith said in a statement. “As soon …

DOHA, Qatar — Qatar’s leader embraced Sudan’s president in a red-carpet welcome Sunday as he arrived to attend an Arab Summit in his most brazen act of defiance against an international arrest warrant on charges of war crimes in Darfur.
For host Qatar _ a key U.S. ally that is home to American warplanes and more than 5,000 U.S. troops _ the Arab League meeting beginning Monday also showcases its desire to stake out a prominent role in regional affairs even at the risk of angering the West.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir …