Hostage to Hezbollah  —  Lesson for Nasrallah: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you."  —  Pity Lebanon: In a world of states, it has not had a state of its own.  A garden without fences, was the way Beirut, its capital city, was once described.

In Mideast Strife, Bush Sees a Step To Peace  —  President Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.  —  When hostilities have broken out in the past …

Two N.J. Casinos Sued Schlesinger Over Debts  —  When Alan Schlesinger gave a fake name while playing blackjack at Foxwoods in the early 1990s, he had already been sued over a gambling debt by one Atlantic City casino and was on the way to racking up an even bigger debt that led to a second lawsuit.

Exiled Bakri in SOS plea  —  EXILED preacher of hate Omar Bakri has begged the Royal Navy to rescue him from war-torn Beirut.  —  The Muslim cleric who fled Britain last year, tried to board a ship full of women and children yesterday but was turned away.  —  He also wrote to the British …

A Secret the Media Kept  —  Toward the end of 1979, hundreds of American and Canadian journalists and news organizations got hold of a dynamite news story that would have made personal reputations and careers and sent circulation or broadcast ratings soaring.  The facts were confirmed, unassailably.

Israel calls up troops, warns Lebanese  —  BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel called up reserve troops Friday and warned civilians to flee Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, as it prepared for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone.  —  Hezbollah militants fired at least 11 rockets …

Sources: Negroponte Blocks CIA Analysis of Iraq "Civil War"  —  I reported in May that despite the deteriorating situation in Iraq, no National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has been produced on that country since the summer of 2004.  The last NIE, a classified document that the CIA describes as …

Count Ethnic Divisions, Not Bombs, to Tell if a Nation Will Recover From War  —  WITH repeated Shiite and Sunni killings in Iraq, the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, the assaults by the Taliban and counterassaults by American forces in Afghanistan …

Top-Secret World Loses Blogger  —  CIA Contractor Is Fired When Internal Post Crosses the Line  —  Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, considered her blog a success within the select circle of people who could actually access it.  —  Only people with top-secret security clearances …

'World Trade Center' is a world class movie  —  I have a long list of favorite patriotic movies, including "Victory at Sea," "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Sands of Iwo Jima," but Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" is right up there with the best of them.  It is one of the greatest pro-American …

Germany seeks EU ban on stem-cell research funding  —  BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Germany pressed its EU partners to ban European funding for embryonic stem-cell research, a day after President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have expanded such work in the United States.

Centrist Democrats Ponder How To Counter Netroots  —  At a time when centrism has become a dirty word in some Democratic Party circles, hundreds of the party's avowed moderates are convening in Denver this weekend to discuss their agenda for this fall's election and the presidential contest in 2008.

Sen. Reid: Iraq devolves into 'civil war'  —  Democratic leader will try to revive Senate debate on Iraq  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Declaring that he believes the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to try to bring the war back up for debate on the Senate floor.