PREVIEW-Clinton dips into Arab-Israeli peacemaking - Reuters

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PREVIEW-Clinton dips into Arab-Israeli peacemaking

Reuters

By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes her first foray into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking next week, promising more than $900 million in aid for Gaza but with dim prospects of reviving talks soon.

Hamas and Fatah meet in Egypt Aljazeera.net

Former peace negotiators urge world to engage with Hamas Ha'aretz

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Welcome to the happiness frenzy, now peaking at a Barnes & Noble near you: Last year 4,000 books were published happiness, while a mere 50 books on the topic were releasedin2000. The most popular class at Harvard University is about psychology, least100other universities offer similar courses. Happiness workshops for the post-collegiate setabound, and each day "life coaches" promising bliss to potential clients hang out theirshingles.In the late 1990s, psychologist Martin Seligman of the University ofPennsylvania exhorted colleagues to scrutinize optimal moods with the same intensity with which they had for so long studied pathologies: We'd never learn about full humanfunctioning unless we knew as much about ellness as we do about mental illness. new generation of psychologists built up a respectable body of research on positive character traits and Happiness-boosting practices. At the same time, developments in neuroscience provided new clues to what makes us happy and what that looks like in the brain. Not to be outdone, behavioral economists piled on research subverting the classical premise that people always make rational choices that increase their well-being. We're lousy at predicting what makes us happy, they found.It wasn't enough that an array of academic strands came together, sparking a slew of insights into the sunny side of life. Self-appointed experts jumped on the Happiness bandwagon. A shallow sea of yellow smiley faces, self-help gurus, and purveyors of kitchen-table wisdom have strip-mined the science, extracted a lot of fool's gold, and stormed the marketplace with guarantees to annihilate your worry, stress, anguish, dejection, and even ennui. Once and for all! Allit takes is a little gratitude. Or maybe a lot.But all is not necessarily well. According to some measures, as a nation we've grown sadder and more anxious during the same years that the Happiness movement hasflourished; perhaps that's why we've eagerly bought up its offerings. It may be that college students sign up for positive psychology lessons in droves because a full 15 percent of them report being clinically depressed.There are those who see in the happiness brigade a glib and even dispiriting Pollyanna gloss.wow gold, So it's surprising that the happinessmovement has unleashed a counterforce, led by a troika of academics. Jerome Wakefield of New University and Allan Horwitz of Rutgers have penned The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder, and Wake Forest University's Eric Wilson has written a defense of melancholy in Against Happiness. They observe that our preoccupation with Happiness has come at the cost of sadness, wow power leveling, an important feeling that we've tried to banish from our emotional repertoire.

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ANKARA (Reuters) - U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell said Thursday Turkey will play a "key role" in President Barack Obama's efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.

 

Mitchell, in Ankara as part of a tour that will also take him to Israel and the West Bank, said Muslim Turkey's ties with Israel and Arab countries was an asset for Obama's promise to make Arab-Israeli peace a foreign policy priority.

 

"Turkey is a crucial ally of the United States and an important force for peace and security in the Middle East," Mitchell told reporters after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

 

NATO member Turkey, Israel's closest ally in the Middle East, has played a major role as a mediator in the past, in particular in bringing Israel and Syria to indirect negotiations.

 

Erdogan told Mitchell Washington should engage Hamas if progress is to be made on peace in the Middle East, a Turkish government official who was present at the talks told Reuters.

 

The United States, Israel and the European Union, which regard Hamas as a terrorist organization, have ostracized the militant group from peace efforts.

 

Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party government has regular contact with the Islamist group, which rules the Gaza Strip, and has long said it is part of a lasting solution.

 

"Even though we do not approve Hamas' methods, Hamas should not be excluded from the peace process and should be integrated into the political system and the peace process," the official said.

 

Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said talking to Hamas was the "right thing to do." Israel has said it will not deal with Hamas until it ends all violence, abides by existing peace agreements and recognizes Israel's right to exist.

 

Turkey's fierce criticism of Israel's campaign in the Gaza Strip has soured ties between the two Middle East allies, but diplomats and analysts have said damage should be short-term.

 

Highlighting the U.S. desire to see Turkey engaged in Middle East peace efforts, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Ankara next week in her first foray into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, officials said.

 

Ankara has been active in bridging a Palestinian rift between the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, which controls the occupied West Bank, and Hamas.

 

Turkish officials also told Reuters Ankara hopes to resume mediation between Israel and Syria once a new government is formed in Israel. Those talks collapsed after Israel's offensive in Gaza.

 

Mitchell was appointed last month to the post of U.S. Middle East envoy, responsible for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.