Lots is happening in the world today. The world hasn’t stopped turning while we have our presidential campaigns, hurricanes, Fannie, Freddie and lost children. They are important, but what’s going on while we aren’t looking? Here are some choice bits from assorted news sources, in today’s news.

Palestine is Arab League’s priority - Qattan
Saudi Gazette
CAIRO – The meeting of 130th regular session of the Council of the Arab League at delegates level began at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Saturday.
The meeting was headed by the representative of Saudi Arabia to the Arab League Ambassador Ahmed Abdulaziz Qattan.
This meeting aims to prepare for the meeting of the regular session of the Council at the level of Foreign Ministers due to be held next Monday.
During the meeting, the Ambassador said in his speech that the Palestinian issue is the most important priority of joint Arab action, which is currently working to achieve reconciliation among the Palestinians so that they can prevent their enemies from dispersing them.
Saudi Arabia, he added, believes that the resolutions of the Arab League on the dispute between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and the Cairo, Makkah and Yemen agreements signed between them, in addition to the Palestinian constitution, are references for solving the internal Palestinian dispute…
…The Saudi Ambassador considered the crisis of Iran’s nuclear file is one of the challenges facing our region and a source of concern to all, expressing his hope that this issue will be resolved peacefully away from the tension and escalation in the framework of the aspiration to make the Middle East and the Gulf region free of weapons of mass destruction while ensuring the right of the countries to the peaceful use of nuclear energy in accordance with standards and procedures of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and under its supervision and applying those standards to all countries in the region without exception, including Israel.

Bolivia moving Mideast embassy to Iran

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) (reported in the Jordan Times) - Bolivia’s leftist president says he’s moving the country’s lone Middle Eastern embassy to Iran as he builds increasingly warm ties with one of Washington’s least-favourite countries. Until now, Bolivia had its embassy in Egypt. President Evo Morales announced the change at a news conference on Friday following his return from Iran and Libya. Morales and fellow socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have irked US officials by signing a series of deals with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many involve petrochemicals, but Morales says Iran will help Bolivia in cement and agriculture as well. Iran is building tractors and automobiles in Venezuela.

Gul pays historic visit to Armenia
Arabnews

YEREVAN: The presidents of Turkey and Armenia said yesterday there now is a “political will” to resolve decades of animosity, following landmark talks here.

“I hope that this visit will create the possibility to improve bilateral relations,” Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said at a joint press statement here alongside Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian.

Sarkisian declared there is a “political will to decide the questions between our countries, so that these problems are not passed on to the next generation.” Gul was paying a landmark visit to Armenia — the first by a Turkish president since Armenia’s independence in 1991 — for the first of two World Cup qualifiers between the two national teams.

Sarkisian said he had been invited by Gul to attend the return fixture in Turkey next month. “Today the president of Turkey invited me for a reciprocal visit to Turkey to watch the next match. I think this is a good start,” Sarkisian said, without specifying if he would attend.

Gul said the two “shared opinions on how to bring stability and cooperation to the Caucasus region” and thanked Sarkisian for welcoming a Turkish proposal for a new regional forum in the volatile zone. NATO member Turkey has called for the establishment of a forum to boost cooperation in the Caucasus, involving regional countries and Moscow, after tensions between Georgia and Russia erupted in a military conflict last month.

Sarkisian, for his part, said he was “very pleased” to see from Turkey “a readiness to create stability and cooperation in the region.” The two countries — which have no diplomatic relations — have waged an international diplomatic battle over Yerevan’s efforts to have the 1915-1917 massacre of Armenians recognized as genocide.

In 1993 Turkey also shut its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity with its close ally Azerbaijan, then at war with Armenia over Nagorny Karabakh, an Armenian-majority region in Azerbaijan that declared independence.

Nuclear suppliers clear US-India deal in Vienna
Arab News
VIENNA/NEW DELHI: The United States finally persuaded supplier nations yesterday to lift a 34-year-old embargo on nuclear trade with India, following weeks of tough negotiations. The deal now needs the approval of the US Congress.

The US described the breakthrough on the third consecutive day of talks as a “historic” and “landmark” deal that would boost nuclear nonproliferation, while enabling India to meet its huge needs with low-polluting energy.

India called the agreement an “important step” in normalizing its relations with the rest of the world that would help meet the challenge of climate change and sustainable development.

The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which controls the export and sale of nuclear technology, reached consensus on a one-off waiver of its rules for India, which refuses to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

“This is a historic moment for the Nuclear Suppliers Group, for India, for US-Indian relations, indeed India’s relations with the rest of the world,” acting US Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security John Rood, told reporters at the end of around 90 minutes of talks in Vienna yesterday.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while welcoming the waiver, said: “This is a forward-looking and momentous decision. It marks the end of India’s decades-long isolation from the nuclear mainstream and of the technology denial regime.”

“It is a recognition of India’s impeccable nonproliferation credentials and its status as a state with advanced nuclear technology. It will give an impetus to India’s pursuit of environmentally sustainable economic growth,” he said.

Singh also spoke to President George Bush on telephone and thanked him. Besides, “The two leaders expressed their belief that mutually beneficial relations between India and the United States were in the interest of their peoples, and were on a path of steady consolidation and multifaceted expansion, to which both leaders reiterated their commitment,” official sources said.

The NSG-waiver will “enable India to resume full civil nuclear cooperation with the international community to meet its energy and development requirements,” External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said. “We welcome this decision,” which “constitutes a major landmark in our quest for energy security,” he added.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi congratulated Singh and Mukherjee for the NSG-waiver.

But the communists continued to voice their opposition to the deal. “This is an injustice done to the generation next to come. The Manmohan Singh government has taken an unfortunate decision by submitting our authority before the United States,” Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader A. Vijayaraghavan said.

“Initially it appears that India has neither got a clean nor an unconditional waiver. If this is the case, it is yet another surrender,” CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury said.

Senior leader of the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Yashwant Sinha, said that “India has walked into the nonproliferation trap set by the US, we have given up our right to test nuclear weapons forever, it has been surrendered by the government.”

Jordan: Mufti Bans Currency Trading

Arabnews - AMMAN: Jordan’s top religious official yesterday issued a fatwa banning electronic trading in currencies due to the “financial risks” involved.

“Trading in currencies is a taboo and illegal from a religious point of view, given the financial risks involved in such transactions,” the country’s grand mufti, Nouh Salman, said.

“Such transactions are tantamount to gambling,” Salman said, alluding to electronic currency trading by a number of Jordanians who suffered heavy losses and were forced to sell real estate and their wives’ jewelry.

The Jordanian government recently enacted a new law to regulate the trading of currencies through the Internet after scores of citizens went bankrupt when they suffered big losses in currency trading with foreign markets.

Jordan, which follows an open-market policy, is not expected to adopt the mufti’s recommendations in this respect, financial analysts sabid.