Baithak World Jun 21: Noble Sentiments, DancePower, News & views, Cartoons, RealNews

Take a couple of dozen Nobel prize winners, an Arab monarch and a famous Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor. Put them in a beautiful setting, ply them with fine food and magnificent hospitality, organise brainstorming sessions - and you get a memorable opportunity to chew over some of the gravest problems on the planet. Petra, the Nabataean city "half as old as time," is the rose-red jewel in the crown of Jordan's heritage sites - and one of the wonders of the world. It also hosts an annual conference of Nobel laureates launched by King Abdullah and Elie Wiesel: the big issues being discussed this week included the global food and energy crises, economic development, scientific research and youth empowerment – a hot topic in a region where half the population is under 18. Noble sentiments

The Dalai Lama (C) and Arab League secretary-general Amr Mussa (R) attend the conference Petra. Photograph: Awad Awad/AFP/Getty Images

And if this is true of the whole government, it is even truer of those at its head. The three candidates - Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (by the skin of his teeth) - are all from the same village, that miserable village. Where is our Obama? Each of the three has his own supporters, but even the disciples are sober and their expectations are low. For after all, with our own flesh we have witnessed, each of us with his own candidate, what our man has to sell, and what it is permissible to buy from him. It would be superfluous to dwell at length over the similarity between Netanyahu and Olmert. In their royal suite, in dim lighting, we would not be able to find the differences. Barak, too, is from the same mold, if we administer the test of results, which he himself articulated. From Haaretz

Green Nightclubs Harness Sustainable Power Of Dance

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"Uncontacted" Amazon Tribe Actually Known for Decades

Despite media reports, the isolated tribe recently photographed firing arrows at a plane has been observed and protected for years, insiders say.

Doonesbury@SLATE

Paul Jay presents RealNews

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