NUGGETS

:: Since 1951 Germany has paid more than 102 billion marks, about $61.8 billion at 1998 exchange rates, in federal government reparation payments to Israel and Third Reich victims. In addition, Germans have paid out billions in private and other public funds, including about 75 million marks ($49 million) by German firms in compensation to wartime forced laborers, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported. These figures are based on calculations by the German Finance Ministry. (www.ihr.org)

:: According to Rabbi Cohn-Sherbok, this prejudice has "frequently led to the enrichment of the Jewish heritage", because by turning in on itself the community has reaffirmed its traditions. But then he goes further. Without it, he says, "Jews may not be able to withstand the pressures of the modern world." The "paradox of anti-Semitism" which forms the title of Cohn-Sherbok's book is that "Jews need enemies in order to survive ... in the absence of Jew-hatred, Judaism is undergoing a slow death." Without anti- Semitism, he writes, "we may be doomed to extinction." The Independent (London)

:: President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
The Boston Globe

:: The Bush administration has done more damage to Americans and more harm to America's reputation than any other administration in history. Yet, a majority of Republicans still support Bush. ... On Bush's watch, three million US manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Tens of thousands of highly qualified US engineers have lost their employment. US job growth has fallen six to seven million jobs behind population growth. Recent college graduates are employed as waitresses and bartenders. ... Illegal immigration has continued to explode. While Bush spends $1 trillion and many lives trying to control borders in the Middle East, America's borders remain undefended and over run. Bush advocates amnesty for the illegals who have invaded America while Bush invades distant countries. (www.counterpunch.org)

:: With the aid of recently declassified documents, we now know that NSSM 40 was the Nixon administration's effort to grapple with the policy implications of a nuclear-armed Israel. These documents offer unprecedented insight into the tense deliberations in the White House in 1969 -- a crucial time in which international ratification of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was uncertain and U.S. policymakers feared that a Middle Eastern conflagration could lead to superpower conflict. Nearly four decades later, as the world struggles with nuclear ambitions in Iran, India and elsewhere, the ramifications of this hidden history are still felt. The Washington Post

:: New revelations about the circumstances under which Israel and the United States reached a secret understanding on the Israeli nuclear program, and the Richard Nixon administration came to recognize Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity," appear in an article published this weekend in Washington. The article, in the current issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, was co-authored by Israeli historian Avner Cohen, who wrote "Israel and the Bomb" (1998), and William Burr, an expert on U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Haaretz (Israel)

:: Most American young people can't find Iraq on a map, even though U.S. troops have been there for more than three years, according to a new geographic literacy study. Fewer than four in ten Americans aged 18-24 in a survey could place Iraq on an unlabeled map of the Middle East, a study conducted for National Geographic found. Only about one-quarter of respondents could find Iran and Israel on the same map. Reuters