Politics

One of the most important lessons any negotiator needs to know is that the ability to conduct effective negotiations requires one to have a credible alternative in case negotiations fails.As US Secretary of State John Kerry begins a new round of talks in the region, Palestinian leaders' need for a plan B has never been more necessary.More...

Atlanta wasn't an isolated incident. Neither was El Paso, or Washington, DC, or Columbus. A new General Accounting Office report demonstrates that cheating by school officials on standardized tests has become commonplace despite the use of security measures the report recommends. The only solution is one that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has so far refused -- removing the high stakes attached to standardized testing.The latest embarrassment is in Columbus, where this month Ohio State Auditor Dave Yost seized records at 20 high schools. This is part of a two-year-old investigation into "scrubbing" 2.8 million attendance records of students who failed tests. Yost has recently widened his investigation to look into whether school administrators also changed grades to boost graduation rates.More...

I recently wrote a blog post about the importance of asking our good friends for what we really need. I received a lot of feedback, most of it expressing gratitude for being given permission to need and ask for a certain kind of undistracted attention from good friends. Many people identified with the feelings of loss and loneliness in the gap between what we need from friends and what we actually receive. So too, people raised the issue of fear, and how scary it is to ask -- anyone -- for what we really need. It is this fear that I want to address here.When we ask a friend for what we really need, we take a risk -- a big risk. We risk that the friend will not want to or be able to give us what we need. We take the risk that it is to expose our vulnerability, to show our true selves, rather than protect a version of ourselves, that we believe is likeable. We risk removing the armor from around our heart and as a result, getting deeply hurt. We risk being judged for our need. We risk feeling shame. And finally, we risk rejection altogether. By asking for what we really need, we risk discovering that we are not valued as we believed we were.More...

Overnight clashes killed six people in the Lebanese port of Tripoli, a security source said Thursday, as a fifth day of violence sparked by the Syria conflict spread to previously quiet neighbourhoods."Very violent fighting took place last night until 5:00 am (0200 GMT) that killed six people and wounded 40. The clashes and shelling affected several areas of the city, including the centre," the source told AFP.Violence has regularly broken out in Tripoli since the beginning of Syria's uprising, pitting residents of the Sunni Bab el-Tebbaneh district against those from the neighbouring Alawite area of Jabal Mohsen.But since Sunday, shelling and clashes have spread to other mostly Sunni areas of the city, killing 17 people including two soldiers and wounding 150 others.An AFP correspondent said large parts of the city of 500,000 inhabitants were shut down on Wednesday, with schools and shops closed after the clashes.Troops have been deployed across the city since the outbreak, but this has failed to halt the fighting.The latest violence began as the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a withering assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon.Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah has been sending fighters across the border to help Syrian regime forces attack Qusayr.And on Thursday, a Lebanese source close to Hezbollah told AFP that 75 the group's combatants have been killed in the Syrian conflict, especially in Qusayr.Amin al-Qabbut, mukhtar (municipal official) of the Sunni Al-Qobba area, said areas of Tripoli last attacked during the Syrian army's bombardment of the northern city in 1985 were being shelled again."This war is the continuation of the 1985 war that Syria waged against us," Qabbut said.In 1985, the Syrian army clashed with Sunni groups in Tripoli, and bombarded areas of the city, during Lebanon's civil war."The political tool used to wage the war is the same, it is the Arab Democratic Party," Qabbut said, referring to the party linked to Tripoli's Alawite community.The ADP has, in return, accused Sunni groups of starting the fighting.The Sunni-majority port has been the scene of intense clashes between Sunni supporters of the anti-Syrian opposition and Alawite Muslims loyal to a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Iran and Syria.Syria's President Assad, who is fighting a bloody uprising against his regime, hails from the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.The revolt in Syria has exacerbated tensions in Lebanon, which lived under three decades of Syrian hegemony and remains deeply divided between supporters and opponents of Damascus.Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.More...

One look at a creation by Seulbi Kim, a student of industrial design at Rhode Island School of Design, and we're smacking our heads thinking, "Why didn't we think of that?"Kim's Togo Burger is a folding cardboard caddy that allows an entire fast food meal to be held with one hand. In a series of drawings detailing the innovation, Kim explains her thinking behind it.More...

On Memorial Day, the country will honor those who served and continue to serve in the military. In that spirit, the documentary 'Honor Flight' follows four World War II veterans on their journey to see the memorial constructed to honor them in Washington, D.C. One of the film's stars, Joe Delmar, joined HuffPost Live to discuss his time in service and the story behind 'Human Skeleton', the iconic image taken of Delmar in a Nazi prison camp in 1945.Delmar was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and spent months in captivity. When a Life magazine photographer took the famous photo, Delmar weighed less than 70 pounds. "When a little 100-pound nurse lifted me off a gurney and placed me in bed, that's how--then I began to wonder," Delmar said.More...

With all the real-life carnage in the world -- from the war in Afghanistan to the factory disaster in Bangladesh to the tornado in Oklahoma -- how painful is it to also read about fictional deaths in literature? Pretty painful, especially if we're fond of the characters whose lives end.But it's hard for readers to avoid expired characters. Death is as ubiquitous as taxes and blog posts, and literature reflects this. Also, the passing of people is a major dramatic device (along with romance, ambition, etc.) that many fiction authors use to keep us riveted.More...

For years, Italy has ranked among the top summer destinations for American travelers, an unsurprising feat given the country's historical legacy, renowned cuisine, breathtaking heartland, and award-winning wines. To get a true taste of the essence of Italy, many travelers take to the countryside to explore the rustic villages and sprawling vineyards which have made Italy synonymous with old-world charm.In the face of so many stunning towns to choose from, many travelers find themselves overwhelmed when planning their Italian escape. To lend a hand, we've gone through recommendations and experiences from thousands of real-world travelers and locals on minube to bring you this list of the best Italian villages for your summer getaway.More...

Anyone who's been married for any length of time should be able to enjoy Richard Linklater's Before Midnight, if squirming in your seat can be considered a form of enjoyment.The third in a trilogy that began with Before Sunrise (1995) and continued with Before Sunset (2004), this film picks up with the same two characters: Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). They're married now, with twin girls; he divorced the wife he had in the second installment. He's a successful author, she's still trying to be an environmental activist and they're just finishing a month-long sojourn on an island of Greece.More...

People have been trying to understand this business of love and relationships forever, and have tried just about everything - art, poetry, literature, psychology, sociology, biology, you name it. Yet we seem to be as confused as ever; why else would we be spending so much time talking, writing and worrying about it? The trouble is that our analysis is almost always subjective, biased by our experiences. So, how about trying something completely different that has never been tried before - the laws of quantum physics? Certainly, that's about as objective as we can get, with no ties to anything or anyone we ever encounter.Quantum physics is really all about waves, so much so that it used to be called wave mechanics in its early days. It essentially tells us that at a fundamental level everything behaves like waves of energy and chance. Now, if waves truly underlie all of reality, it stands to reason that the rules that govern wave dynamics could certainly give us a few pointers about the dynamics of human behavior too, particularly as regards how and why our relationships fail or succeed.More...