That the toxic years of the Bush administration are about to end is a great relief. And, we need not dwell on the obvious historical importance of an African-American getting elected President of the United States, a polity substantially founded on the genocide of one race and the slave labour of another. Millions of words have been written on this.

Within moments of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team at Lahore, top television anchors of Pakistan were on air crying in unison: its RAW. Without any proof , they worked on all kinds of conspiracies. Talk show host, Kamran Khan, conducting a late-evening current affairs programme on Geo, did not deem it necessary to even spin a theory. He was direct, frank and determined in declaring: ''No need to guess. The identity of the terrorists is evident. Also, it is crystal clear where they have come from. Pakistan now should not sit idle. Instead she should highlight the issue at international forums the way India highlighted Mumbai''.

Karl Sabbagh Editorial, doi:10.1136/bmj.b500doi:10.1136/bmj.a2094Personal view, doi:10.1136/bmj.b722 The BMJ’s acting editor received 1000 emails after the journal published an article criticising Israel in 2004. Karl Sabbagh examined them and is reminded of what happened when the magazine World Medicine criticised Israel 27 years ago

Dion Nissenbaum McClatchy Newspapers, 26 February 2009 Jerusalem - For more than seven weeks, the international aid group Mercy Corps has been trying to send 90 tons of macaroni to the isolated Gaza Strip as part of a global campaign to help the 1.4 million Palestinians there rebuild their lives after Israel's recent devastating 22-day military operation.

Kathy Kelly Online Journal Feb 11, 2009 People have asked me, since I returned from Gaza, how people manage? How do they keep going after being traumatized by bombing and punished by a comprehensive state of siege?

Wednesday February 18, 2009 It was as if they had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before. —Dr. Erik Fosse, Norwegian cardiologist who worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war.

Sara Miller, Haaretz, Wed., March 04, 2009 Peace Now says that a new right-wing government presents the danger of "expanding settlement growth at a rapid pace... with the clear intention of destroying the possibility of a two-state solution."