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The announcement came on a day when Mr. Moussavi released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president’s supporters, and as a close associate of the supreme leader called Mr. Moussavi and former President Mohammad Khatami “foreign agents,” saying they should be treated as criminals.

The documents, published on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site, accused supporters of the president of printing more than 20 million extra ballots before the vote and handing out cash bonuses to voters.

The association includes reformists, but Iranian political analysts describe it as independent, and it did not support any candidate in the recent election. The group had earlier asked for the election to be nullified because so many Iranians objected to the results, but it never directly challenged the legitimacy of the government and, by extension, the supreme leader.

The clerics’ statement chastised the leadership for failing to adequately study complaints of vote rigging and lashed out at the use of force in crushing huge public protests.It even directly criticized the Guardian Council, the powerful group of clerics charged with certifying elections. “Is it possible to consider the results of the election as legitimate by merely the validation of the Guardian Council?” the association said.

Many of the accusations of fraud posted on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site Saturday had been published before, but the report did give some more specific charges. For instance, although the government had announced that two of the losing presidential contenders had received relatively few votes in their hometowns, the documents stated that some ballot boxes in those towns contained no votes for the two men.

Kissinger: The important thing after military victory is to deal with the defeated nation in a generous way. SPIEGEL: And with this you mean not to subdue the defeated nation? Kissinger: You can either weaken a defeated nation to a point where its convictions no longer matter and you can impose anything you wish on it, or you have to bring it back into the international system. From the point of view from Versailles, the treaty was too lenient with respect to holding Germany down, and it was too tough to bring Germany into the new system. So it failed on both grounds.

SPIEGEL: What would a wise winner do? Kissinger: A wise victor will attempt to bring the defeated nation into the international system. A wise negotiator will try to find a basis on which the agreement will want to be maintained. When one reaches a point where neither of these possibilities exist, then one has to go either to increase pressure or to isolation of the adversary or maybe do both.

SPIEGEL: Were the Western countries wise in respect to their dealings with the former Soviet Union after their implosion? Kissinger: There was too much triumphalism on the western side. There was too much description of the Soviets as defeated in a Cold War and maybe a certain amount of arrogance. SPIEGEL: Not only towards Russia? Kissinger: In other situations as well.

Iran is a relatively weak and small country that has inherent limits to its capabilities. The relationship of China with the rest of the world is a lot more important in historic terms than the Iranian issues by themselves.

The president added: "We are facing a real window of opportunity for peace in the Middle East, despite the many problems and difficulties; there is still the chance for a significant change for the better.  "The peace process demands concessions, but both sides know there is no choice but to get the process moving and make difficult changes and lead to a breakthrough."

Peres lauded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the "important steps" taken with the policy speech he delivered at Bar Ilan University last month, and his success in "uniting the people under the slogan of two states for two peoples, despite the coalitional demands.'  

Regarding post-election developments in Iran, Peres said, "The world has opened its eyes to the Iranian regime's true intentions as a state sponsoring global terror.

Appearing on ABC's current affairs programme This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Mr Biden whether the Israeli position was the right approach. The vice-president replied: "Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." He added that this was the case, "whether we agree or not" with the Israeli view.

Asked whether the US would stand in the way if the Israelis decided to launch a military attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, Mr Biden said Israel, like the US, had a right to "determine what is in its interests".

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, responded to Mr Biden's remarks while on a visit to Tokyo. Iran would respond "in a very full-scale and very decisive way" to an Israeli attack, he said. "I think that America and Israel are fully aware what kind of result such a wrong judgement will entail," he said in remarks quoted by AFP news agency. "Israel showed its military power sufficiently in the 22-day war [in Gaza]. That kind of erroneous judgement poses a threat to the entire Middle Eastern region and the world."

Attacks like these -- or U.S. awareness of them -- appear to have escalated in the past six months, said one former official briefed on the matter.

while the spies were able to download sizable amounts of data related to the jet-fighter, they weren't able to access the most sensitive material, which is stored on computers not connected to the Internet.

Former U.S. officials say the attacks appear to have originated in China. However it can be extremely difficult to determine the true origin because it is easy to mask identities online.

A Pentagon report issued last month said that the Chinese military has made "steady progress" in developing online-warfare techniques. China hopes its computer skills can help it compensate for an underdeveloped military, the report said.

The Chinese Embassy said in a statement that China "opposes and forbids all forms of cyber crimes." It called the Pentagon's report "a product of the Cold War mentality" and said the allegations of cyber espionage are "intentionally fabricated to fan up China threat sensations."

The U.S. has no single government or military office responsible for cyber security. The Obama administration is likely to soon propose creating a senior White House computer-security post to coordinate policy and a new military command that would take the lead in protecting key computer networks from intrusions, according to senior officials.

The Bush administration planned to spend about $17 billion over several years on a new online-security initiative and the Obama administration has indicated it could expand on that.

The Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, is the costliest and most technically challenging weapons program the Pentagon has ever attempted. The plane, led by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Six current and former officials familiar with the matter confirmed that the fighter program had been repeatedly broken into. The Air Force has launched an investigation.

Foreign allies are helping develop the aircraft, which opens up other avenues of attack for spies online. At least one breach appears to have occurred in Turkey and another country that is a U.S. ally, according to people familiar with the matter.

Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft are already flying, and money to build the jet is included in the Pentagon's budget for this year and next.

Computer systems involved with the program appear to have been infiltrated at least as far back as 2007, according to people familiar with the matter. Evidence of penetrations continued to be discovered at least into 2008. The intruders appear to have been interested in data about the design of the plane, its performance statistics and its electronic systems, former officials said.

The intruders compromised the system responsible for diagnosing a plane's maintenance problems during flight, according to officials familiar with the matter. However, the plane's most vital systems -- such as flight controls and sensors -- are physically isolated from the publicly accessible Internet, they said.

The intruders entered through vulnerabilities in the networks of two or three contractors helping to build the high-tech fighter jet, according to people who have been briefed on the matter. Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor on the program, and Northrop Grumman Corp. and BAE Systems PLC also play major roles in its development.

The spies inserted technology that encrypts the data as it's being stolen; as a result, investigators can't tell exactly what data has been taken. A former Pentagon official said the military carried out a thorough cleanup.

Investigators traced the penetrations back with a "high level of certainty" to known Chinese Internet protocol, or IP, addresses and digital fingerprints that had been used for attacks in the past, said a person briefed on the matter.

As for the intrusion into the Air Force's air-traffic control systems, three current and former officials familiar with the incident said it occurred in recent months. It alarmed U.S. national security officials, particularly at the National Security Agency, because the access the spies gained could have allowed them to interfere with the system, said one former official. The danger is that intruders might find weaknesses that could be exploited to confuse or damage U.S. military craft.

In his speech in Austin, Mr. Brenner, the U.S. counterintelligence chief, issued a veiled warning about threats to air traffic in the context of Chinese infiltration of U.S. networks. He spoke of his concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. air traffic control systems to cyber infiltration, adding "our networks are being mapped." He went on to warn of a potential situation where "a fighter pilot can't trust his radar."

The pictures are similar to those from Abu Ghraib that in 2004 created shock around the world, caused a backlash in the Middle East and eventually led to jail sentences for the US military personnel involved.A US official said the pictures were not as bad as Abu Ghraib but "not good" either. The Abu Ghraib pictures showed Iraqi prisoners hooded, naked, posed in sexually embarrassing positions and being harassed by dogs.

Obama has consistently said he does not want to rake over history, fearing that it will deflect attention from his heavy domestic and foreign policy programme. But this week he opened the way for the prosecution of senior figures in the Bush administration and the establishment of a congressional inquiry.Amid the uproar this created, he has since been backing off. Both he and the Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, have signalled their unwillingness to hold a truth commission, but the Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, appears ready to push ahead. With so much clamour for an investigation, it is almost certain that Congress will hold one, with or without the backing of the White House.

The release of the pictures has been sought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a human rights organisation whose legal action forced publication of the Bush administration memos under freedom of information.

The pictures will increase pressure for pardons for military personnel who were punished for abuses at Abu Ghraib. Their lawyers are arguing that the Bush administration portrayed it as an isolated incident, whereas in fact it was widespread and approved at the highest levels."This will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration's claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational," said Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the ACLU.

The Bush administration, in blocking release of the pictures, had argued that they would create outrage but also that they would contravene the Geneva conventions obligation not to show pictures of prisoners.

About a quarter of a million petitions were delivered to the attorney-general, Eric Holder, yesterday calling for prosecution of Bush administration officials responsible for approving waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, said on CNN that it was “irresponsible for the president” to be seen laughing and joking with “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world,” referring to Mr. Chávez.And Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, pointed to Cuba’s estimated 200 political prisoners. “Release the prisoners and we’ll talk to you,” he said of the Cuban government on Fox News Sunday, adding, “Put up or shut up.”

Mr. Obama defended his overtures at a news conference on Sunday, saying the handshakes and the polite conversation he shared with Mr. Chávez here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”Wrapping up a four-day swing through Latin America, he said he believed he had paved the way for “frank dialogue” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba, whose relations with the United States have been badly strained.But he also sought to calibrate his message, saying Sunday that he had “great differences” with Mr. Chávez and insisting that freedom for the Cuban people would remain the guiding principle of his foreign policy.

Despite the warm feelings, some old tensions remained. President Evo Morales of Bolivia confronted Mr. Obama during a private session on Saturday with a charge that the United States had plotted to assassinate him. Mr. Obama responded on Sunday, saying, “I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments.”

And President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, an old Washington nemesis, sought to embarrass Mr. Obama in a nearly one-hour speech filled with anti-American vitriol in which he likened the American embargo of Cuba to the Berlin Wall.

Hoping to push the process forward, leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have volunteered to aid in a reconciliation between the United States and Cuba. “Brazil would be able to help,” Mr. da Silva said Sunday. In an interview published Sunday in the Spanish newspaper ABC, he said the United States should not wait for Cuba to take the next step in efforts to end their half-century of feuding.

Mr. Chávez took the initiative Saturday, saying he was naming Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s representative to the Organization of American States, to be his new ambassador to Washington.

Mr. Chávez had ejected the American ambassador to Venezuela in September, saying he had discovered an American-backed plot to remove him from power. Washington responded in kind.

Under the "1-2-3 deal," similar to one the United States signed last year with India, Washington would share nuclear technology, expertise and fuel. In exchange, the UAE commits to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The small oil-rich Gulf nation promises not to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs.

"It's being temporarily held up because of that tape," one senior official said.

The State Department had little to say publicly on the torture tape incident, but its 2008 human rights report about the United Arab Emirates refers to "reports that a royal family member tortured a foreign national who had allegedly overcharged him in a grain deal."

U.S. Rep. James McGovern -- the Massachusetts Democrat who co-chairs the congressional Human Rights Commission

McGovern asked Clinton to "place a temporary hold on further U.S. expenditures of funds, training, sales or transfers of equipment or technology, including nuclear until a full review of this matter and its policy implications can be completed." He also asked that the United States deny any visa for travel to the United States by Sheikh Issa or his immediate family, including his 18 brothers, several of whom are ruling members of the UAE government.

UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a half-brother of Sheikh Issa, is expected to visit Washington sometime next month.

The civil nuclear agreement was signed in January between the United Arab Emirates and the Bush administration, but after the new administration took office, the deal had to be recertified

The deal is part of a major UAE investment in nuclear, and it has already signed deals to build several nuclear power plants. The United States already has similar nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Morocco, and U.S. officials said Washington is working on similar pacts with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.

When the Bush administration signed the deal in January, it stressed the UAE's role in global nonproliferation initiatives, including a donation of $10 million to establish an International Atomic Energy Agency international fuel bank.

Congressional critics fear the deal could spark an arms race and proliferation in the region, and the UAE's ties to Iran also have caused concern.

Iran is among the UAE's largest trading partners. In the past, the port city of Dubai, one of the UAE's seven emirates, has been used as a transit point for sensitive technology bound for Iran.

Dubai was also one of the major hubs for the nuclear trafficking network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted to spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya up until the year 2000.

Such ties contributed to stiff opposition in Congress to the failed deal for Dubai Ports World to manage U.S. ports.

Officials said they expect the deal to be sent up to the Hill for ratification within the next few weeks, given that there has been little blowback from the publication of the tape, except for McGovern's letter to Clinton. "It will be sent very soon," one official said.

UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba told CNN his government always expected the deal to be sent to the Senate in early May, regardless of the controversy surrounding the tape. "As far as we are concerned, the deal is on track and this has not affected the timing," he said.

A second government adviser, Hu Angang, has said China should start cutting overall emissions from 2020.

While that is a minority view and final decisions are some way off, the proposals are striking because they are at odds with China's official negotiating stance.

Beijing has hitherto rejected carbon emission caps or cuts, arguing that its priority is to improve its people's living standards – and that the west caused the global warming problem and should fix it. But developed nations argue that they cannot commit to deep cuts and to substantial funding for developing nations to fight climate change unless those countries embrace emissions targets.

Environmental groups and foreign diplomats said a carbon intensity target would be a significant step forward. Any move by China, the world's fastest expanding major economy, biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and most influential developing nation, would have an enormous impact on the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December."It would be a significant step for China to set a target that directly links carbon emissions to economic growth for the first time," said Yang Ailun of Greenpeace."This is a green shoot of pragmatism that should be nurtured," said one European diplomat.

Hu, an influential economist and advocate of "green revolution", is pressing the government to take a leadership role in Copenhagen by making a public commitment to reduce emissions, and last week submitted the proposal to set a new carbon dioxide goal.He is one of 37 members of an elite body that advised the premier, Wen Jiabao, to include ambitious targets of a 20% improvement in energy efficiency and 10% reduction of pollution in the 2006-2010 plan. With government figures suggesting the country is on course to approach or exceed those goals, Hu suggests they be extended for the next plan with the addition of the carbon dioxide target.

If his proposal is accepted, Hu believes China will be able to make an international pledge this year to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 2020.

the debate on China's role in greenhouse gas reductions is widening. Last month, the Chinese Academy of Science reported that the country's carbon dioxide emissions relative to GDP should be reduced by 50% by 2020, and that total CO2 emissions should peak between 2030 and 2040 if the country introduced more stringent energy-saving policies and received more financial support and technology from overseas.

Citing new figures from the state bureau of energy, Hu said China overtook the US last year as the world's biggest energy producer with 2.6bn tonnes of standard coal equivalent, seven years ahead of expectations. "If we can't succeed in reducing energy consumption, then no one can. I tell the government that a 1% failure in China is a 100% failure for the world," said Hu. "We must satisfy our national interest and match it with the interest of humanity."

Despite the ongoing infighting that marks Iranian politics, a key point for Westerners to bear in mind is that all factions in "mainstream" Iranian politics support the idea that Iran should have the fuel cycle and a nuclear "option."

U.S. negotiators should be under no illusions. The idea that Iran should have some form of fuel cycle commands broad consensus within its current political system. The reasons why have as much or more to do with a very hardheaded analysis of Iran's security needs as with any ideological questions. It is not a matter of waiting for the present political order to throw up a leader who sees differently. That is not going to happen.

Those on both sides who seek to make the nuclear question the only issue, and who frame it in absolute terms and argue that it must be addressed before anything else can be considered, are not serious. This need to address other matters, even as the nuclear question is discussed, may have the effect of playing into Iran's hands as to the timing of its nuclear program, but it is a reality anyway.

And, finally, U.S. officials must realize that real dialogue, improved relations, and broader rapprochement mean more to Iran's elite than a simple thawing of relations. For Iranian hard-liners, all this heralds the end of a central tenet of the revolution -- that Iran must guard against contamination by, and collaboration with, the decadent West, and especially the United States. The Iranian people want a new relationship with the West. They are tired of being isolated. But in many ways, discussions between Tehran and Washington will be more of a watershed for their leaders than they will be for us.

Since the election of the new American president, who promised a change in foreign policy, it is no longer as easy for Ahmadinejad to demonize the United States, especially now that Obama has lived up to his promise of a new beginning -- with a practically revolutionary gesture.

The initial reaction from the Iranian leadership was muted. In a televised address, the powerful religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 69, said he was disappointed that Obama had not at least released Iran's frozen assets in the United States.

As hysterical as the Iranian leadership's anti-Americanism seems to be at times, it has valid historical reasons. In 1953, Washington's intelligence service brought down democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and then massively supported the Shah dictatorship for a quarter century. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was only able to launch his war against Iran with the help of American weapons and logistical guidance from Washington. The war lasted eight bloody years and ended in stalemate.

Hostility to the United States has become one of the key pillars of the theocracy. Will it collapse under Obama's friendliness and potentially substantial American good will? Can an American "grand bargain," a mixture of comprehensive political and economic concessions, stop the Iranians from building the nuclear weapons many believe they are seeking to develop? The United States, at any rate, will participate in all nuclear talks in the future, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday. The previous members of the negotiating group promptly invited Iran to enter a new round.

The US president is also under pressure to achieve progress on the nuclear issue. Time is running out for Obama, because the Iranians, according to a report released in February by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, may already have reached "breakout capability." This means that with their centrifuges and more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium hexafluoride, the Iranians could soon be able to flip the switch in the direction of having their own bomb.

Tehran installed and placed into service about 6,000 centrifuges needed for uranium enrichment in its nuclear facilities.

Now the existing, low enriched uranium hexafluoride can be refined to make weapons-grade uranium, either in the country's known enrichment facilities or, as many experts assume, in a location that remains unknown. If one thing is clear, it is that once it becomes known that Iran has embarked on this next enrichment step -- which, until now, has apparently been held up by a political decision -- a military strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities will be all but unavoidable. Experts believe that once this decision is reached, it could take less than six months for the Iranians to build their first bomb.

According to official results, the party took about 49.9% of the votes, but opposition leaders dismissed the result as fraudulent and have demanded a rerun.

Despite some economic progress under the communists, who have been in power since 2001, Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. About 600,000 Moldovans have left to find work in EU countries.

Moldova's provinces largely support the pro-Russian communists, but the capital favours the more western-leaning opposition.

Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: "Moldova's violent 'Twitter revolution' is totally different from the peaceful protest of Ukraine's Orange revolution."This time, the crowd are not angry at a stolen election, but at the growing corruption of the ruling Communist party, its recent turn towards Russia and an imminent economic crisis."

Russian analysts, however, suggested that the protests were unjustified because western observers had confirmed that the communists were legitimate winners of the election and had certified the poll as fair."This is an active attempt by a small minority to take power," Vladimir Zharikhin, the deputy director of the Moscow Institute for the Study of Post-Soviet Countries, said.

Yes, the United States does need to think carefully before launching a serious effort to rearm Georgia. The obvious yet painful reality is that Georgia simply is no match militarily for Russia, and we should not pretend otherwise. Giving less military support might also reinforce the U.S. message that the military option for resolving the South Ossetia and Abkhazia problems is out of the question.

Supporting Georgia's NATO aspirations, however, is a matter of principle. Last April in Bucharest, the alliance declared, "[We] welcome Ukraine's and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO." Even while aiming to reset relations with Russia, President Obama has pledged to uphold the principle that "countries who seek and aspire to join NATO are able to join NATO." For NATO's own credibility, Russia cannot be granted a de facto veto over other countries' aspirations for membership. Nor should wishful thinking of better relations with Russia get in the way of Georgia's aspirations, which the United States has encouraged.

So for Medvedev, the new anticorruption law, which he shepherded through the Duma in December 2008, presents a potential opportunity to intimidate Putin and his supporters.

Most of Putin's friends and allies throughout government and major corporations would no doubt find it challenging to provide full asset disclosure and transparency about conflicts of interest. With a new anticorruption law in his arsenal, Medvedev has a weapon of choice.

Interestingly, Putin may have sealed his own fate years ago by establishing a legal precedent for his own ouster. Shortly after Yeltsin transferred temporary presidential responsibilities to Putin on December 31, 1999, Putin issued Presidential Decree 1763, granting Yeltsin and his family lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution, administrative sanction, arrest, detention, and interrogation. If push comes to shove, it's not far-fetched to imagine Medvedev offering the very same arrangement to Putin.

If the two leaders cannot work out a quiet deal, then Medvedev might decide to use the new anticorruption law against a proxy. He would likely choose someone reasonably close to Putin with a similar KGB or law enforcement background: in Russian parlance, a silovik. The government would prosecute a current or former official for failure to disclose accurate income and asset statements, report subordinate noncompliance, or identify conflicts of interest. Once the government started such a prosecution for corruption, the message to Putin supporters would be clear: Watch out or you could be next.

Why would Medvedev turn on his political godfather? For political survival for the government, himself, and even Putin. Unless there is some fall guy for Russia's economic fiasco, the whole regime could topple. Counting on Russians' weariness with tumult and revolution, Medvedev may hope that dumping Putin will be enough to keep the system intact.

This week, the president opened the door to the discussions by abandoning longstanding restrictions on the ability of Cuban-Americans to travel freely to the island and send money to relatives there.

“I know there is a longer journey that must be traveled in overcoming decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day,” Mr. Obama said, adding that he was “prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues — from human rights, free speech, and democratic reform to drugs, migration, and economic issues.”

He said the United States needed to acknowledge long-held suspicions that it has interfered in the affairs of other countries. But, departing from his prepared text, he also said the region’s countries needed to cease their own historic demonization of the United States for everything from economic crises to drug violence.“That also means we can’t blame the United States for every problem that arises in the hemisphere,” he said. “That’s part of the bargain. That’s the old way, and we need a new way.”

On Cuba, the president’s words were as notable for what he said as for what he did not say. He did not scold or berate the Cuban government for holding political prisoners, as his predecessor, George W. Bush, often did.

But he also did not say that he was willing to support Cuba’s membership in the Organization of American States, or lift the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, as some hemisphere leaders here want him to do.

“Let me be clear,” he said. “I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking. But I do believe we can move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new direction.”

The new tone from Washington drew warm praise from leaders like President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. Mr. Ortega, who said he felt ashamed that he was participating in the summit meeting without the presence of Cuba, evoked images of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, saying, “I am convinced that wall will collapse, will come down.”

Mrs. Kirchner praised Mr. Obama for “what you did to stabilize the relationship from the absurd restrictions imposed by the Bush administration,” adding: “We sincerely believe that we in the Americas have a second opportunity to construct a new relationship. Don’t let it slip away.”

Mr. Obama’s speech on Friday night was only the latest in a string of overtures between the countries. On Thursday, Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, used unusually conciliatory language in describing the Obama administration’s decision to lift restrictions on family travel and remittances.

“We are willing to discuss everything, human rights, freedom of press, political prisoners, everything, everything, everything they want to talk about, but as equals, without the smallest shadow cast on our sovereignty, and without the slightest violation of the Cuban people’s right to self-determination,” Mr. Castro said in Venezuela during a meeting of leftist governments meant as a counterpoint to this weekend’s summit meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.

On Friday, Mrs. Clinton responded, saying, “We welcome his comments, the overture that they represent, and we’re taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond.”

Earlier this week Brazilian officials signaled in Rio de Janeiro that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, potentially flanked by the Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, would raise the issue of accepting Cuba into the Organization of American States at the summit meeting. Cuba’s “absence is an anomaly and he is waiting for this situation to be corrected,” Marco Aurélio García, Mr. da Silva’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters.

On Friday, the secretary general of the O.A.S., José Miguel Insulza, said he would call for Cuba to be readmitted. And Mr. Chávez recently said he would refuse to sign the official declaration produced at the summit meeting because Cuba was not invited.

"The right always says that we don't have a partner on the Palestinian side, as an excuse for the lack of progress. Now we are not a partner," Livni said.

She added that Kadima would have joined a unity government had Lieberman been prevented from joining.

In an interview Wednesday with Israel's Channel 2 TV, Lieberman went beyond his criticism of peace talks with the Palestinians and said he opposed any withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for a peace deal with Syria.

"I am very much in favor of peace with Syria, but only on one basis - peace in return for peace," he said, adding there would be "no withdrawals from the Golan during my time and hopefully not at any time."

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government held indirect peace talks last year with Syria, which demands that Israel return the Golan as a condition for any deal. Erdan said Lieberman's statement conformed with the government's platform. "We said during the election campaign that we oppose concessions on the Golan Heights," he said. "You have to get used to it - this is the position of most of the public."

A source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party confirmed Wednesday that his new government intended to distance itself from U.S.-sponsored understandings on working towards a Palestinian state.

Asked about ultra-nationalist Lieberman's remark that Israel was no longer bound by the 2007 framework, the source replied: "There is no problem here. He [Lieberman] is distancing himself from the Annapolis label, as the government intends to do."

Hadash MK Afu Aghbaria, meanwhile, urged the international community to impose a diplomatic embargo on Israel in the wake of Lieberman;s statements. "It isn't surprising that a racist foreign minister would produce such vehement suggestions, only a day after the new government was formed," Aghbaria said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded to the swearing-in of Benjamin Netanyahu's government by saying: "We want to tell the world that this man doesn't believe in peace and therefore we cannot deal with him... the world should put pressure on him."

The contrast is striking. Only four years ago, George W. Bush, in his second Inaugural Address, described what he called America's "considerable" influence, saying, "We will use it confidently in freedom's cause." Bush's vision of American power was combative and aggressive. He said the U.S. would "seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture." He continued, "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom."

Obama, by contrast, is looking for collaboration. He is looking to build a collective vision, not to impose an American one.

It remains to be seen whether Lieberman would be willing to accept a truly independent Palestinian state — Netanyahu has indicated that he won't, insisting, in the name of the Jewish state's security, that Israel control the air space and borders of such an entity, and have veto over its military and foreign policies. Netanyahu's track record, however, is also more pragmatic than ideological. Despite his open loathing of Yasser Arafat, his previous government in 1998 signed a deal with the late PLO leader for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the West Bank, including the sensitive biblical town of Hebron.

Publicly, at least, Netanyahu continues to take a hard line, rejecting the idea of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in order to get peace with Syria. Lieberman talks only of "peace for peace," rather than land for peace. But Netanyahu knows that no peace deal is possible without returning the Syrian territory captured in the war of 1967, and he may be ready to find a formula for its return if Syria is truly ready for a peace deal.

Syrian President Assad, having established firm control of the often opaque regime he inherited from his late father, Hafez al-Assad, appears to be willing to pick up where his father left off in seeking a deal with Israel. Assad was instrumental in starting indirect, Turkish-mediated talks with Israel despite initial opposition by the Bush Administration

In the past, two former Labor Prime Ministers, the late Yitzhak Rabin and Barak, were ready to withdraw from almost all of the Golan Heights. Netanyahu himself may have been, too: during his first term as Prime Minister, he reportedly ran a back-channel negotiation with the Syrians.

President Obama recently sent two senior officials to Damascus to test the waters, signaling Washington's willingness to end its campaign to isolate Syria.

early success on the Israel-Syria track would do wonders for the Administration's wider Middle East ambitions. Not only would it formally cement the 40-plus years of relative calm on the Israeli-Syrian frontier, it would potentially detach Syria from its alliance with Iran, and enlist Damascus in moderating or eliminating two key radical elements — Hamas and Hizballah — on Israel's borders

Iran's resulting loss of influence in the region could, in turn, help induce Tehran to rethink its more confrontational positions, particularly on the nuclear issue.

The North Korean foreign ministry said at the weekend that "even a single word critical of the launch" from the security council would be interpreted as "a hostile act".