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According to latest statistics 304,569 Israelis live in the 121 officially-recognised settlements in the West Bank, 192,000 Israelis live in settlements in East Jerusalem and over 20,000 live in settlements in the Golan Heights. Settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods. The three largest West Bank settlements, Modi'in Illit, Maale Adumim and Betar Illit, have achieved city status, with over 30,000 residents each.Needless to say, the settlements Israel has built in the territories of Judea and Samaria since 1967 are located beyond the 1967 border prior to the Six Day War.  Retreating behind this border now would mean abandoning and uprooting over 300,000 Israelis who make their lives and raise their families there.

Judaism's most sacred holy shrines were cut off from the nation between 1948 and 1967. Obama's call to retreat to the pre-1967 borders now unfortunately implies that we should retreat from East Jerusalem, too, and grant the Palestinian people sovereignty in the very parts of Israel's capital that mean the most to us.  For this reason and others, the demand that Israel withdraw to pre 1967 borders is preposterous and will never be considered by any self respecting Israeli government.

Its primary stated objective was to end drug trafficking in Colombia. Later on, it was discovered that the plan had the further objective of defeating the guerrilla movement,

it reaches $7.7 billion. But despite this investment, the U.S.-supported government of Alvaro Uribe has defeated neither the drug traffickers nor the guerrilla movement. To the contrary, the plan's only success has been to guarantee a majority to the parties that supported Uribe in the Congressional elections of March 2006, and to guarantee Uribe's own re-election last May.

but also in the society that continues to produce them. Before juvenile violence became so widespread, many dramatic changes had occurred in Colombia. First of all, there are historical factors. The gangs emerged in areas characterized by massive rural migration. By and large, the state had completely forgotten these areas by the 1970s. Residents were condemned to the world of "informality"--a world in which the rights and obligations of citizenship were lacking. The sons of these migrants from the Colombian countryside grew up on the edge of legality. They were treated as second-class citizens, to be dealt with only by the police.

In a poll conducted last year in the schools of the Northeastern District, students were asked whom they considered the most important person in the country. Pablo Escobar was named by 21 percent of those surveyed; 19.6 percent chose President César Gaviria; and 12.6 percent named the goalkeeper of the national soccer team, René Higuita.

Bosnia suffers from a "dependency syndrome" that dates back centuries, to when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Peace Implementation Council, a group of 55 nations and agencies that oversees the Dayton accords and appoints the viceroy, has been trying for years to abolish the position and restore full sovereignty to Bosnia. But foreign diplomats say they are not confident that Bosnia is ready to govern itself.