So, if this is going to be the talk of the town, I suppose we might as well all know what we’re talking about. Here are a few bulletins on the latest of everything you need to know:

Lebanon:

• On September 3, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the State of Israel claimed that he had and was extending several invitations to the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to discuss a peace treaty.
• Siniora claims that his office has received no such invitations and would reject them even if they were present. He went on to say that such an offer would never be considered until Israel ends its blockade on Lebanon, withdraws from the occupied zones of Lebanon, and even then would only occur under the provisions of the Arab Peace Initiative (a treaty provision which requires Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories including the Golan Heights, Gaza, and West Bank, recognize a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, and provide for a just solution for Palestinian refugees).
• At the moment Israel and Lebanon are still in a state of ceasefire.

Israel:

• On September 4, Kofi Annan (secretary general of the United Nations) announced that he would be appointing a secret negotiator to mediate talks concerning the Israeli prisoners held by Hezbollah.
• On August 25, the Tel Aviv comics festival retracted their offer to host an exhibition of racist cartoons. In the wake of the Danish cartoon drama, an Iranian newspaper formed an International contest to select the 12 most offensive anti-Semitic cartoons in retaliation for their abuse (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Hamshahri_newspaper_plans_cartoon_response). The Israeli’s were naturally very much offended, claiming that they would never allow themselves to be beaten on their home turf, giving rise to the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest (http://www.boomka.org). Unfortunately, it seems that the heads of the Tel Aviv Comics Festival were offended by the racist content of their peers.

Iran:

• On September 2, the European Union announced that it would give Iran an extra two weeks beyond its previous August 31 deadline (provided by the United Nations) to comply with the UN resolution to stop its nuclear program (President Ahmadinejad of Iran has made it clear that he has no intention of complying). Germany, China, Russia, the United States, Great Britain and France plan to meet on September 7 to discuss their next moves in the crisis.

Iraq:

• 2,653 combat deaths for US forces
• 19,773 combat wounded
• 233 combat deaths for Allied forces
• 568 non-Iraqi civilian deaths
• between 41,639 and 46,307 Iraqi civilian deaths
• 6,955 combat deaths for Iraqi insurgents
• Cost: $320 billion dollars as of June 13, 2006
• And for fairness’ sake: there are 26,783,383 Iraqis living under the new democratic government and Iraq has a GDP of $94.1 dollars