Obama will give a major policy talk at Cairo University on June 4, intended to start mending the rift between the United States and the Arab world. During the Bush years, many Arabs turned against the United States because of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Graib. But the issue that is really at the crux of the tensions with the United States is the intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what many perceive as a one-sided U.S. policy in support of Israel.

The Obama administration has taken a positive stand on the Israeli settlements, calling for a complete freeze. “[Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told reporters.

But the administration has said almost nothing about the devastating Israeli invasion of Gaza that left over 1,300 dead, including some 400 children. To many in the Middle East, this is an unfortunate continuation of past policies that condemn the loss of innocent Israeli lives, but refuse to speak out against the disproportionately greater loss of Palestinian lives at the hands of the Israeli military.

The Israeli invasion of Gaza began on December 27, 2008, when Obama had just won the election but had not yet taken office. While he spoke out against the November 26 Mumbai terrorism attack, he refused to even call for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying coldly, “When it comes to foreign affairs it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time."

Once inaugurated, Obama appointed George Mitchell as a special peace envoy and immediately sent him on a “listening tour” to key places in the Middle East—except Gaza. Mitchell returned for a second trip to the region in late February, visiting Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank but once again bypassing Gaza. The same thing happened on his third trip in April.

Hillary Clinton has never visited war-torn Gaza. She promised $300 million for rebuilding, but the aid won’t get to Gaza as long as the administration insists on dealing only with Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank while shunning Hamas, which controls Gaza and was democratically elected.

Obama won great support from the American people during the presidential campaign when he said that America must talk to its adversaries, without preconditions. But his administration now puts ridiculous conditions on talking to Hamas: It must recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous international agreements. Israel, on the other hand, does not have to recognize Palestine, renounce violence or abide by past agreements. Putting preconditions on just one side of the conflict makes it impossible to move a peace process forward.

While Obama prepares for his trip to the Middle East, more than 150 people—mostly Americans—are trying to enter war-torn Gaza through both the Egyptian and Israeli borders. Organized under the umbrella of the peace group CODEPINK, this is the largest group of Americans to travel to Gaza since the siege began.

The delegations, invited by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), are bringing medicines, toys, school supplies and playground building materials. An estimated 1,346 Gazan children were left without one or more of their parents as a result of the Israeli assault and the majority were left traumatized and depressed.

That’s why the peace group CODEPINK has launched an international petition (see www.codepinkalert.org) calling on Obama to visit Gaza and see for himself the devastation and deprivation that continues to plague the region’s 1.5 million people almost 6 months after the invasion. Just this week, Obama just tacked a new stop to his upcoming Middle Eastern visit: Saudi Arabia. If he can make room for a private dinner with the King, then surely he can find the time to go to Gaza. Isn't it more important for Obama to visit a region where 1,300 people have recently been killed and thousands of homes, schools and mosques destroyed? Isn't it more important for him to see how the Israelis are using the yearly $3 billion in military aid from U.S taxpayers?

Obama should take the opportunity, during this visit to Egypt next week, to visit Gaza. He should express his condolences for the loss of so many innocent lives, call for a lifting of the inhumane siege that continues to imprison an entire population, and support an investigation of how U.S. military funds to Israel are being spent.

Those actions, more than any fine words he may speak during his talk at Cairo University, will do wonders to repairs our relations with the Arab world that were so tattered during the Bush years.

LONDON - Unlikely Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle was plotting her future Sunday after her shock defeat in the "Britain's Got Talent" television show which made her a worldwide star thanks to the Internet.
Boyle, a frumpy, 48-year-old church volunteer, will reportedly earn up to eight million pounds (nine million euros, 13 million dollars) in the next year from a record deal, book about her life and even a film.
She is set to start rehearsing for an album of showtunes this week and will fly to Prague next month for recording sessions with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, British media said.
Boyle's career looks likely to reach new heights even though she lost to the multi-ethnic street dancers Diversity in a public vote of one million viewers after the talent show final late Saturday.
Despite winning praise from the audience and the judges in her last performance on live television, Boyle was forced into second place, saying the "best people won" and wishing the dance troupe winners "all the best".
Boyle enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame over the past two months after video footage of her audition piece for the show, "I Dreamed A Dream" from the musical "Les Miserables", was posted on YouTube.
It has had at least 100 million hits and brought her celebrity fans including actress Demi Moore and rock star Jon Bon Jovi, who embraced the dowdy spinster from small-town Scotland with a voice worthy of Broadway.
Bookmakers made her the favourite to win, but after an unconvincing semi-final performance, there were fears that Boyle, who was starved of oxygen at birth and has mild learning difficulties, was suffering under the pressure.
She was spoken to by police after an outburst at the London hotel where she was staying, while "Britain's Got Talent" judge Piers Morgan described her as "a frightened rabbit in headlights" and said she considered quitting.
In a live performance in the "Britain's Got Talent" final Saturday, though, Boyle proved the critics wrong and repeated her audition piece with gusto.
Judge Amanda Holden said after the performance: "I have never heard such powerful, confident vocals."
Following her performance, Boyle -- wearing a grey-blue, long sequined dress -- gushed appreciation for her worldwide fan base.
"I want to thank people for all the support they've given me," she said.
Asked if it was worth all the media pressure, she replied: "Well worth it!... I really feel at home on stage, I'm among friends."
As for her future plans, Boyle added: "I hope to get an album out -- I'll just play it by ear. What a journey -- unbelievable, and very humbling. Thank you for everything."
Simon Cowell, one of the show's judges and its mastermind, said he had high hopes for Boyle.
"It's the biggest phenomenon I've ever seen out of any of my shows," Cowell, who is also a judge on "American Idol", told the News of the World newspaper.
Boyle's performance was watched by hundreds of fans in her home town of Blackburn, outside Edinburgh, where she lives in social housing with only her cat Pebbles for company.
"She told me that after the final, she wants to come back and resume her previous life," one of Boyle's neighbours, 24-year-old housewife Vicky McLean told the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
"She doesn't want to make millions and go to America, she just wants to sing. I think all she really hopes to have out of it is enough money to buy her house."
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Italian paper La Stampa confirmed Saturday rumors that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the richest men in the world, was the mystery "Arab sheikh" who purchased Carla Bruni's family castle in February.Saudi's royal businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, bought the historic castle dating back to 1019 from Carla Bruni, French president's Nicholas Sarkozy's wife, for a whooping €17.5 million ($25 million), Arab media reported Sunday. Last week the prince, who ranks as the 22nd richest man in Forbes's list of the World's Billionaires, sealed the deal on the "Castagneto Po" palace, which is located at the outskirts of Turin in Northern Italy

Prince al Waleed bin Talal is the 22nd richest man according to Forbes.com
The forty-room chamber palace boasts an 18th century interior without parallel in Italy. The palace, whose furniture was sold in a London auction for 10 million ($14 million), takes up 1,500 square meters (16,000 sq feet) and is surrounded by a garden with an ancient forest, according to La Stampa.Supermodel Carla Bruni, 39, and her mother and sister, actress and director Valeria Bruni, owned half the shares of the company that owned palace. According to Italy’s La Stampa newspaper, Carla's mother said their palace has fallen out of use.

"We are done with Castagneto Po and we no longer frequent that palace," Marisa Bruni Tedeschi said.Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, Carla's Italian father and the heir of a rich industrial family purchased the chateau in 1952.Prince bin Talal also purchased two hotels, the Movenpik and Alfoarcisonz Mauritius hotel and resort in the Republic of Mauritius

An Egyptian cut off his own penis on Sunday in protest at his parents' choice of bride, a police official said.The 25-year-old laborer from the village of Sheikh Eissa in southern Egypt was taken to hospital in stable condition, the official said, adding that the man had also mutilated his testicles."He was in love with a woman but his parents rejected her and told him to marry another woman he didn't want. He took a knife and cut off his penis in his room."Doctors were unable to reattach the severed member, the official said.

Brooke Shields is a beautiful, successful actress and devoted mom. But even this former model had some issues with her body, which led to her hanging on to her virtue longer than she would've liked.
She admits in the new issue of Health that one regret she had is "not learning to love the way I looked earlier."
"And I think I would have had sex a lot earlier!," she laughs. "I think I would have lost my virginity earlier than I did at 22. I had the public and all this pressure, and I wish I had just gotten it over with in the beginning when it was sort of OK.
I think I would have been much more in touch with myself," she reveals. "I think I wouldn’t have had issues with weight—I carried this protective 20 pounds [in college]. It was all connected. And to me, that’s a health regret."
All's well that ends well, it seems, as Brooke is now happily married to Chris Henchy and is a proud mother to two girls.
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Armando Lucero, who was placed in a maximum security prison on May 11 for "aggravated and repeated sexual abuse", is said to have raped the three girls from early childhood.
The tragic drama unfolded in the city of Mendoza, about 620 miles west of Buenos Aires
Officials are now waiting for the results of psychological exams of Lucero, who has come to be known as the "Monster of Mendoza" in a case chillingly similar to the Austrian incest scandal that shocked the world last year.
In that case, Josef Fritzl, 73, was sentenced in March to life in prison for imprisoning his daughter in a secret dungeon for 24 years, and for the death of one of the seven children he had with her.
Lucero faces a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison. The woman at the center of the drama, now 35, fled her family home to obtain protection from the local authorities.
She told investigators that she had been sexually abused repeatedly over a period of 20 years, during which time she bore her father seven children.
The woman decided to break her silence, she said, because her father threatened to sexually abuse one of her daughters.
Lucero, who is unemployed, lived in his home with his daughter and their children, as well as his second wife and his stepmother.
His civil record shows he had seven children by his wife and eight more children from a previous marriage. Counting his liaison with his daughter, he would have fathered 22 children.
The seven children he has fathered with his daughter are now between the ages of two and 19.
Another one of Lucero's daughters, aged 40, has said she was raped by her father from the age of eight.

FC Barcelona have won the UEFA Champions League for the third time in history. Goals from Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi led Josep Guardiola's side to a rather easy 2-0 victory over Manchester United.
Manchester United took the initiative in the opening phase and had a good chance to open the score in the second minute. A free kick from Cristiano Ronaldo almost surprised Victor Valdes but the keeper reacted in time to parry the shot, for defenders to clear the danger.
After ten minutes of play at Rome's Stadio Olimpico, it was FC Barcelona's first real attack that earned the Catalans the opening goal. Samuel Eto'o cut past Nemanja Vidic and then struck on goal. Keeper Edwin van der Sar touched it but the shot was too powerful to block completely.
Barcelona controlled the game in the rest of the first half without particular difficulties, as United seemed to be suffering from the deficit and failed to get anywhere near the opposing goal.
The start of the second half saw an even stronger Barcelona who created one chance after the other. Eight minutes after the break, the Spaniards had a free kick just outside the penalty area and Xavi's powerful effort bounced off the right post.
But Barcelona got their deserved second goal on 70 minutes. Xavi's cross from the right side found Lionel Messi, and the Argentinian striker headed past Van der Sar for 2-0.
With a comfortable lead in the pocket, Barcelona continued to attack and create chances, and would have scored several more goals if it wasn't for Van der Sar, who made a number of saves to avoid a larger defeat.
Apart from winning the trophy for the third time, after 1992 and 2006, Barcelona also become the first Spanish side to win the 'treble', as they had already secured the Primera Division and Copa del Rey titles