WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- With negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis intended to move the peace process forward reaching a dead end -- at least momentarily -- the Palestinian prime minister warned Sunday night that time is running out.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Syria has long claimed that it is tied to Lebanon in more ways than one. Over the last two weeks this statement has proven to be far more on the money than Syria ever would have imagined -- or hoped for -- as the wave of terrorist attacks that reared its ugly head in Lebanon has now exported itself to Syria.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Chances are, the situation in the Middle East is going to get much worse before it gets any better. With the Bush administration, now in its final days in office, kept busy by the financial crisis that risked plunging Western economies into the business equivalent of the Dark Ages, we are entering a highly volatile period of political uncertainty.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- If Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni succeeds in forming a new Cabinet within the 40-day deadline accorded to her by Israeli law, she will become the next prime minister of Israel. And if she becomes prime minister, current indications are that Livni will opt to move forward in negotiating a peaceful solution between the state of Israel and the Palestinians.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Georgia should have been on the minds of Western intelligence services -- and not least on the mind of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose expertise is in Soviet affairs. Yet neither she nor the combined Western intelligence agencies were able to foresee Georgia's move into Abkhazia and South Ossetia, nor were they able to predict Russia's response, nor could they foresee that the former Cold War foes are on the brink of a new Cold War. Then again, neither did they predict the sudden collapse of the Soviet Empire.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Israel faces four big problems. First is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; second, the situation with Syria; third, relations with Lebanon on its northern frontier; and fourth, its problems with Hezbollah. Among those, and when compared with the others, the conflict with the Palestinians appears to be the most clear-cut, with the desired results already known: a peaceful Palestinian state living side-by-side with its neighbors, including Israel. So why is this not happening?

GENEVA, Switzerland, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- In a sure sign of shifting trends in the conflicts in the Middle East, the resurgence of Taliban violence in Afghanistan took greater prominence over the war in Iraq Sunday at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, attended by some 380 security and conflict-resolution specialists.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Iran seems to be gaining ground and influence in the Levant, much to the detriment of the United States, its European allies and pro-democracy movements in the region.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- In a rapidly changing world where terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are replacing conventional enemies, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is finding that it needs to reinvent itself in order to address what it has identified as "significant threats."

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Alliances in the Greater Middle East are written in sand, not stone, and as the winds blow and the sands shift, so do alliances. Today the prevailing wind appears to be blowing from Moscow.