Sticky bread issues,Tensions between the government and bakery owners are fermenting over a new initiative to improve the quality of subsidised bread. In an attempt to overcome the endless problems pertaining to subsidised bread, namely its bad quality and absence from some governorates, the Ministry of Social Solidarity launched a new initiative for subsidised bread. But bakers have turned down the initiative and threatened to shut down their bakeries.

In February, the government decided to raise the quality of subsidised bread and take measures to ensure that subsidised flour is used to make bread for low-income families, rather than being sold on the black market. Two weeks ago, the Minister of Social Solidarity Ali Moselhi announced that a new contract regulating bread production is ready to be signed by bakeries which produce subsidised baladi bread.

In response, the General Division of Bakery Owners at the Egyptian Federation for the Chambers of Commerce (EFCC) sent Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif a memo rejecting the contract, on the basis that it carries severe penalties for violations. While the ministry and bakery owners in EFCC had consulted on drafting the contract, the latter claim that the government added harsh penalties without the approval of the division.

Moselhi countered that the new contract is non-obligatory, so bakery owners can choose to decline it and continue working according to the current system. In fact, he suggested that some bakeries should continue in their old ways in order for consumers to compare between the quality of bread produced in both systems.

Hashem Mohamed, a civil servant, believes that the new contract might lead to better quality subsidised bread, and that the government has every right to regulate bread production.

The government has been subsidising bread since 1945, and today 16,500 bakeries across the country benefit from the programme. The market price for flour is estimated at LE1,250 per tonne, but the government provides bakeries with subsidised flour at LE250 per tonne; a loaf of bread costs the government 17 piastres, while it is sold to consumers at five piastres. Furthermore, Nazif issued a decree recently that an additional LE1 billion will be allocated to improve the quality of subsidised bread. This raises the bread subsidy to LE9 billion annually, almost 10 per cent of the government's total LE100 billion budget for subsidies every year.

The new contract regulates the rights and duties of all three parties responsible for producing subsidised bread, namely bakeries, mills and the Commodities Authority which is responsible for wheat delivery. In the contract, the Ministry of Social Solidarity will pay LE5 as a bonus for each bag of flour (a bag weighs 100kg) used to make bread. Owners of bakeries are quick to complain about the quality of the subsidised flour they receive from the mills, saying that this is the cause for bad quality bread; the new contract gives the owner the right to refuse the flour if it is sub-standard. But along with the incentives, there are the penalties.

Hassan Abdel-Aal, an owner of a bakery in Giza, said that the new contract will cause him to lose a lot of money since it states that if a loaf of bread weighs less than 130g, he will pay a fine calculated according to the market price of flour. "This means I will pay a lot of fines I cannot afford if my workers make a mistake in weighing the dough," Abdel-Aal complained. But according to the contract, if the loaf is only 10 per cent below the legal weight it will not be penalised.

The value of the fine is not the only issue of contention. In the contract, if three fines are filed against a bakery in one year, its license will be canceled. Bakery owners prefer the number to go up to five fines before the license is revoked.

Although the Ministry of Social Solidarity claimed that 66 per cent of bakeries have accepted the new contract, bakery owners in Cairo and Giza governorates say otherwise. Mohamed Ali Abu Shouk, an owner of a bakery in Cairo, asserted that "most owners did not sign; and I will never sign even if I have to close the bakery."

Moselhi admitted that the penalties are relatively harsh, but that this is for the benefit of consumers. According to him, a bakery would average LE140 in profits every day if it uses 10 bags of flour daily, which is a reasonable income.

Contracts will be valid as soon as the owner signs it, but monitoring will begin in September. A committee of five will be responsible for supervising the application of the new system, and includes representatives from the ministries of social solidarity, health, agriculture, the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and consumer protection groups. A hotline will also be operational to receive consumer complaints about he quality of bread, whether made under the new contract or old system.

Long journey home
Attempts continue to bring home 11 students who were arrested in New York after attempting to disappear in the US. As federal agents continue interrogating 11 Egyptian students who intended to vanish in the US, the president of their university traveled to New York for talks with US federal and immigration authorities to release the students. The students were arrested last week for violating the terms of their visas, as well as immigration regulations, while visiting on a cultural exchange programme.

"I will try to have a heart-to-heart talk with US authorities to explain what happened," Magdy Abu Rayan, the president of Mansoura University, told Al-Ahram Weekly shortly before he left on 17 August. "I hope the task will not be difficult."

The students were part of a group of 17 undergraduates from Mansoura University that arrived in New York on 29 July, on a one-month exchange programme to Montana State University. Six students made it to Montana, but the rest fled in pursuit of the 'American dream'; within days the 11 were in FBI custody. Mansoura University, assisted by the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, DC, has hired lawyers to defend the students and bring them home as soon as possible.

Like immigration agents, Abu Rayan believes the students violated their visas with the intention of staying and working in the US. "Fortunately, federal agents are repeatedly emphasising that they do not believe the Egyptians pose any security threat," revealed Abu Rayan, who will be in the US for 10 days. "Once the investigations are over, they will return to Egypt within the coming two weeks."

Mohamed Suweilam, deputy head of Mansoura University for Education and Students Affairs, told the Weekly that the failure of the students to show up at Montana had damaged the university's nascent cross-cultural exchange programme. Suweilam was contacted by a Montana University official who said that although the episode will not prejudice future student visa applications from Mansoura University, Montana must re-examine its relationship with Mansoura University. "Clearly there are some significant issues that must be revised," Suweilam quoted the official as saying.

Abu Rayan has been in daily contact with the six students who did make it to the Bozeman campus in Montana, where they are taking immersion courses in English language and American culture.

After the FBI launched a frantic man-hunt more than three weeks ago, the reception for the six students at Montana State University turned "unfriendly," according to Abu Rayan. "They felt they were not free," he said, adding that the students told him university officials would not allow them to travel off campus without supervision.

But as time went by, the students reported being happier and Abu Rayan believes the host university is doing its best under difficult circumstances. "It hasn't been easy for these students since they have been repeatedly interviewed by Homeland Security," divulged Abu Rayan. "They do suffer a bit, but the university is working hard to deliver the kind of programme designed for these students."

Suweilam is hoping that US authorities would take a chance on Mansoura University students again. "We will not stop the exchange programme and we are looking to strengthen cooperation with the American people," he said.

"And also to have American students come to Egypt." He pledged to continue promoting American culture in Egypt's rural Nile delta, where the incident has triggered a backlash against the university's exchange programme in the fundamentalist Muslim press.

According to Suweilam, the number of Egyptian students traveling to the US to continue their education is on the rise. About 75 students are completing their post-graduate degrees in the US for the year 2006-2007, compared to only 40 for last year. Meanwhile, some 40 US students are in Egypt for their degrees during the year 2006- 2007, compared to 29 the last year.

Energy key to Japan's Central Asia ties,The Japanese government is seeking Central Asian resources , Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sets off on Monday for a four-day visit to Central Asia.

Mr Koizumi will hold talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the two are Expected to issue a joint statement.
He then goes to Uzbekistan to meet President Islam Karimov, a leader whom the West have criticised over human rights.

The visit is the first to Central Asia by a Japanese prime minister, and comes amid efforts in Tokyo to build stronger ties with the resource-rich region, especially as Chinese and Russian influence there have also increased.

'Offset influence'

Japan began to look to Central Asian nations soon after they achieved independence from the Soviet Union. Tokyo became a major aid donor to the region.

In 2004, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi initiated the "Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue", holding a round of talks on economic and security ties.

But it was in June this year that the extent of Tokyo's interest became clear.

"A new atmosphere is emerging in which it is simply impossible to ignore Japan when you discuss Central Asia," Foreign Minister Taro Aso said in a speech outlining so-called Silk Road diplomacy.


China and Russia are also courting Central Asia's leaders

Japan was committed to a role in the independent development of the region, he said, and would not allow Central Asia to be "tossed about by, or forced to submit to, the interests of outside countries".

Days later, Mr Aso hosted counterparts from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan at the second meeting of Japan's dialogue group.

But the talks were overshadowed by the high-profile meeting of the China and Russia-dominated Central Asian security grouping, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.

The rapid evolution of the SCO has not escaped Tokyo.

"Japan has been a steady player in the region and has always had an interest in the SCO developing on its doorstep," said Col Christopher Langton of the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

"In the game of regional politics, Japan feels it has a role to play in helping offset growing Russian and Chinese influence."

Energy competitors

There are a number of reasons for a visit now.

Japan has been looking to up its influence on the international stage, and is seeking support for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

It also believes political stability in Central Asia is vital, and wants to support its development.


Japan's interest in the region is purely pragmatic
But the driving force behind Tokyo's heightened interest is natural resources.

Kazakhstan has a great deal of oil, and is rapidly expanding production. It also has natural gas reserves, as do Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and the world's second largest deposits of uranium.

Japan, which depends on imports of oil and gas, is seeking to reduce its reliance on oil from the Middle East.

Tokyo wants to diversify both in terms of what it buys and where it buys it from. It also wants to up its use of nuclear energy - for which it must import uranium.

"Without a doubt, Japan sees an opportunity for imaginative, entrepreneurial activity in the general area of energy," said Col Langton.

One such opportunity is the "southern route" - an ambitious Japanese plan for a pipeline to run from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean via Afghanistan and Pakistan, avoiding China and Russia.

But China is also looking to secure supplies from the region to meet its soaring energy needs.


China is also looking to Central Asia for resources

Last year Chinese state oil company CNPC bought Canada-based PetroKazakhstan. In December, a 1,000km-long (620 mile) pipeline began supplying Kazakh oil to western China. Beijing has also recently signed a gas deal with Turkmenistan.

Fear of missing out on energy resources to China is a major factor in Japan's diplomatic outreach.

"We are all worried about China's crazy use of energy and lack of energy efficiency," said Haruo Shimada, professor of economics at Japan's Keio University.

Rights issues

Closer Japanese engagement with the region is unlikely to please China, but it could suit the US, which has seen its influence there eroded in recent years.

Washington's relationship with Uzbekistan broke down last year over the issue of human rights.

Then in June 2005, the SCO issued a statement calling on the US to give up its Central Asian military bases, a sign perhaps that regional governments found Chinese and Russian attitudes to issues such as human rights and democratisation easier to work with.

While such a high-level visit as Mr Koizumi's may raise some eyebrows - the EU still has sanctions in place against the Uzbek government because of human rights - it comes amid some signs the US is looking to rebuild ties.

"I think Japan would not have done this if it were going to get a negative reaction from the US," Col Langton said.

A Japanese foreign ministry official said that human rights and democratisation would be touched on during the visit. But with so much competition for alliance with Central Asia's leaders, it is hard to envisage Japan taking a particularly tough line.

"Japan's interest in the region is purely pragmatic," says Hugh Barnes of the Foreign Policy Centre. "It will very happily look the other way when it comes to human rights."

Israel at a loss

Following their "failure" in Lebanon, Israel's politicians are sharpening their knives. The domestic political fallout may well be bloody, but it will miss the real targets :
When the war started, you said that Nasrallah would remember the name of Amir Peretz for years to come.

Peretz: Who's Amir Peretz?

The mock interview, above, reflects how the Israeli minister of defence spoke at the outset of the war. Peretz epitomises the crisis inside the Israeli Labour Party. When he accepted the defence portfolio he fell into what he described as Olmert's trap, to make him into a caricature of a minister cowed by powerful generals. When Peretz tried to dispel the image by uttering macho-sounding threats he succeeded only in making himself a more pliable tool in the generals' hands.

Peretz's presence in government helped ensure the absence of any real opposition in Israel to the war. Even the "Zionist left" joined the pro-war "consensus". Yussi Belin called for a strike against Syria at the beginning of hostilities. It was only in the final week, with news of the circumstances on the front and the climbing death toll, that the Zionist left woke up to realise the operation had resulted in a wholesale harvest of lives. It was then that it declared its opposition to the ground offensive.

Peretz's presence in the government helped furnish a gloss of respectability at the international level. Now the Lebanese have every right to regard Peretz as responsible for the carnage and destruction in their country just as Sharon was responsible for the mass murder at Sabra and Chatila.

Peretz's election as Labour leader already revealed a crisis in the party. Peretz would not ordinarily have qualified as a leader of this party. He succeeded only because he campaigned on a social platform after Barak had bankrupted the party politically. After Peretz became minister of defence that social agenda, too, fell victim to this mad war, with the result that Labour can offer nothing to distinguish it from Kadima. Evidently Peretz has woken up to the reality that Labour now is little more than an appendage of Kadima, suddenly issuing statements calling for the need to resume negotiations with Syria. Olmert quickly gagged him. There can be no talk of negotiating with a country Washington deems part of the "Axis of Evil".

The Israeli press mobilised public opinion behind the war effort, including Ha'aretz, Yediot Aharanot and Maarev, dailies that see themselves as representing Israel's central secularist trend. The war was an opportunity to assert themselves and their Western identity. The enemy Israel faced in this war were the "forces of Islamist fascism".

Because the Israeli occupation of Lebanon ended in 2000, these newspapers not only regard Israel as the victim of an unjustified attack but the war as just. It is the war they had been looking for: Israel fighting alongside the forces of good against the forces of evil, on the side of the West against the East, no longer an occupying power but a partner alongside "moderate Arabs".

The latter were among the most enthusiastic advocates of the war. For them, too, it was a chance to prove how Westernised, secularised and how unlike fundamentalists they were. Inside Israel prominent writers and journalists declared their support openly, but they were gravely disappointed. Israel failed to take advantage of the "historic moment" that the West, the US and a segment of Arab "moderates" had given it.

We didn't need Seymour Hersh's article in The New Yorker to determine this was an American war. In fact, I'm inclined to believe he tended too heavily towards the conspiratorial. What seemed reasonable and logical in his article I had already pointed out during the first week of the war.

The rest was speculation. America's war against Iran and Syria would presumably take down the resistance along the way and America's war in Lebanon itself would do away with obstacles keeping Lebanon outside the American fold. But the American agenda coincided with an Israeli mission that had been kept pending, concerning the missile arsenal that Hizbullah had accumulated beneath Israel's nose.

If Olmert and Peretz took a closer look they'd find it no accident that their predecessors were instrumental in keeping this mission pending despite warnings from military officials. The American agenda also coincided with Israel's desire to flex its military muscle following Gaza's rebellion against the prison created by unilateral disengagement, and with the personal agendas of politicians convinced their time had come.

Olmert's speeches since the cessation of hostilities have avoided as bald a statement as "we have won". This is important, not least because some Arab neo-liberals and neo-conservatives believe Hizbullah has effectively handed Lebanon over to Israel.

Olmert may speak of "achievements," but they have been secured not on the battlefield but in the US-controlled Security Council. Were it not for Resolution 1701 Israel would have failed in all its war aims. To get a resolution passed is one thing, apply it something else entirely. It is easy to draft and vote on a resolution in the Security Council. How it is put into effect, though, depends on the balances of forces and conditions on the ground.

More significantly, the word peace has been absent from Olmert's post-war rhetoric. It is a rare day when an Israeli prime minister delivers a speech or meets the public without a heavy sprinkling of "Shalom's" and "peace's". Perhaps he felt the word would diminish the impression of resolve he wanted to project.

So he replaced the usual peace-scented air freshener with tribal war paint and proclaimed that he would continue his policy of confrontation, that Israel would repeat the offensive if necessary and -- as if fearful some might have taken inspiration from the experience -- insisted the offensive should serve as a lesson to others.

As for the resistance's threats to hunt and kill Israeli forces still in Lebanon, they were the roars of a wounded animal that might still be harmful if driven by its wounds to reckless adventurism. Perhaps the idea was to conjure up Operation Thunderbolt, the raid on Entebbe airport, which the Israelis had designed and knew better than Idi Amin. In all events the Israelis need to project an image. They need to shove the Lebanese resistance and its leadership into the most-wanted terrorist corner while they grace the elegant diplomatic salons of the war on terror.

Israel has no diplomatic proposals or alternatives to offer. Its policy of unilateral dictates was not so much a policy as a shutting of the door to diplomacy and negotiations. The only political party alternative on offer in Israel at the moment is the rightwing demagoguery coming from Netanyahu and Liebermann, who are railing about the government's mismanagement of its opportunity to destroy Hizbullah.

In the meantime Israel, as self-appointed inspector of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 will while away time speaking about how it isn't being applied properly. Some Arabs, who initially regarded the resolution as an achievement, will try to help it out by badmouthing the resolution when they accuse Israel of not abiding by it. But Israel has nothing to offer the Arabs.

Even the Syrian president, who became the butt of everyone's rancour, especially those who couldn't criticise Hizbullah's secretary-general outright, managed a word in favour of peace. But not Olmert, who couldn't mention peace in connection with Syria because Syria is now a subject he cannot broach without the White House go-ahead. In the days of Bush Senior and Shamir the US had to drag Israel to the negotiating table with Syria; today, the age of Bush Junior, it is Israel that must get the US to see the need to negotiate with Syria.

Closer to home the Israelis will vent their frustration on the West Bank and Gaza. Their imaginary war against the defenceless occupied territories may have helped them refine the art of repression but in the process they forgot the skills of warfare. They were deceived by the arrogance of their tanks, which as they swept into Ramallah swerved to crush every car parked on the side of the road. They were duped by the three tanks that bombarded entire residential districts in Gaza.

Israel is not exulting in victory; it is putting a brave face on failure. Behind the scenes everyone in the coalition is sharpening their knives for the conflict between themselves, between the government and opposition, between parliament and the army. In the process they recite a common refrain: If we had known this would be the result we wouldn't have gone to war.

They are going to draw military lessons from this confrontation. They'll pour their efforts into detailed analyses of the operation. An official investigation will produce two reports, one public and the other confidential, as was the case following the 1973 War and the Sabra and Chatila massacres. They will study how the decision to go to war was taken and they will question why it took so long to launch the ground offensive after that decision was taken.

They will also take the occasion to ponder resuscitating the concept of exporting war to other people's land. A prime tenet of the Israeli military since the 1950s, the concept is based on the strategy of absorbing an initial blow and then pushing the battle front across the border deep into enemy territory.

One of its more notorious corollaries is the notion of preemptive war, as played out in 1967 and which, more recently, had such White House realists as Cheney and Rumsfeld extolling Israel as a strategic asset, instead of a strategic burden.

Be that as it may, there is no recreating the original Israeli vanguard, the farmer/fighter at the time of the founding of the state who bears no resemblance whatsoever to Israel's present day reserve army with its hybrid Western consumerist/Third World culture and whose members were tossed like logs into the battlefield in the final days of the confrontation without sufficient preparation and for the sole purpose of enhancing the positions of the military and political elites.

They will also discuss how to reestablish Israel's deterrent capacity and the possibility that other standing armies in the region might adopt the strategy of guerilla warfare. What they won't discuss is Barak's and Sharon's failures and their responsibility for having brought this situation about because of their unilateral dictates.

Nor will they take a look at their racist attitudes towards Arabs or reassess the primary assumptions underlying their hostility towards the peoples of the region. Failure will remain a result of tactical shortcomings, and even this assessment will get lost in the morass of political backbiting and party politics.

They'll discuss whether or not to resume negotiations, failing to realise that the number of those in the Arab world who want to negotiate with them has dwindled considerably.

Israel had one specific war aim, which was to revive the mainstay of its security creed, its deterrent power. Not only has this not been revived, it has been further eroded. If the war made anything clear it is that Israel's dependency on its air force may wreak appalling destruction (and therefore deter societies), but it fails to deter a resistance force that has entrenched itself deep beneath the ground. This resistance, by contrast, has demonstrated not only its ability to hold its own on the ground but to revive society's confidence in itself.

General Halutz obviously took as his model for the invasion the 72-day long NATO aerial bombardment of Serbia and the intensive aerial bombardment of Iraq by American forces. In both these cases the targets were dictatorships whose people would not, or could not, sustain the costs of holding out in defence of their governments.

Israel's second declared war aim wavered between debilitating Hizbullah and driving Hizbullah forces away from the border with Israel. This converged with Washington's political aims and, ultimately, could only be made possible by a Security Council resolution. A war hadn't been needed after all, because the US could have pushed through this resolution without one, just as it and France had produced Resolution 1559.

As for America's political aims for Lebanon, the domestic conflict had not been resolved but merely transferred to the Lebanese-Israeli border. When Israel failed to resolve it the Security Council resolution tossed it back to Lebanon for another round. However, in view of the entirely new conditions that now prevail one cannot escape the conclusion that Israel has failed to accomplish its war aims. That constitutes a victory for the resistance.

The resistance had not anticipated the war; nor, for that matter, had Israel. However, the resistance had anticipated how Israel would handle a war and prepared itself accordingly. Israel, on the other hand, had no idea of the resistance's strength and was taken by surprise by the resistance's combat performance, in spite of the fact that Israel had had the offensive advantage. Such considerations are important in determining the success or failure of military leaders under given circumstances.

Hizbullah's real victory resides in its grassroots base. Just as some envy Lebanese society for its resistance movement, that movement should also be envied for its society. Specifically, I refer to the society of southern Lebanon, Dahiya and Bakaa -- that unique historical, cultural, political, literary, aesthetic blend of tobacco farmers and resistance fighters, neighbours to Palestine and Syria, on the dividing line between the acceptance and rejection of the Sykes-Picot agreement, mountain dwellers and coastal peoples from northern Galilee and southern Lebanon, theologians of the underprivileged and oppressed, advocates of ethnic-free Arabism and Lebanese authenticity and believers in communism, nationalism, pan-Arab nationalism, religious devotion and denominational pluralism, all within a small stretch of land each patch of which has its own name, its own story to tell and its own sense of identity.

Once the ceasefire went into effect the people of the south did not wait a single moment more than they had to in the public gardens and schools of Beirut. As soon as they could they headed back to their towns and villages to shoo away the Israeli army.

That's the people of Lebanon for you: tougher than rock and gentler than a mother cradling her child. They are the people making the great march southward, even before the bridges are rebuilt and the roads repaired, because they are the country's roads and bridges.

Chirac says 15,000 UN troops for Lebanon 'excessive', French President Jacques Chirac has said it made "no sense" to deploy 15,000 UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, a figure he said was "totally excessive."
"My feeling is that the figure talked about at the start of the debate of 15,000 soldiers for a reinforced UNIFIL was a totally excessive figure," he told a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Friday, referring to the UN mission in Lebanon.

Both leaders also severely criticised Syria, which has threatened to close its border with Lebanon if UN troops move toward the frontier, and called for renewed efforts to reinvigorate the stalled Middle East peace process.

Chirac said deploying such a large UN force alongside the Lebanese army's own 15,000 soldiers, into an area less than half the size of a standard French administrative region, "makes no sense."

He was speaking a day after announcing a total deployment of 2,000 French troops to a beefed-up UN mission, and as European Union foreign ministers met in Brussels with UN chief Kofi Annan to firm up their commitments.

The figure of 15,000 was mentioned in UN resolution 1701, co-sponsored by France, as a maximum deployment to police a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon's militant Hezbollah movement.

France came under heavy criticism last week after committing initially only 200 extra troops to the 200 already serving in UNIFIL, a limited pledge that dampened hopes of winning significant contributions from other countries.

Chirac defended his tactics, saying Paris had to secure security guarantees from the United Nations on the role and mandate of the force.

"I wonder how it would have been judged if I had raced off like a mad dog without thinking or securing minimum guarantees," he said.

Separately, Chirac and Merkel called on Israel to lift what he called its "completely unjustified" air and sea blockade on Lebanon.

The French leader said the restrictions, imposed on July 12 when the Jewish state launched its military offensive in Lebanon, was "extremely prejudicial" to the Lebanese economy.

"We ask the Israelis to end this blockade," he added.

Merkel said the deployment of German ships off the Lebanese coast, as part of the wider UN mission and aimed notably at preventing weapons shipments to Hezbollah, "could be important in moving towards a lifting of the blockade."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier this week that deploying a UN force rapidly in Lebanon would enable his country to lift the restrictions, which it says are needed to stop weapons reaching Hezbollah.

The French and German leaders meanwhile accused Syria of hampering efforts to ease the regional crisis.

Syria's attitude "enormously complicates our task, it is not a constructive attitude toward the (UN) resolution," Merkel said, to which Chirac said he was "in complete agreement."

"Syria is an old country, an old civilization, a country that counts and which exists, which must be respected," he added. "It is true that, currently, the behaviour of its leaders does not automatically inspire confidence."

Merkel called for the Middle East quartet -- the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia -- to retake the initiative in trying to bring lasting peace to the region, saying the roots of the crisis in Lebanon lay in the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

"We must continue to work on the road map even if it is arduous," she said, referring to an international plan designed to clear the way for the creation of a viable Palestinian state in return for guarantees on Israel's security.