WASHINGTON, Dec.

Ambassadors Bolton and Gold will also speak - alongside former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, and other major personalities - at a day-long conference next week titled "The Perils of Global Intolerance: The United Nations and Durban III" - across from UN Headquarters (see details below).

Text of report in English by independent, non-governmental Palestinian Ma'an News Agency website ["Israel Releases 198 Palestinian Prisoners, Including Longest- Serving Man" - Ma'an headline] Bethlehem -Ma'an -Israel began to release 198 Palestinian prisoners, including the longest-serving Palestinian inmate, on Monday morning [25 August], short of an expected 199.

By Donald Macintyre President George Bush yesterday tried to reassure sceptical Arab leaders that by the end of the year he wanted a Palestinian state "defined", after being criticised for missing an opportunity to highlight the matter when he lavished praise on Israel last week.

Excerpt from report by privately-owned, pro-Fatah Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Quds on 6 May [Interview with Dr Shaddad al-Atili, head of Palestinian Water Authority, by Muhammad Abu-Khudayr, date and place not given: "Water Situation in West Bank Is Tragic and in Gaza Strip It Is Disastrous; Israel Is in Control of Water Recourses and Proposes That We Buy Water Desalination Stations in Place of Our Water Rights"] [Abu-Khudayr] Can you brief us on the water situation in the Palestinian territories? Let us start with the West Bank and then the Gaza Strip.