peace talks

• Military intervention looms in Egypt
• Peace talks to resume for India and Pakistan
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When Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was holding talks with Taliban leaders this week, his spokesman was quick to clarify the remarks: talks about talks, not actual "talks." The Taliban altogether denied it.

There's an underlying issue of trust -- the government broke promises to protect insurgents who laid down their arms.

Still, a council was formed to facilitate formal talks.

Jewish settlers broke ground on new construction projects in the West Bank Wednesday. The building is in defiance of a ban imposed by the Israeli government that expires at the end of the month.

Settlers and their government supporters have been pushing for an end to the freeze. Palestinians say if the freeze ends, they will walk out of peace talks.

The floods in Pakistan have been nothing short of devastating. Images of whole villages washed away, people waiting to be rescued and the number of dead is beyond counting at this point.

And yet the international community is not reacting in the same way it did after disasters in Haiti or the Indian Ocean tsunami several years ago.

Moeed Yusuf, who works on South Asian issues for the U.S. Institute of Peace, talks to Linda Wertheimer about why the relief effort seems so slow.

This week's Taliban suicide bombing which killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan, comes at a time when Americans are beefing up their military and civilian presence in the country.

John Dempsey, who leads the Kabul office of the U.S. Institute of Peace, talks to Steve Inskeep about the implications of the attack on a civilian outreach base near Khost.

International partners plan to more than double civilian specialists in Afghanistan in 2010.

President Obama speaks at the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, the president delivered a speech on climate change, met privately with China's president, and pressed the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to restart peace talks.

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