Bush told Jews are bellweather                            11/9/2005  

                  President George W. Bush heard from Jewish leaders about Latin 
                  America's Jewish community on Sunday. In a meeting in Brazil, 
                  leaders of the World Jewish Congress and the region's Jewish 
                  community stressed to Bush, who has been promoting democracy 
                  in the area, that the way Jews are treated can be "a kind of 
                  barometer, a bellwether of when things are going badly in 
                  South America," said Rabbi Israel Singer, the WJC's chairman. 
                  Singer took part in the meeting along with Jack Terpins, 
                  president of the Latin American Jewish Congress, and Rabbi 
                  Henry Sobel, leader of Sao Paulo's Congregacao Israelita 
                  Paulista, the largest synagogue in Latin America. 


                

                  Israel aid approved 
                  11/9/2005  

                  House and Senate conferees have approved $2.5 billion in 
                  assistance for Israel. The approval last week in a voice vote 
                  returns the full foreign-operations package to both houses of 
                  Congress for final approval before it goes to President George 
                  W. Bush for his signature. The package keeps funding to Israel 
                  at current levels, but the final votes ‹ likely to take place 
                  next week ‹ still could cut foreign aid by an across-the-board 
                  percentage because of the cost of recent hurricanes. 

                  The legislation includes an additional $40 million in refugee 
                  resettlement assistance for Israel, money that helps absorb 
                  Ethiopian Jews, and cuts up to $75 million annually in 
                  administrative costs related to the aid, provisions that were 
                  included at the behest of the American Israel Public Affairs 
                  Committee. 

                  The package also preserves $150 million in assistance to the 
                  Palestinians, as requested by Bush, though the money is 
                  subject to tough congressional oversight. Also left untouched 
                  is $1.8 billion in assistance to Egypt, despite attempts in 
                  Congress to decrease the portion of aid that goes to Egyptian 
                  military spending and increase the amount used to encourage 
                  


                  Praise, suggestion  for U.N.                                         11/9/2005  
               
                  Sixty members of the House of Representatives are commending 
                  United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan for "swiftly 
                  rejecting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's virulent and 
                  unprovoked threats against Israel." 
                  In a letter to Annan spearheaded by Reps. Henry Waxman 
                  (D-Calif.), Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and Rahm Emanuel 
                  (D-Ill.), the members of Congress also told Annan that the 
                  U.N. also must "formally respond as an institution and 
                  consider all appropriate recourses to rebuke Iran for its 
                  actions." 
                  Among the signatories on the letter, all but four of whom were 
                  Democrats, were Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Cardin 
                  (D-Md.).