The topic on Al Jazeera Arabic’s controversial yet highly popular talk show “Opposite Direction” this week was the Obama presidency, one year later.

The host questioned the sincerity of President Obama’s outreach to Arabs and Muslims. Faisal al-Qasem, the Syrian host of al-Itijah al-Mo’akis, likened President Obama to a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing.

Al-Qasem accused Obama of speaking from both sides of his mouth and alleged that the Arabs’ problem was believing Obama’s sugar-coated words:

Al Arabiya news channel reported on the upcoming African Cup football match between Egypt and Algeria. Egypt beat Cameroon 3-1 to set up a repeat of the intense World Cup playoff against Algeria.

The last time these two teams faced each other was in Khartoum, Sudan, which was followed with violence and enormous tension across the Arab world.

Today’s lead headline in Israeli center-left newspaper Haaretz was about Israeli president Shimon Peres’ speech to the German parliament. Speaking on the anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp’s liberation, Peres called for the surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust to be brought to justice.

Abdel al-Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, published in London, wrote an op-ed yesterday on the stalled Middle East peace process — in light of U.S. envoy George Mitchell’s recent visit to the region.

Atwan, who was born in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, is an outspoken critic of many Arab governments. He attributes Mitchell’s lack of progress to:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to retain Jewish settlements in the West Bank and keep complete control of those areas.

• The refusal of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table again without an Israeli commitment to a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

• U.S. President Barack Obama giving in to Israeli pressure on the settlements.

Atwan argues that another intifada is likely because of the stalemate in the peace process. He also thinks Fatah and Hamas may be forced to reconcile if progress is not made.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

The two men — and the nations they represent — have been searching for months for a way to resolve differences over Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The U.S. has been pushing hard for an Israeli settlement freeze, and the Palestinians are refusing to restart peace talks until Israel halts all construction there.

Despite their failure to reach agreement again on Wednesday, the two sides will resume talks in Washington next week.

What do you think it will take to reach a Middle East peace agreement? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Daniel Levy, a senior research fellow for the New America Foundation and a former advisor to the Israeli government, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the U.S. and Israeli positions and prospects for a broader Middle East peace deal.

But as Barbara Serra of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English reports, some Londoners are now trying to do something about it.

Michael Novacek, the provost of science at the American Museum of Natural History, joins Martin Savidge to discuss theories about the worrisome decline in the bee population and the consequences of the decline.

G-20 members agreed to several elements of regulatory reform, including limiting hedge funds, bankers’ pay and credit agencies, as well as monitoring tax havens.

The markets have reacted positively to the results of the G-20 meeting.

Martin Wolf, the associate editor and chief economics commentator for the Financial Times of London, joins Martin Savidge to discuss how the results of the meeting will impact the global economic crisis, whether the G-20 nations will be able to turn their words into action and how other nations have responded to Obama’s leadership.

Below, see a slideshow of G-20 protests in London. More than 4,000 people attended the “Financial Fools Day” protest on Wednesday and protests continued into Thursday.

Photos courtesy of Flickr users under a Creative Commons license.

Protesters in London erected a banner in advance of the G-20 meeting in the city.

President Barack Obama arrived in London on Tuesday in advance of Thursday’s G-20 gathering. There, the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries hope to devise a plan to end the most serious global economic downturn since the Great Depression.

On Wednesday, the president met with the British prime minister and offered assurances that the differences among world leaders attending the summit meeting have been exaggerated.

“I am absolutely confident that this meeting will reflect enormous consensus about the need to work in concert to deal with these problems,” he said. “I think that the separation between the various parties involved has been vastly overstated.”

Daniele Archibugi is director of the Italian National Research Council and professor of innovation, governance and public policy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He writes at OpenDemocracy to argue that members states’ interests are too divergent, and that the G-20 is not a representative international body.

The G20 ought to be increased to 6 Billion

The G20 is important in the eyes of the world. Its pronouncements could decide whether you can get a job, refinance a mortgage, get a loan if you are a small company and, in the poorer parts of the world, even put your kids to bed with a full stomach.

Is the G20 really the right institution to address so many hopes and fears? From the standpoint of legitimacy, not at all. It has no employees, no headquarters and not even a statute. Indeed the international relations handbooks cannot tell us how to handle it, as it is situated half way between an international organization and the more formalized practices of traditional diplomatic channels.

In spite of the name, it does not even have 20 member states: it has only 19, boosted by the addition of a European Union representative. The member governments are by no means featherweights; as they themselves often remind us, they represent 85 per cent of world production, 80 per cent of world trade and two thirds of the world population.

However, these are merely quantitative values and have little to do with legitimacy. For Bangladesh it is not enough to have a population six times greater than that of Saudi Arabia to become part of the group. The only representative from the continent of Africa is South Africa. The G20 is lacking in logic also as far as income is concerned: Spain, Iran, Taiwan, the Netherlands and Poland have a gross domestic product exceeding that of Saudi Arabia, Argentina and South Africa but have not been invited. Also other countries of crucial importance for world financial architecture, such as Switzerland with its banking system and the Arab Emirates with its Sovereign Wealth Fund assets, are absent.

How does that one third of the world population whose state representatives have not even been invited to the Summit feel about it? A good 173 countries in the world have been left out and can only wait and see what is decided in London. We are talking about one third of the world population which has all the problems of the other two thirds and often many more, but in this case have no voice.

However, it is still better than the G8, it might be objected, which groups the governments of only 14 per cent of the world population, all of which located in the North of the world. It might be argued that to enlarge the meeting and turn it into a G192, a kind of UN General Assembly on a school outing, would make it more representative but also inconclusive as there would be no possibility of taking effective decisions. The crisis that has hit the financial markets calls for strong messages to be transmitted, which can only come from those governments that have enough resources to guarantee them. But the countries that have fat wallets do not seem to be interested in sending these messages, perhaps because they have not been given a mandate to act on behalf of all countries.

Initially dreamed up to act as a clearing house to the G8 by providing a platform also for the countries of the South, it has become entangled in inter-governmental logic and represents interests that are too divergent to allow a consensus to be reached.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user thehutch under a Creative Commons license.

Reginald Dale, a senior fellow in the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joins Martin Savidge to discuss this divide, the popularity of President Obama verus Candidate Obama in Western Europe and whether Russia will respond to President Obama’s pledge to ”reset” its relationship with  Russia.

A policeman watches an anti-Israel protest in London.

The fighting in Gaza has sent thousands of protesters into streets around the world.

In the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, children joined marchers waving flags and banners on Wednesday supporting the Palestinians in Gaza. In Lebanon, a crowd in Beirut cheered calls to back Hamas and to be ready for more Israeli attacks on Arab countries.

Hundreds of Palestinians in Argentina marched to the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires demanding that Israel withdraw from Gaza, while in Turkey, protesters gathered outside a basketball game scheduled between an Israeli and a Turkish team — forcing riot police to protect the Israeli team members as they fled before the game could be played.

A blogger at “My Random Compulsion” writes from Nablus, a town in the West Bank, about marching in protests there.

Blogger “Yohay” writes about an anti-war demonstration in Tel Aviv and posts pictures.

Blogger “Rayyan” describes anti-Israel demonstrations in London, which marched across the city to the Israeli embassy. Another blogger, ”Sunny” of The Guardian’s “Comment is Free” blog, writes that he attended the same demonstration but was troubled by the religious overtones and other aspects of the march.

Anti-Israel protests in Paris turned violent, and the “ParisDailyPhoto” blog posts images of the resulting damage.

The “Islam in Europe” blog provides an overview of protests across Europe, including some in Germany, Finland and Greece.

In Iraq, a mass rally against the Israeli offensive turned deadly when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the protest.

Blogger “Pamela” writes that a pro-Israel rally in New York City drew wide support.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Joe Cross under a Creative Commons license.