Reuters reports on the latest comments by Israeli PM Olmert regarding the necessity for Israel of sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians as part of a final peace settlement (1), featured in an interview Olmert gave to the Jerusalem Post (13.) In The American Conservative, Michael C. Desch, Professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, profiles the hardline neoconservative foreign policy advisory team surrounding Presidential candidate Giuliani and warns of the consequences of his winning the election (3.) A New York Times editorial urges President Bush to take concrete steps that will give the Israeli and Palestinian leaders the maximum support necessary to reach a peace agreement (4.) The Christian Science Monitor looks at the year-end report on the occupied territories by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem (6.) The Middle East Times reports from Gaza on how a lack of spare parts, fuel and maintenance work for the sewage and water systems is creating conditions for an impending health disaster (8.) The Independent (UK) uses the example of Highway 443 in the occupied West Bank to illustrate how the Israeli policy of barring Palestinians from using it is designed to de-facto annex the land that the road travels through (9.) In BitterLemons (Israel/Palestine) former Palestinian minister of planning Ghassan Khatib takes a historical look at the Israeli settlement enterprise and identifies it as the main obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace (11.) An Asharq Alwsat opinion by British Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander urges the Arab world and international community to give the current opportunity for peace its full financial and political backing (12.) In Haaretz (Israel) Bradley Burston examines how the 1967 borders have become the internationally recognized parameters of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (14.)