News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will Sunday deliver her first foreign-policy address since becoming chairwoman of Kadima and prime minister-designate, at a foreign policy conference which is intended to be the first of a series of annual assessments. She and the director general of the Foreign Ministry are working to bolster the esteem in which the ministry is held by military, defense and intelligence bodies in Israel, and the Foreign Ministry also might begin submitting defense recommendations for the Cabinet and Security Cabinet.

Livni is pressured for time to put together a coalition, and she is therefore expected to avoid making any clear statement about dividing Jerusalem or giving land or sovereignty to the Palestinian Authority in order not to distance the Shas party from becoming a coalition partner.