Fridays are awesome, as are you for spending part of your Friday with CNN student news. We talked a lot this week about president Obama's trip to the Middle East, he's talked about a lot of issues during his time in the region. Yesterday, he was mostly focued on one issue, possibility of a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict between those groups goes back decades. There are two areas kind of the center of it, Gaza and the West Bank. In recent years, the fighting has involved Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rockets. In fact, two rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, the group that took credit for that said it fired the rockets in response to president Obama's visit. Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians had been on and off for years. Once suggestion has got a lot of attention, it's called a two-state solution. It's something that Palestinian and Israeli leader say they support.
"I hereby assert again that we are already in order to provide for the requirements of lanuching peace process and achieving the two-state solutions."
"Let me be clear, Israel remains fully committed to peace and to the solution of two states for two peoples."
This week, president Obama pushed for peace negotiations to get going again, he supports the two-state solution also. Yesterday, he made his case for it, first to Palestinians, then to Israelis.
"Like people everywhere, Palestinians deserve a future of hope, and their rights will be respected, put simply, Palestinians deserve a state of their own."
"The only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and a Democratic state is through the realization of an independant and viable Palestine."
We also talk this week about Cyprus. It's an Island Nation in the Mediterranean that's having serious economic problems. Cyprus is part of the European Union, the EU, that group is responsible for some of its members' economic policies. So, Cyprus asked the EU for help. The group said, sure, but as part of the bailout, the EU wanted the Cyprus to raise nearly 6 billion Euros, that's nearly 7.5 billion dollars. The first idea, a tax on bank deposits did not go overwhelm, Cypriots started pulling their money into banks. The country's government voted against the idea, so onto the next plan, that also involves a bank deposit tax, but not on as many people. There are some other factors involved as well. What happens in Cyprus could have affects across the European Union and other country. So right now, a lot of people are watching how the situation unfolds there.