Rice in Middle East for New Round of Talks

By Liane Hansen,

Linda Gradstein

Published March 25, 2007 at 8:00 AM EDT

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is in Israel today, her fourth visit in four months as she tries to get Israel and the Palestinians to resume negotiations. She meets with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, and will have dinner Sunday evening with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.

She will not meet with any officials from the new Palestinian unity government of Abbas's Fatah party nor with its rival Hamas. Israel and the United States say that Hamas must first recognize Israel and renounce violence before they can be considered a partner for dialogue.

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Liane Hansen

Liane Hansen has been the host of NPR's award-winning Weekend Edition Sunday for 20 years. She brings to her position an extensive background in broadcast journalism, including work as a radio producer, reporter, and on-air host at both the local and national level. The program has covered such breaking news stories as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Columbia shuttle tragedy. In 2004, Liane was granted an exclusive interview with former weapons inspector David Kay prior to his report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The show also won the James Beard award for best radio program on food for a report on SPAM.

Linda Gradstein

Linda Gradstein has been the Israel correspondent for NPR since 1990. She is a member of the team that received the Overseas Press Club award for her coverage of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the team that received Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism for her coverage of the Gulf War. Linda spent 1998-9 as a Knight Journalist Fellow at Stanford University.