There is a need to reduce the highly disproportionate threats posed by hostile regimes and fanatic groups through an enhanced confidence building regime.

China s official target growth rate is 7.5 . Anyone forecasting 7 is considered a China bear, and predicting a downshift to 6.5 makes one a downright fanatic.

And you can see we got a guy from who's just a fanatic about dinosaurs to do the sculpting for us, down to the spoon shaped teeth and everything.

Not even an organized network would be required just a fanatic with the mindset of those who now design computer viruses. The global village will have its village idiots.

In our interconnected world, novel technology could empower just one fanatic, or some weirdo with a mindset of those who now design computer viruses, to trigger some kind on disaster.

To all appearances the act of a Puritan fanatic, the authorities suspected Berchet of being a part of an organized Puritan conspiracy. He was to be questioned to divulge the names of his co conspirators and then executed.

But becoming a murderous fanatic like Merah or Sidique Khan is the personal choice of a pathological mind, not the trend of a generation. Social rejection has not turned young French and British Muslims into mass murderers, and the infatuation of many with al Qaeda has not overwhelmed their desire to fit in.

Thirty years later, Osama bin Laden was killed by United States Special Forces. But, looking at the world now, one could easily conclude that the inspirational leader whose credo was Franklin Roosevelt s injunction to fear only fear itself has lost, and that the fanatic who wanted fear to dominate the world of the infidels has prevailed.

Complicating the situation further is the division between secular Israelis and the fanatic Orthodox communities whose rejection of the secular state and yearning for a society based on the strictest interpretation of Halacha (Jewish religious law) epitomize a deep seated fear of Arabs and an uncompromising distrust of gentiles. Such communities, which comprise 30 of Jerusalem s population, make the notion of a united, peaceful Jerusalem farfetched, at best.

But if we have learned anything at all from the tragic assassinations of the region s greatest peacemakers, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, it is that the guns do not remain silent for long. During any lull, a fanatic from either side could jump to center stage and, through an act of utter madness, kick up the settling dust and dash the hopes of the many on both sides who still long for a lasting peace.