A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Our thousands of regular visitors will have noticed that 'The Fourth World War' blog has been silent for almost a month. We haven't shut down, there was just an urgent holiday-break-vacation that needed to be taken, for reasons of physical health and sanity.

Weeks away from continual news updates during the ultra-important events of the Israel-Hizbullah war has given me an 'outsiders' perspective to what's happened in the past month.

To come back from a month in the bush of the Northern Territory and the Bali countryside, with no access to TV news, newspapers or the internet for most of that time, and to learn the true magnitude of Israel's defeat in Lebanon, is truly remarkable.

Hopefully my time away will allow me some 'fresh eyes' to find the stories and headlines that fellow news junkies might have missed in the daily onslaught of news from the region.

I'm now working my way through hundreds of news reports, diligently collected in my absence by a team of news bots and there will be a lengthy post soon of what I think are the most important headlines from the war that were not covered here while we were away.

We should be back up to four or five times a week updates soon enough, so thanks for your patience.