OUTLINES OF FUTURE STATE EMERGE IN WEST BANK As preparations intensify for a Palestinian-Israeli summit meeting in Washington on Thursday, the crude outlines of a Palestinian state are emerging in the West Bank. The central question facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority is under what circumstances Israel might yield its control over the bulk of this territory to the emerging Palestinian state apparatus. Most analysts remain skeptical of a deal emerging soon. WITH NEW SANCTIONS, U.S. AIMS AT NORTH KOREAN ELITE The latest target for the United States, as it tries to tighten the screws on North Korea, is a shadowy party organization, known as Office 39, which raises hard currency to buy fine liquor, exotic food and luxury cars for cronies of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il. The Obama administration Monday singled out Office 39 as one of several North Korean entities that it says are engaged in illicit activity. Under a new executive order, the United States will try to choke off the flow of luxury goods into North Korea, which officials say Kim uses to buy the loyalty of the political elite. OVERHAUL OF U.N. CLIMATE PANEL IS URGED The United Nations needs to revise the way it manages its assessments of climate change, with the scientists involved more open to alternative views, more transparent about possible conflicts of interest and more careful to avoid making policy prescriptions, an independent review panel said Monday. The review panel also recommended that the senior officials involved in producing the periodic assessments serve in their voluntary positions for only one report -- a statement interpreted to suggest that the current chairman of the climate panel, Rajendra K. Pachauri, step down. BIDEN IN IRAQ FOR TALKS AND HANDOVER CEREMONY Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad on Monday to commemorate the official end of the U.S. combat mission and to meet with Iraqi political leaders, who have yet to form a government more than five months after the March elections. Biden will also attend the ceremony Wednesday to formally commemorate the end of the American combat mission in Iraq and the change of command from Gen. Ray Odierno to Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III. INDIA PASSES NUCLEAR DEAL, THOUGH NOT THE ONE PLANNED India's parliament approved a final, critical piece of a long-delayed landmark civil nuclear agreement Monday, a pact regarded as a cornerstone of a Bush-era effort to transform the relationship between the United States and the world's largest democracy. But even as supporters praised a historic victory, the end result does not seem likely to signal a new era in relations between the United States and India. The nuclear issue, putatively about India's future, has set off weeks of bitter political debate in New Delhi and tapped into Indian nationalism and public suspicion of foreign corporate interests. 