Syria contends that the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed during lower-level peace talks that stalled in 1996 to return the Golan, a water-rich region that overlooks the upper Jordan River valley.

CNN: Albright: 'No done deal' as Israel, Syria prepare to meet

In return, an Arizona water-user (say, the city of Tucson) pumps the same amount of Nevada's water out of the aquifer under Arizona.

ECONOMIST: Water in the West: Buying a gulp of the Colorado | The

Meanwhile, governments are relying more and more on private companies to finance and build water infrastructure, in return for profitable long-term licences to run local monopolies.

ECONOMIST: Water industry

Meanwhile, downed power lines, leaking gas lines, broken water pipes and still-blazing fires have blocked the return of thousands of Southern Californians who fled their homes this week ahead of more than 20 wind-whipped wildfires.

CNN: Gov. Schwarzenegger vows to 'hunt down' arsonists

Or should I reach back into the bag amid the discarded soda cups, shredded plastic bags, losing lottery tickets and cigarette-butt-filled water bottles to rescue the beer cans and soda bottles, and return them to the supermarket for the deposit?

WSJ: Recycled Emotions

In 1994, North Korea agreed to stop making plutonium, in return for which America and its allies would supply the country with fuel oil and build two Western-designed light-water nuclear reactors (since it is a bit harder to produce weapons-grade materials from such reactors than from the ones North Korea had been building).

ECONOMIST: Not a final deal, just a start | The