PARIS (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman will meet in Paris on Saturday ahead of a summit of EU and Mediterranean leaders, the French president’s office said on Friday.

(Reuters) – Lebanese leaders agreed on a unity government on Friday that gave Hezbollah and its allies a blocking minority as agreed under a deal that ended a paralyzing political conflict in the country. Here is a chronology of Lebanon in the last 20 months.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon formed on Friday a unity government that gave Hezbollah and its allies effective veto power as agreed under a deal that ended a political crisis in the country.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A U.S. coalition force air strike on Sunday killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, an Afghan official said on Friday.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Seven Pakistani soldiers and two civilians have been wounded by firing from inside Afghanistan in the latest incident along the border between the uneasy U.S. allies.

(Reuters) – A U.S. soldier was killed on Wednesday after his vehicle was struck by a grenade in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported on Thursday. Another U.S. soldier was killed on July 8 in Baghdad when his patrol was struck by an improvised …

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Pakistan has reached a “broad understanding” with the United Nations on aspects of a proposed U.N. investigation into the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto but details remain to be worked out, its foreign minister said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan pledged on Thursday to boost ties with Iraq and urged the region to do more to help the Baghdad government rebuild after years of war. Erdogan is the first Turkish leader to visit Iraq in nearly 20 years. His visit came on …

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas arrested three Palestinians who fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a militant faction said, in the first such detentions since the Islamist group and Israel agreed a truce last month.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia suspects a diplomat at Britain’s embassy in Moscow is working as a spy, Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed source in Russia’s intelligence services as saying on Thursday.