NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer expressed solidarity Tuesday (June 12th) with Turkey’s fight against terrorism, while also urging Ankara to show “maximum restraint” in dealing with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq.

TEL AVIV (AFP) — Veteran statesman Shimon Peres was elected president of Israel on Wednesday, finally winning his first vote for top office and crowning a record-breaking career spanning more than half a century.

MALAKAL, Sudan — The pair of white river launches marked with United Nations insignia leapt forward as the sailors opened the throttles, cutting deep trenches into the dark waters of southern Sudan’s Blue Nile.

TEHRAN (AP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday shrugged off the West’s criticism of Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme and said that eventual new UN sanctions would not harm Iran.

IN A BOLD BLOW to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected Al Qaeda bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra’s revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque’s golden dome was destroyed.

A POWERFUL CAR bomb killed anti-Syrian Lebanese politician Walid Eido and nine other people on Wednesday in an attack his colleagues blamed on Damascus, Reuters reported.

HAMAS FIGHTERS LAUNCHED a fierce offensive on Gaza City yesterday, attacking the main security bases and the president’s compound with mortars and rockets and sending some of the rival Fateh forces fleeing in disarray as the Islamic group appeared close to taking over the entire Gaza Strip.

Gunbattle in the area of Shalazhi village Kavkaz Center sources reports that the village of Shalazhi (Urus-Martan district) has been blocked by the invaders since the early morning of 13 June.

In occupied Kashmir, the Srinagar based Human Rights group, Coalition of Civil Society has demanded formation of an International Tribunal for War Crimes to investigate into the gross human rights violations by the Indian armed forces.

Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah say they have agreed to the terms of a new truce to end days of fighting in Gaza that has left 80 people dead. In a joint statement, leaders from both sides called for an end to fighting.