NAHR BARED REFUGEE CAMP  (AP) — Lebanon’s defence minister issued an ultimatum Wednesday to gunmen barricaded in this Palestinian refugee camp to surrender or face a military onslaught, as the army reinforced its positions, raising fears of what could be a bloody showdown.

AMMAN (JT) — Queen Rania on Wednesday joined UNICEF in an international appeal for Iraqi children, urging the global community to act on their behalf and noting that those affected by violence and displacement have reached a critical point. 

Nine US warships carrying 17,000 personnel entered the Gulf on Wednesday in a show of force off Iran’s coast that navy officials said was the largest daytime assembly of ships since the 2003 Iraq war.

An bomb in a suitcase has ripped through a building in the town of Aley, in the mountains east of the Lebanese capital. A senior security official said five people had been wounded in the explosion which was at the main roundabout of the resort on Wednesday evening.

A roadside bomb in northwestern Afghanistan has killed a Finnish solder and wounded four Norwegians, military officials say.  

A Russian former KGB officer should be charged with the murder by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the UK’s director of public prosecutions has recommended.  

Brussels and Moscow signalled their readiness Monday (May 21st) to step up efforts towards settling a long-running dispute over Polish meat exports, one of the issues on the agenda of a contentious EU-Russia summit last week.

Four candidates will be running for the top post in the main opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP), following an approval process Saturday (May 19th). SDP deputy chairperson and acting leader Zeljka Antunovic, senior officials Tonino Picula and Zoran Milanovic, and the head of the Zagreb branch, Milan Bandic were chosen …

ANKARA (Reuters) —  A bomb outside a crowded shopping mall in Turkey’s capital Ankara killed five people and injured at least 60 people on Tuesday, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.

SANAA (Reuters) — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Tuesday he would consider Shiite Muslim rebels’ demands to end fighting with government forces but would not change the secular political system of the Arab country.