Middle Orient News

Lebanese leaders will put off a presidential election set for Friday for a sixth time to allow for talks expected to focus on the army chief’s nomination for a post now vacant for a week, political sources said.

One old investor used binoculars to watch stock prices. Others yelled out instructions to brokers who scribbled down prices on a white board.

Chances of a breakthrough appear slim when Iran’s main nuclear negotiator meets Europe’s top diplomat on Friday in a last effort to avert tougher sanctions over Tehran’s disputed atomic program.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after peace talks in Washington that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians could threaten Israel’s long-term survival.

A senior Russian envoy has been trying to broker a deal between Israel and Syria on the future of the Golan Heights, an Israeli newspaper said on Thursday.

U.S. President George W. Bush, whose legacy seems destined to be defined by the Iraq war, now wants to make history by brokering the Middle East peace deal that eluded so many of his predecessors.

A roadside bomb killed five Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border on Thursday while 10 villagers were killed in fighting between soldiers and militants in another area, an official and witnesses said.

Hurling bricks and glass bottles, Pakistani lawyers and police clashed in the eastern city of Lahore as President Pervez Musharraf was sworn in for a second term on Thursday, amid demands he be hanged.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians could threaten Israel’s long-term survival.

Israel killed four Hamas fighters in two air strikes in the south of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Hamas officials and Palestinian medical staff said.