Middle Orient News

DAMASCUS – Syrian participation in a US-sponsored peace conference could ease its troubled ties with the international community but Damascus is unlikely to back down on its terms, diplomats and officials say.

Israel is looking to a U.S.-India nuclear deal to expand its own ties to suppliers, quietly lobbying for an exemption to non-proliferation rules so it can legally import atomic material, according to documents made available Tuesday to The Associated Press.The move is sure to raise concerns among Arab nations already …

Billboards in Kurdistan’s capital boast that luxury malls and hotels are on the way, but banking and insurance systems barely function. Cranes loom over building sites, but few government inspectors check the quality of construction. This is economic development, on the fly. A sign at the office of a trade …

Lebanon‘s parliament has postponed a session to elect a new president until October 23. A parliamentary official made the announcement in the chamber, after pro-Syrian opposition members boycotted Tuesday’s session, preventing the legislature from mustering a two-thirds quorum required for a vote.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that key Arab nations, including Syria, would be invited to President Bush’s planned Mideast peace conference this fall and expressed hope they would attend. Formal invitations haven’t been issued yet but Rice said it “would be natural” for Syria, Saudi Arabia and 10 …

Anti-Syrian lawmakers rattled by last week’s assassination of one of their colleagues took refuge in a heavily guarded hotel Monday, a day before the deeply divided parliament convenes to elect a president.

Iraq‘s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has agreed to look into political demands of the main Sunni Arab political bloc which pulled out of his Shi’ite-led government last month, his office said.

  Hundreds of Palestinians thronged two major West Bank checkpoints, trying to reach a key Islamic shrine in Jerusalem on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite tight Israeli restrictions. 

  U.S. forces probably will not be a visible presence on Iraq’s streets five years from now, but the United States will remain a force in the country for years to come, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S. predicted.

  OPEC exporters agreed Tuesday to pump an extra 500,000 barrels of oil a day to cool near-record crude prices in an apparent victory for Saudi Arabia over its reluctant partners.  The cartel is to open the taps from the beginning of November to ensure adequate supplies to the market …