Middle Orient

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces shut down four Islamic charities and two photocopying shops in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday for alleged ties to the rival Hamas faction, a security source said.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A car bomb in a vegetable market in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar killed 18 people and wounded 25 on Friday, police said.

ANKARA (Reuters) – A Turkish man set himself on fire during a protest by ethnic Uighurs in front of the Chinese embassy in Turkey on Friday against China’s rule in the region of Xinjiang as Beijing opened the Olympics.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian government is planning to sell off up to a quarter of the state owned telecoms operator, Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI).

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraqi president Jalal Al Talabani is in the United States to receive medical treatment, but he will make time during his journey to follow up secret talks with American officials on the Iranian nuclear issue, sources from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed by Al Talabani, said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran sign a grant agreement with the Lebanese Council for Development and Reconstruction to help the Council repair the road between Naqoura and Marjayoun in southern Lebanon.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with a group of journalists and media people here in Tehran Thursday night to honor Journalists’ Day (August 7).

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – The Palestinian juice vendor cursed after an Israeli soldier stopped him from trundling his barrow into Hebron’s ancient covered market.

GAZA (Reuters) – Gaza’s Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militant group on Thursday warned Israel that a truce between Israel and Hamas which went into effect on June 19 was in danger of collapse, saying it could end in three weeks.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council voted on Thursday to keep the United Nations mission in Iraq for another year, as Baghdad urged the world body to do more to help it transform into a functioning democracy.