Middle Orient

GAZA (Reuters) – Three Palestinian students hoping to take up prestigious scholarships to study in the United States despite an Israeli travel ban met U.S. consular officials on Thursday at the Israel-Gaza border for visa interviews.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Kurdish guerrillas have kidnapped three German tourists on a climbing expedition in eastern Turkey, a local governor said on Wednesday. The three had established a camp on Mount Ararat in Agri province as part of a 13-member climbing team when they were seized by Kurdistan Workers Party …

UMM QASR, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s fledgling navy of battered patrol boats is bulking up for a greater role in protecting the country’s economic heart, its offshore oil terminals, officials said. Putting on muscle to protect the two terminals that account for 90 percent of Iraq’s revenues, the tiny navy …

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas leaders plan to hold talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo on the future of a ceasefire with Israel that has been marred by violations since it began nearly three weeks ago. In the latest challenge to the Egyptian-brokered truce, militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel closed all but one of its border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in response to a mortar attack 24 hours earlier, Israeli officials said. The Jewish state said one mortar shell was fired from Gaza on Monday and landed in southern Israel, causing no …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament will insist on vetting any security pact the government agrees with the United States and will likely veto the document if American troops are immune from Iraqi law, a senior lawmaker said on Tuesday. Baghdad and Washington are negotiating the legal basis for U.S. troops …

DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates’ decision to forgive Baghdad’s debt and restore high-level ties reflects a Gulf Arab desire to counter Iran’s spreading influence, but not all will be so quick to warm to the new Iraq. Sunni Arab governments who once funded Iraq’s 1980-1988 war against Shi’ite …

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) – The Shi’ite Mehdi Army militia is finished as a fighting force in Iraq’s oil rich Basra province and upcoming provincial elections should pass without violence, the province’s governor said on Tuesday. Mohammed al-Waeli said an Iraqi security offensive against the Mehdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A roadside bomb killed four contractors and wounded eight others in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said on Tuesday. The military said the bomb hit a coalition logistics convoy south of the city of Mosul on Monday. A U.S. military spokesman said nationalities of the victims had …

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese leaders are finalizing a deal on the formation of a national unity government as stipulated in an agreement that ended the country’s political crisis, political sources said on Saturday.