Middle Orient

DUBAI (Reuters) – Leaders of Pakistan’s month-old ruling alliance narrowed differences on Thursday over the reinstatement of judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf to calm fears that the coalition was about to break up.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli forces on Thursday killed two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including a Hamas commander involved in the 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier, local medics and the army said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel would likely agree to an informal truce with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip if cross-border rocket attacks and arms smuggling into the territory ended, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas underwent heart tests in a Jordanian hospital on Thursday, a spokesman said, describing his condition as good.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – An explosion near a U.S. patrol in Baghdad killed nine Iraqis and wounded 23 on Thursday, Iraqi police said.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) – Eight people were killed and 20 injured when a bus carrying Canadian, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian tourists overturned and caught fire in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Thursday, police sources said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- An earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale jolted three towns in Lorestan province, western Iran, injuring over 100 people.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran has presented representatives of natural gas-exporting countries with proposals aimed at turning an existing informal forum into an OPEC-like structure.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iran’s president that there will be continuity in Russia’s relations with Tehran, a senior Russian official was quoted as saying.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian government’s economic committee which draws up monetary policies has called for keeping bank lending rates at 12 percent.