Middle Orient

GAZA – Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians, including a mother and child, in the Gaza Strip on Thursday as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to wage a “war” to stop rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed eight people near a Shi’ite mosque in the volatile Iraqi city of Baquba on Thursday, police said.

BEIRUT – An Arab mediator brokered a meeting between rival Lebanese leaders on Thursday but a political source said their dispute was unresolved and a breakthrough remained distant.

BEIRUT – The first attack on the United States in Beirut in two decades was a warning shot against its policy in Lebanon, where it backs anti-Syrian leaders against rivals supported by Damascus and Tehran.

RAMALLAH, West Bank – International donors have pledged $7.7 billion in aid to the Palestinians over the next three years, more than initially reported, a Palestinian government minister said on Thursday.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran’s deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikh Attar and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a meeting in Guatemala City on Thursday conferred about the decisions adopted during OPEC’s recent heads-of-state summit in Saudi Arabia.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran Wednesday invited Indian companies to invest in developing oilfields.

TEHRAN (FNA) Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Tuesday rejected US President George W Bush’s description of Iran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and said the comment would cause discord.

TEHRAN (FNA) Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili said in Beijing Thursday that Tehran will continue its positive cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran on Wednesday said that it backs the Arab League chief Amr Mussa’s efforts to persuade warring Lebanese factions to agree a compromise plan allowing the election of a new president.