Middle Orient

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s presidential election was postponed again on Friday, despite rival leaders’ agreement in principle to give the post to army chief Michel Suleiman in a step that would ease the country’s deep political crisis.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, signaled on Friday it plans to ease a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in universities under a new draft constitution.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A female suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 16 people and a suicide car bomb killed 10 in two attacks in Iraq’s most restive province northeast of Baghdad on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A Shi’ite lawmaker and the head of Iraq’s main Sunni Arab bloc shouted accusations at each other in parliament on Thursday, underscoring deep sectarian divisions just days after Sunnis ended a brief boycott of the legislature.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The air still smelled unmistakably of blood and the street was still strewn with shredded store mannequins and clothes.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Nine Kurdish troops were killed when suspected al Qaeda gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Thursday, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq will have to cut food rations in 2008 because of insufficient funds, Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany said.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Eight Kurdish Peshmerga troops and three militant gunmen were killed in a battle northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, a spokesman for the Kurdish forces said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Ear, nose and throat specialist Abu Samir laments that he has only one colleague left to call after an exodus that has robbed Iraq of about 70 percent of its most qualified doctors.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had carried out its first visit to security detainees held by Iraq’s central government.