Middle Orient

Anti-Syrian lawmakers rattled by last week’s assassination of one of their colleagues took refuge in a heavily guarded hotel Monday, a day before the deeply divided parliament convenes to elect a president.

Iraq‘s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has agreed to look into political demands of the main Sunni Arab political bloc which pulled out of his Shi’ite-led government last month, his office said.

  Hundreds of Palestinians thronged two major West Bank checkpoints, trying to reach a key Islamic shrine in Jerusalem on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite tight Israeli restrictions. 

  U.S. forces probably will not be a visible presence on Iraq’s streets five years from now, but the United States will remain a force in the country for years to come, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S. predicted.

  OPEC exporters agreed Tuesday to pump an extra 500,000 barrels of oil a day to cool near-record crude prices in an apparent victory for Saudi Arabia over its reluctant partners.  The cartel is to open the taps from the beginning of November to ensure adequate supplies to the market …

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will attend an international conference of Iraq’s neighbors and others in Istanbul at the end of October. The meeting being organized by Turkish and Iraqi officials will be a follow-up to a similar ministerial-level meeting held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in May. VOA’s David Gollust …

The top US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, faced a tough challenge on Tuesday from both Republicans sceptical about war strategy and Democrats who want a swifter withdrawal of American troops.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem called off a visit planned for Tuesday to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the first since a public row between the two countries, a Saudi official said.

The wife of Fateh Al Islam chief Shaker Abssi has insisted that her husband is dead and that a body she viewed at a morgue was his, despite DNA tests that have proved otherwise.

THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT came under increasing pressure Tuesday to respond harshly to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip after an overnight barrage wounded dozens of soldiers as they slept in their tents at an Israeli army base.