Middle Orient

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved electricity and fuel cuts against Palestinians living in the impoverished Gaza Strip on Thursday in an effort to curb rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

It’s stalemate on the border with Iraq after Ankara slammed Baghdad’s proposals to deal with the PKK threat in the north of the country as “insufficient”.

European governments are deeply divided over imposition of new sanctions against Iran, in what could undermine a new US effort to mobilize allies to act outside of the United Nations, according to European officials.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew back to Israel on Tuesday to resume intense preparations for a looming Middle East summit after securing cautious Egyptian support for the conference.

With less than a week to go before Lebanon’s parliament convenes again to elect a president, all indicators are that the session is doomed to fail or will be cancelled for lack of consensus among the country’s feuding political factions.

Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived here Tuesday for a four-day visit to discuss regional issues and bilateral ties, Anatolia news agency reported.

Influential Shiite cleric Ammar Hakim held talks in Ramadi on Sunday with a powerful Sunni tribal sheikh, which observers said were highly symbolic for reconciliation in war-torn Iraq.

Traders in Tyre’s bustling market say UN peacekeepers have brought “baraka” and a dose of good fortune to south Lebanon, making up at least in part for the ravages of last year’s Israel-Lebanon war.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh faction ruled out talks with Hamas on Thursday as Israel warned any such dialogue with the Islamists could “torpedo” a peace deal with the Jewish state.

Syrian President Bashar Assad all but ruled out his country’s participation in a US-sponsored international peace conference on the Middle East, suggesting in an interview published Thursday that the meeting has no chance for success.