Middle Orient

The UN’s Mideast envoy said Wednesday that after recent contacts with Syrian officials, he believes Damascus is interested in restarting peace talks with Israel.

Bulgaria on Thursday officially requested the transfer from Libya of six medical workers whose death sentences for infecting children with HIV have been commuted to life imprisonment.

Ahead of general elections on Sunday, the leader of Turkey’s hardline nationalists flung a hangman’s noose from a podium to make a point during a political rally: the prime minister is soft on terrorism and should hang the imprisoned leader of Kurdish rebels.

Children raced to help parents collect food from UN aid distribution centres in the Gaza Strip as women sat in the shade near trucks, waiting for their names to be called to receive their food rations.

At least six children were reported killed in mortar attacks close to where scores of dignitaries were holding a long-awaited peace conference in the Somali capital Thursday.

Iranian President Mamoud Ahmadinejad mocked Israel and called for Lebanese unity during meetings in Damascus Thursday with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad and Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Sunni legislators returned to Iraq’s parliament Thursday after a five-week boycott, raising hopes the assembly can make progress on power-sharing bills demanded by Washington before the lawmakers take a month’s break.

Prosecutors have charged Jordanian doctor Mohammad Asha with conspiracy to cause explosions over failed car bombings last month, the fourth indictment over the attacks, British police said Thursday.

A TOP PLO body gave its approval Thursday to President Mahmoud Abbas to call new presidential and legislative elections, a high-stakes gamble meant to sideline Hamas, but also bound to set off new confrontations with the Islamists and cement the West Bank-Gaza divide.

A suicide car bomber has hit a paramilitary checkpoint, killing four people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, the latest attack in a wave of violence sweeping the country in recent weeks.