Middle Orient

Israel said on Sunday it cut fuel supplies to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, increasing pressure on the Islamist group after it seized control of the impoverished territory.

The Public Security Department (PSD) has taken all the necessary security procedures to facilitate the voting process at all polling centres on July 31, Police Spokesperson Major Basheer Daaja said on Sunday.

The Water Authority on Sunday resumed pumping drinking water from 20 artesian wells to citizens in the northern governorates after lab tests indicated they were free of pollutants, a Water Ministry official said on Sunday.

The Bush administration will ask Congress to expand multibillion-dollar aid and weapons sales packages to “friendly” nations in the Middle East, partly to counteract Iran, senior officials said Friday.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Sunday left Lebanon without any breakthrough and after warning of the danger of violence if the eight-month political standoff is not resolved through talks.

Israel allowed around 100 Palestinians stranded for weeks in Egypt to return to the Gaza Strip through the Jewish state on Sunday, the first of some 600 expected to return home in the coming days.

JORDAN ON SUNDAY said it backs the caretaker government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to bring the security situation in the Palestinian lands under control.

King Abdullah on Sunday held talks with visiting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that focused on bilateral ties and regional issues.

Bulgaria rejected a formal Libyan protest Thursday (July 26th) against President Georgi Parvanov’s decision to pardon five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor released from life imprisonment in the North African country earlier this week.

French green groups and opposition politicians Thursday attacked plans to build a French reactor in Libya for water desalination as a perilous masquerade that would encourage Muammar Qadhafi to get a nuclear bomb.