Middle Orient

King Abdullah on Tuesday urged the US to intensify its efforts in the coming weeks and months to boost the Middle East peace process.

Arab League envoys paid a historic visit to Israel on Wednesday to present a plan calling for a comprehensive regional settlement, saying they were extending “a hand of peace” on behalf of the Arab world.

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan are in Israel to present the Arab League’s Middle East peace plan. The two ministers are meeting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials.

Lebanese troops advanced towards fortified positions of Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp on Wednesday in what political sources said was the start of a final assault to root out the gunmen.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who faced the death penalty in Libya until last week, were pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov on Tuesday (July 24th), less than an hour after they landed in Sofia.

Six foreign medics sentenced to death then life imprisonment in Libya in a controversial AIDS case were free in the Bulgarian capital Tuesday after the EU struck a multi-million-dollar financial and trade deal with Tripoli.

Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit are expected in Israel today for talks to activate an Arab peace initiative.

KING ABDULLAH on Tuesday discussed with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice international efforts to move forward peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Military activity in Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia significantly increased. According to official data, 24 kafir and munafiqs were eliminated and wounded in one day in Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Six foreign medics convicted of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV were freed on Tuesday after a partnership deal between Tripoli and the European Union ended their eight-year ordeal.