Middle Orient

Moving Palestinian issue in right direction gives world flexibility to tackle other Mideast problems, Monarch tells BBC

Lebanese troops have continued to battle an armed Palestinian group at a refugee camp in northern Lebanon for the second straight day, security sources have said.

El Salvador’s President Elias Antonio Saca was in Egypt Monday in the first visit by a Salvadoran leader since Cairo cut ties with San Salvador in 1984.

KUT — For thousands of years fishermen have drawn their livelihoods out of the brown waters of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which teem with species found nowhere else in the world.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Roadside bombings killed seven US soldiers and an interpreter, the military said on Sunday, putting May on track to be one of the deadliest months for US forces in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

JT with AFP dispatches ISRAELI DEPUTY PRIME Minister Shimon Peres on Sunday urged Arab countries to hold talks with the Jewish state on the peace initiative they reendorsed in March.

GAZA (Reuters) — Israel escalated its strikes against Gaza fighters on Sunday, killing eight Palestinians in an aerial assault that struck the home of a promiment Hamas politician, medics and a source in the Islamist group said.

TRIPOLI (AFP) — Fierce gunbattles raged in Lebanon on Sunday between soldiers and shadowy Islamist fighters accused of links to Al Qaeda, leaving 40 dead in the bloodiest such clashes in seven years. Lebanese troops staged a broad daylight assault on a building in Tripoli where fighters from Fateh Al …

SAMARRA — The heavy wooden doors of the Golden Mosque open on to an ethereal hall clad in thousands of intricately arranged blue and silver tiles decorated with flowing Arabic script.

SOUTHERN SHUNEH (AP) — The bloodshed in Gaza threatens to keep badly needed economic aid from the Palestinians who already suffer from rising unemployment and a lack of basic services, a UN official aiding Palestinians warned Saturday.