Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber drove a pickup packed with explosives into a group of anti-Al Qaeda tribal chiefs Tuesday in a market area near Fallujah on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people, officials said, in the latest example of the difficulties facing Sunni leaders trying to gain control …

NAHR BARED (AFP) — Sporadic fighting continued on Tuesday in the Lebanese army’s battle to crush gunmen holed up in a refugee camp, amid reports the radicals’ resolve was weakening and that some were surrendering.

Palestinians have gathered in the West Bank on the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East war to demand an immediate end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. And in East Jerusalem on Tuesday, zionist police shut down a Palestinian conference marking 40 years since zionist occupants captured …

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AFP) — Top Democratic presidential hopefuls traded their sharpest barbs yet of the 2008 White House race, as differences over Iraq burst into the open during their second televised debate.

LONDON (AFP) — Israel has plunged the Palestinians into unprecedented levels of poverty and despair through 40 years of occupation, yet failed to ensure its own security, Amnesty International said Monday.

KHARTOUM — Business leaders managing Sudan’s economic boom predict the new US sanctions imposed because of Darfur will have little impact on this country’s oil-based economy, mostly because they avoid targeting key Chinese interests here.

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) — At least eight Turkish paramilitary police were killed when Kurdish rebels attacked their headquarters in eastern Turkey on Monday, security sources said, in the worst attack of its kind in a year.

CAMP ANACONDA (Reuters) — The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said on Monday it was too early to judge whether a Baghdad security crackdown was successful because the last of five extra brigades had yet to be deployed.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli and Palestinian peace groups are staging demonstrations this week to protest at 40 years of Israeli occupation following the 1967 war that changed the shape of the Middle East.

GAZA (Agencies) — The Hamas-led Palestinian government endorsed on Monday President Mahmoud Abbas’ proposal for a ceasefire between fighters and Israel, a Cabinet spokesman said.