Middle Orient

SIRTE, Libya (AFP) — British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed “completely transformed” relations with oil-rich Libya after talks with Muammar Qadhafi, the leader of a country now firmly back in the international fold.

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran will not suspend uranium enrichment, the key UN demand in a nuclear row with Tehran, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the day before talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

BEIRUT — Bombings in Beirut and violence in north Lebanon are jeopardising Lebanon’s tourism industry, just as the normally lucrative summer season approaches, the country’s tourism minister said on Wednesday.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — Vice Premier Shimon Peres announced his candidacy Wednesday for president of Israel, an office tarnished by rape and other sexual misconduct allegations against its current occupant, Moshe Katsav.

AL FASHER — Awatef Ahmed Isaac is something of a celebrity in this dusty Darfur town where the handwritten dispatches she pins to the same tree each week are the main source of independent news.

GORUMLU (Reuters) — Turkey sent more tanks to its border with Iraq on Wednesday in a military buildup that is fuelling US concern about a possible incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels.

BEIRUT (AP) — Supporters of slain former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri cheered and wept — and some even danced in the streets — late Wednesday to celebrate the UN Security Council approval of the international tribunal to prosecute suspects in his killing.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Hundreds of Iraqi and US troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad’s Sadr City slum Wednesday and conducted raids in an apparent effort to find five British citizens who Iraqi officials believed were abducted by the Shiite Mehdi Army.

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Two Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as the government vowed to keep up attacks on activists to try to stamp out persistent rocket fire.

BEIRUT — “Gone fishing” says the notice on the door of a club in a usually bustling Beirut bar district which has been deserted since bomb attacks last week.