Middle Orient

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.

SIDON (AFP) — Deadly firefights in a Palestinian camp in south Lebanon and a bus bombing in the capital opened new fronts for the army on Monday as it battles to crush an Al Qaeda-inspired group in a 16-day standoff in the north of the country.

Turkish Military has threatened to conduct cross-border operation into northern Iraq, against both the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

Puppet President Pervez Musharraf on Monday imposed fresh curbs on the electronic media in the second such move within three days, sparking protests from journalists, politicians and lawyers.