Middle Orient

The United States Army and Marines are finishing work on a new counterinsurgency doctrine that draws on the hard-learned lessons from Iraq and makes the welfare and protection of civilians a bedrock element of military strategy.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s prime minister on Monday announced a new plan aimed at ending the deepening crisis between Shiite and Sunni parties in his government and uniting them behind the drive to stop sectarian killings that have bloodied the country for months.

BAGHDAD — A 30,000 per cent increase in the murder rate would overwhelm the best equipped detectives, but Lieutenant Colonel Amir of CSI Baghdad refuses to despair.

SANAA (AFP) — Four French nationals kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen two weeks ago have been freed and are well, state-owned news agency Saba said Monday.

RABAT (Reuters) — Morocco’s once secretive socialists have launched a mass membership drive to boost their chances at polls next year in which their message of secular modernity faces a challenge from resurgent Islamists.

TRIPOLI (AP) — A thaw in US-Libyan relations was well under way, Libyan newspapers reported Sunday, after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met her Libyan counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a groundbreaking, secret meeting 10 days ago with a senior Saudi Arabian official, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Monday.

EL-FASHER, Sudan — Sudan and Western nations must be flexible enough to find a formula that will allow the United Nations to help improve security in Darfur, the head of the European Union’s executive body said on Sunday.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — While archfoes Israel and Iran step up tough rhetoric against one another, short-waves and a wood-panelled radio studio in Jerusalem offer the two peoples a rare bridge for communication.

CAIRO — Egypt’s announcement last week that it was relaunching its civil nuclear energy programme after a 20-year freeze prompted a frenzy of government announcements about the need for nuclear energy.