Middle Orient

RAMALLAH (AP) — At a rally meant as a show of strength of his Fateh movement, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday called on rival forces to halt their armed clashes and replace bloodshed with respect.

MADRID (AFP) — Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa on Thursday threw his weight behind Spanish and European calls for an international conference on the Middle East.

ERBIL (AFP) — US troops raided an Iranian consulate in Iraq on Thursday and arrested five employees, officials said, as Washington vowed to act against Iranian meddling in the war-torn country.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush laid out the details Wednesday of a new US plan for Iraq in a major televised address.

WASHINGTON — Leaders of the new Democratic-controlled Congress are vowing to fight it. An elite panel on Iraq has shown little enthusiasm for it. And even some military commanders are deeply sceptical about it.

BAGHDAD (AP) — US jets screamed low over central Baghdad Tuesday, helicopter gunships fired into the battle zone and the Iraqi government said 50 insurgents were killed in the nearly daylong battle with US and Iraqi forces along Haifa Street, a Sunni stronghold that has seen repeated heavy fighting throughout …

MOGADISHU (Reuters) — Many people were killed in Somalia in a US air strike targeting Al Qaeda suspects among fleeing Islamist fighters, Somali officials said on Tuesday.

Palestinian rival factions Fateh and Hamas engaged in a war of words as tension simmered Tuesday in the volatile Gaza Strip where internecine violence has killed more than 30 people in less than a month.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hizbollah-led opposition joined labour unions on Tuesday in a protest against tax increases proposed by embattled Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, stepping up pressure to force the government into resigning.

BEIJING (Reuters) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Beijing on Tuesday aiming to lobby China to close ranks with Western powers against Iran’s nuclear programme.