Middle Orient

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon marked the sixth anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon on Thursday, amid deep divisions among its rival leaders over the fate of Hizbollah’s weapons.

RAMADI, Iraq (AP) — Whole neighborhoods are lawless, too dangerous for police. Some roads are so bomb-laden that US troops won’t use them. Guerrillas attack US troops nearly every time they venture out — and hit their bases with gunfire, rockets or mortars when they don’t.

BALTIMORE (AP) — The restoration of US diplomatic relations with Libya should show Iran that it would receive a warm response from the international community if it abandoned its nuclear programme and its support for terrorist organisations, United Nations Ambassador John Bolton said Friday.

SHARM EL SHEIKH (AP) — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak opened the World Economic Forum on Saturday with a series of indirect but pointed jabs at the United States, warning also that the world must overcome the widening gap between rich and poor, and block escalating threats of terrorism. With US-Egyptian …

TRIPOLI (AP) — Oil-rich Venezuela’s anti-American president, recently slapped with a US arms embargo, was given a warm welcome to the Libyan capital Wednesday by Col. Muammar Qadhafi, whose authoritarian regime was only just removed from Washington’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

DAMASCUS (AP) — Iran’s foreign minister warned against a possible “escalation of the crisis in the region” as he arrived in Damascus on Thursday to discuss his country’s nuclear programme and the situation in Iraq with the Syrian president.

ROME (AP) — Premier Romano Prodi said Thursday the war in Iraq was a grave mistake but that Italy would remain on the front lines in the war against terror.

BEIRUT  — The UN Security Council’s call for Syria to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon was expected to stiffen Damascus’ resolve against formal links to its tiny neighbour, a move it has steadfastly rejected for six decades. Three factors, at least, are at work against Syria heeding the UN resolution …

ABUJA (Reuters) — A rebel leader from Sudan’s Darfur region has rebuffed the latest proposals from African Union (AU) mediators for him to join a peace deal despite intense pressure by diplomats desperate to gain wider support for the accord.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Nuclear scientist Hussain Al Shahristani, a Shiite Islamist dissident once jailed by Saddam Hussein, seems increasingly likely to be Iraq’s next oil minister, leading negotiators said on Sunday.