Middle Orient

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.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A string of deadly attacks ripped through the Iraqi capital on Sunday, killing at least 26 people and wounding nearly 70, police said. Six small Shiite shrines also were damaged in a series of blasts around the Baqouba, a mixed Sunni Arab-Shiite region where sectarian tensions are …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Wrangling over the oil ministry portfolio and other top jobs held up on Wednesday the formation of a unity government the United States hopes can end rampant bloodshed and allow it to start withdrawing troops from Iraq.

ALGIERS (Reuters) — President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has repeated a demand that France apologise to Algeria for “genocidal” colonial rule, saying this was the only way to turn a chronically ill relationship into true friendship.

KALMA CAMP, Sudan (Reuters) — UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland and aid workers beat a hasty retreat from a refugee camp in Darfur on Monday after a demonstration spun out of control and an aid worker was attacked.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq’s political parties inched closer to sealing a deal on a unity government as Prime Minister-designate Nuri Maliki sketched out the sectarian balance among parliamentary blocs, officials said on Monday.

FOREIGN MINISTER Abdul Ilah Khatib left Monday for New York to join a meeting today of the Quartet of diplomatic powers seeking Middle East peace and hoping to revive its stalled efforts and unify its approach to the  new Palestinian leadership.