Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (AP) — Bombings and shootings killed at least 70 people Tuesday — including a US and a British soldier — in a surge of violence as US troops prepare to take back Baghdad’s streets from the gunmen. The dead included 20 Iraqi troops killed in a bus attack in …

DUBAI — Pentagon auditors peering into US reconstruction programmes in Iraq found an accountant’s nightmare of mistakes, cloaked expenses and financial juggling that hid costs and delays, according to US reports released over the past week.

PARIS — France’s idea of involving Iran directly in talks to end the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah is a risky venture but may well prove inevitable, French analysts said Tuesday.

BEIRUT — Faced with the worst Israeli military onslaught in more than two decades, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has a near-impossible job as the leader of Lebanon.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called together major powers on Tuesday in an effort to promote unity on the Middle East crisis and rescheduled a meeting of potential troop contributors for an international force.

SRIFA — They use three-digit numbers as code names, live off canned tuna, and tape over their jewelry so an accidental twinkle doesn’t give away their position to Israeli war planes.

Arab papers splashed gory pictures of Lebanese children killed in Israel’s strike on Qana on their front pages Monday and warned that what some branded “a new Holocaust” could mark a turning point in the region.  “The tragedies in Qana suggest to the Lebanese that the Israelis, who are

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has arrived in Vietnam for talks on energy as part of a tour dominated by countries known for their often-hostile relations with the United States.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has said she believes a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon could be forged this week.  Rice, who has just ended a diplomatic mission to the region

Syria on Saturday slammed Rice’s call for an international force to pacify southern Lebanon as an occupation force that would do the Zionist regime’s job.  An editorial in the official Tishrin daily said: “The international force proposed by Rice intends to occupy southern Lebanon and it, instead of