US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew back to Israel on Tuesday to resume intense preparations for a looming Middle East summit after securing cautious Egyptian support for the conference.

With less than a week to go before Lebanon’s parliament convenes again to elect a president, all indicators are that the session is doomed to fail or will be cancelled for lack of consensus among the country’s feuding political factions.

Russia, Iran and other Caspian Sea countries strongly warned outside nations on Tuesday against using their territories for launching military action, but they failed to reach an agreement on ways to divide the sea’s vast energy resources.