Cairo vehemently opposes the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman told a delegation of MKs from the left-wing Meretz party in Cairo Sunday.

Egypt on Tuesday banned all poultry imports from France and Germany after the potentially fatal H5N1 strain of bird flu was discovered in birds there.

The issue of civilian deaths in Afghanistan is itself becoming a “battleground” with truth often a casualty, showing the difficulty of establishing facts in a war fought in often remote areas.