A suicide car bomber has hit a paramilitary checkpoint, killing four people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, the latest attack in a wave of violence sweeping the country in recent weeks.

Israel released 255 Palestinian prisoners on Friday as part of a series of goodwill gestures designed to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his standoff against Hamas.

More than 250 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons have received a rapturous welcome from relatives and friends in Ramallah, on the West Bank.

Iraq’s main Sunni Arab bloc has ended its boycott of the Shi’ite-dominated parliament, officials said on Thursday, in a positive sign for the country’s faltering attempts at national reconciliation.

KABUL (Reuters) – Iranian arms are entering Afghanistan and reaching Taliban insurgents in such quality and quantity that the Tehran government must know about it, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul said on Tuesday.

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

Main Egyptian stock indexes rose on Thursday as shares in technology and communications firm Raya surged following an offer by Orascom Telecom to buy all issued shares in the firm, traders said.

Egypt opened shelters on Thursday to house hundreds of Palestinians stranded at the closed border with the Gaza Strip for fear that some could resort to sleeping on the streets, an Egyptian official said.

Chief of General Intelligence Omar Suleiman visited America this week to discuss a range of strategic issues with US administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director Michael Hayden.

Intense debate followed a bishop’s controversial announcement about the exact number of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Bishop Basenti of the diocese of Helwan and Massara told a seminar on citizenship that the Copt population was “between 10 million and 15 million”.