ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zardari, must dispel the perception he is an artful politician and urgently address a deteriorating economy and worsening militant violence, newspapers said on Sunday.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian workers cut through a railway embankment on Sunday to bring heavy earth-moving equipment to the site of a rock fall which killed at least 31 people in a Cairo shantytown.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) – Lebanese Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri held talks with an Alawite community leader in a volatile northern city overnight, paving the way for agreement to end four months of sectarian tensions, politicians said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah will visit Iraq after Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, an Iraqi government official said on Sunday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday it was time to consider offering compensation to Jewish settlers who volunteer to leave parts of the West Bank that Israel would hand to the Palestinians in a statehood deal.

The head of the main opposition party in Serbia has resigned after senior colleagues refused to back the country’s efforts to join the EU.

Rescuers in Cairo are continuing their search for survivors after a rockslide crushed dozens of houses in Egypt’s capital, killing at least 31 people.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s oil minister said a continued fall in crude prices would harm producers, the Oil Ministry said on Saturday, three days before OPEC ministers are due to meet in Vienna.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The United Nations refugee chief said on Saturday that Iran was committed not to expel more than one million registered Afghan refugees.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing on Saturday in a rare visit to China coinciding with the start of the Paralympic Games.