Eritrea has secretly supplied “huge quantities of arms” to a Somali insurgent group with alleged ties to Al Qaeda in violation of an international arms embargo and despite the deployment of African peacekeepers, UN arms experts have concluded.

Russia on Thursday said it had delayed the start-up of Iran’s first nuclear power station to early 2008 because Tehran had fallen behind with payments for the plant, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Egypt’s top religious adviser, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, reaffirmed his belief Thursday that Muslims could choose their own religion after the local press carried apparently conflicting statements.

The deputy chairman of Somalia’s peace conference asked the country’s ousted Islamic movement to join the talks, but the group’s leader dismissed the meeting Thursday as “a disgrace and a humiliation”.

The second largest opposition party in Turkey’s new parliament will take part in the upcoming presidential election, its leader said Thursday, boosting the governing party’s chances of seeing one of its own members as head of state.

French green groups and opposition politicians Thursday attacked plans to build a French reactor in Libya for water desalination as a perilous masquerade that would encourage Muammar Qadhafi to get a nuclear bomb.

The Lebanese army on Thursday tightened the noose around Islamists at a refugee camp in a bid to end a near 10-week standoff that has cost the lives of 120 soldiers.

A parked car bomb killed 25 people and wounded 115 when it exploded near an intersection in central Baghdad on Thursday and police said the toll could rise as many bodies were believed still buried under rubble.

Palestinian security chief Mohammad Dahlan resigned on Thursday after weeks of criticism over the defeat of his forces by Hamas members in the Gaza Strip in June, senior Palestinian officials said.

King Abdullah on Thursday reiterated Jordan’s support for all efforts meant to preserve the stability and unity of Iraq and bring an end to the violence and chaos plaguing the neighbouring country.