Beirut- It was projected to be a golden year for Lebanon and one to beat all records; instead 2006 with its string of crises including a 34-day war proved a disaster for the tourism sector.

LONDON (Reuters) – A British soldier was killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb in Basra in southern Iraq on Friday, the Ministry of Defence said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. military helicopters killed eight Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and wounded six others in northern Iraq on Friday in what appeared to be a “friendly fire” incident, Kurdish officials said.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator cancelled on Friday a trip to a conference in Germany where U.N. officials had hoped talks with European policy makers would secure a “time out” in a row over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Jakarta — The Indonesian government has asked Israel to stop excavation work near the Al-Aqsa mosque in Palestine as it could trigger new tensions and hamper the peace process in the region, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said here Friday.

Jerusalem: Hundreds of angry worshippers threw stones at police and scuffled with them on Friday in an eruption of outrage over contentious Israeli renovation work at a disputed holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City.

A federal jury awarded $16 million to a Jewish man who claimed that Palestinian groups backed a terrorist attack in Israel in which he was injured, but he could get triple that amount under a law allowing U.S. citizens to sue organizations involved in overseas terrorism.

The United Nations nuclear agency has curbed almost half its aid projects in Iran to uphold U.N. sanctions imposed on Tehran over its disputed atomic energy program, according to a report obtained by Reuters.

Iran is storing at least 14 million barrels of crude on supertankers in the Gulf, a tanker industry source said on Wednesday, in a strong sign Tehran was complying with an OPEC pledge to cut supply.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a House panel yesterday that the United States should know in a few months if the Iraqi government is making progress toward peace and whether the United States “is going to have to look at other alternatives and consequences.”