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.