GAZA CITY (AFP) – Haidar Abdel Shafi, who led the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid international peace conference in 1991, died in a Gaza City hospital early on Tuesday, officials said. He was 88.

DAMASCUS – Syrian participation in a US-sponsored peace conference could ease its troubled ties with the international community but Damascus is unlikely to back down on its terms, diplomats and officials say.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed students and professors at the US Columbia University during his short sojourn in New York before his address at the 62nd meeting of the UN General Assembly.