DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syria’s President Bashar Assad is a would-be reformer who is now gearing up for a second seven-year term having refused to bow to international calls for reform. Assad, running in a no-contest referendum on Sunday, came to power in July 2000 with the reputation of a modernist, …

TRIPOLI  (AP) — Heavy exchanges of gunfire erupted late Thursday between Lebanese troops besieging a Palestinian refugee camp and Islamic militants holed up inside, breaking a two-day-old truce.

NABLUS (Reuters) —  Israeli forces seized a Palestinian Cabinet minister and more than 30 other officials on Thursday in a new phase of a crackdown on Hamas that a United Nations envoy described as “troubling”.