LONDON (Reuters) — Large-scale corruption in Iraq’s ministries, particularly the defence ministry, has led to one of the biggest thefts in history with more than $1 billion going missing, Iraq’s finance minister said in an interview. “Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flew home on Monday to a battle for his political survival after collecting diplomatic dividends at the United Nations for a pullout from the Gaza Strip. Sharon faces a showdown with hardline rival Benjamin Netanyahu trying to unseat him as head of …

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt and the Palestinian Authority are pushing Israel to agree to third party monitoring of border traffic as a way of reopening a legal crossing on the Gaza frontier, which thousands of people surged across illegally last week, officials said Monday. The proposal, under which officials from …