Middle Orient

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew back to Israel on Tuesday to resume intense preparations for a looming Middle East summit after securing cautious Egyptian support for the conference.

With less than a week to go before Lebanon’s parliament convenes again to elect a president, all indicators are that the session is doomed to fail or will be cancelled for lack of consensus among the country’s feuding political factions.

Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived here Tuesday for a four-day visit to discuss regional issues and bilateral ties, Anatolia news agency reported.

Influential Shiite cleric Ammar Hakim held talks in Ramadi on Sunday with a powerful Sunni tribal sheikh, which observers said were highly symbolic for reconciliation in war-torn Iraq.

Traders in Tyre’s bustling market say UN peacekeepers have brought “baraka” and a dose of good fortune to south Lebanon, making up at least in part for the ravages of last year’s Israel-Lebanon war.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh faction ruled out talks with Hamas on Thursday as Israel warned any such dialogue with the Islamists could “torpedo” a peace deal with the Jewish state.

Syrian President Bashar Assad all but ruled out his country’s participation in a US-sponsored international peace conference on the Middle East, suggesting in an interview published Thursday that the meeting has no chance for success.

Ferryman Hisham freely acknowledges that the poor and dangerous conditions of Baghdad’s roads that drive residents of the capital to despair are, for him at least, a godsend.

Nasib Lahoud, a presidential nominee from the 14th of March Coalition, stressed that the next president of Lebanon should be elected through a consensus among all political groups of his country, saying Lebanon’s president should receive equal support from all political groups.

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