Army troops are making “significant” gains in their long-running battle against Al Qaeda-inspired fighters barricaded inside a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, security officials said Tuesday.

Syrian President Bashar Assad called on Israel to respond to peace overtures from Damascus after he was sworn in for a second seven-year term on Tuesday.

Libya’s highest judicial body commuted to life in prison on Tuesday the sentences of six foreign medics who have been on death row for infecting children with the AIDS virus, an official said.

Iranian and US envoys will soon hold talks in Baghdad to discuss security in Iraq, following up on a landmark meeting in May, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Tuesday.

Palestinian and Israeli officials yesterday gave widely different reactions to US President George W. Bush’s call Monday for an international peace conference to address the conflict, while analysts remained distinctly underwhelmed.

About 100 Palestinians smashed doors and windows inside an airport building in this Egypt-Gaza Strip border town early Tuesday after being trapped there for more than a month since the border’s closure, police and one of the rioters said.

Egyptian officials have found torture gear including a whip, clubs and a barbed wire-studded stick at a police station in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, a security source said on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Arab foreign ministers in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at the end of July, Egypt’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The Egyptian government has decided to offer the second of the original four state-owned commercial banks for sale to a strategic investor. However, the deal may not proceed quite as smoothly as the privatisation of Bank of Alexandria, which was sold to San Paolo IMI of Italy last October for …

Polish President Lech Kaczynski voiced hope Monday (July 16th) that a US project to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, which is fiercely opposed by Russia, will be completed successfully.