Twenty-one Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) nations participated in a NATO-led exercise, IDASSA 2007, which took place last week in the coastal areas near the Croatian city of Zadar. The event provided an opportunity for the countries to test their equipment, expertise and preparedness.

The slander trial against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor ended on Sunday (May 27th) with a Libyan court dismissing the charges against the medics, who already face death sentences for allegedly infecting 426 Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS.

SANAA — Lunchtime in Sanaa. Offices begin to close, the crowds disappear from the ancient souqs, restaurants hurry their last customers out: The qat is here.

TEL AVIV (AFP) — Israel’s Labour was voting for a new leader Monday in a poll expected to affect Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s coalition, with ex-premier Ehud Barak in a tight race with a former security chief.

ANKARA (AFP) — Lawmakers from Turkey’s main ruling and opposition parties traded blows Monday during a stormy national debate on constitutional changes that would see the president elected by popular vote.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide car bomber struck a busy Baghdad commercial district Monday, killing at least 21 people, setting cars on fire and damaging a nearby Sunni shrine, police and hospital officials said.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — The United States and Iran traded accusations over the bloodshed in Iraq on Monday during the first high-level direct official talks between the archfoes in 27 years.

GAZA (Reuters) — Hamas kept up rocket fire into Israel on Monday in defiance of a ceasefire call by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli threats to escalate military strikes in the Gaza Strip.

BEIRUT (Reuters) — Palestinian leaders tried on Monday to negotiate an end to a bloody standoff between the Lebanese army and Islamists who have been holed up in a refugee camp for more than a week.

Bush regimes’ puppet Ryan Crocker and Iranian diplomat Hassan Kazemi talked in the first and formal meeting after 27 years on Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security.