Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit are expected in Israel today for talks to activate an Arab peace initiative.

KING ABDULLAH on Tuesday discussed with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice international efforts to move forward peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Military activity in Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia significantly increased. According to official data, 24 kafir and munafiqs were eliminated and wounded in one day in Chechnya and Ingushetia.

The British ambassador to Moscow today denounced Russia over its continuing failure to extradite a former KGB officer for the killing of the Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko. Sir Anthony Brenton said Anglo-Russia relations were not in crisis but there were sharp differences over the Litvinenko affair.

As the battle for Islamic Somalia continues, the Youth Islamic Movement have released a fresh report that details a multi-pronged operation that they carried out in Mogadishu, with some attacks in the Bakara market that mainstream media claims is “returning to normal” and also in the city of Afgooye.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has extended the deadline for the 23 Koreans it is holding for another 24 hours as talks are underway to meet their demands to release Taliban prisoners in exchange while their Mujahideen carried out various attacks including destroying two US supply vehicles.

Six foreign medics convicted of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV were freed on Tuesday after a partnership deal between Tripoli and the European Union ended their eight-year ordeal.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, making his first public comments as the international community’s Mideast peace envoy, urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday to take advantage of a new “sense of possibility” in the region.

Iraqi police say a suicide car bomber has killed at least 26 people and wounded about 70 others in the southern town of Hillah.

Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, last week (16 July) authorised the creation of a higher council for science and technology and a science and technology development fund.