RAMALLAH — A three-way meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to take place in the coming weeks.

A convoy of US vehicles from Kuwait arrives Monday in Basra, 550km south of Baghdad. The first additional US troops, who will take part in a major new security plan in Baghdad, arrived in Baghdad, General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, said (Reuters photo by Atef Hassan)

BAGHDAD (AP) — The US ambassador and top American commander in Iraq are set to leave their jobs with the country’s security arguably no better than when they arrived, and they cautioned Monday against expecting significant success in quelling the violence soon.

RIYADH (Reuters) — Iran asked Saudi Arabia to help ease tensions between the Islamic republic and the United States as Washington held out the possibility of “engagement” with Tehran if it changed tack in Iraq.

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran said on Monday it was pressing ahead with a plan to install 3,000 atomic centrifuges and achieve industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel, which the West fears is part of a programme to make bombs.

BAGHDAD — For Abu Mina, a ceramic artist and professor, Baghdad is one big jail — too dangerous for him to live with his wife and daughters, too dangerous for him to meet his students openly, too dangerous to work in his studio.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) — Somalia’s government, with new emergency powers in hand to tame the chaotic country, ordered four major media outlets to shut down on Monday as the president named a team to take charge of the capital.

QUITO (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be a guest of honour Monday at the inauguration of leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, who won an election late last year as a fervent critic of the United States.

CAIRO (AP) — A journalist from the pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV channel was released on bail Sunday after being interrogated for possessing     videotapes with fabricated scenes of torture by Egyptian police, her lawyer said.

“In a land of shadows where the state has all the power and all the secrets and its citizens have neither, simple survival can require at least a dialogue, if not a deal, with the devil. The lines separating prudence from cowardice, silence from acquiescence and compromise from collaboration can …