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Iranian president Mohammed Khatami's patience has been resoundingly rewarded, but he'll need plenty more of it to deal with the rush of expectations brought on by his overwhelming election victory. The reformist president's movement to remake Iran's theocracy appeared Monday to have scored a landslide victory in Iran's parliamentary elections and sent his conservative clerical foes into retreat. A...

The bombs may be for appearances' sake; Israel wants to hightail it out of Lebanon as soon as possible -- but symbolic retaliation has a habit of running away with itself. The Israeli military bombed three power stations in different parts of Lebanon Monday night, wounding at least 17 people, and then immediately ordered residents of its northernmost towns into bomb shelters until further notice a...

Israeli planes struck more targets in Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after destroying three power plants. Thousands of Israelis fled to bomb shelters in fear of counterattacks by Hezbollah guerrillas.

There may be no debates or TV ads, much less political parties -- and a self-appointed group of conservative clergymen reserve the right to exclude any candidate advocating a separation of church and state -- but Iran's parliamentary election Friday nonetheless represents an opportunity for the Iranian people to make their voices heard. And that's a prospect that has the country's conservative pol...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak plans to head for home Monday and leave U.S.-hosted peace talks with Syria in the hands of lower-level negotiators, a senior Israeli source said Saturday.

Turning the tables on protesters in the West, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Monday he is paying a heavy price at home for making the first trip by an Iranian Cabinet official to Britain since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Prosecutors announced Thursday they have asked police to investigate whether President Ezer Weizman illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from a French millionaire.

China joined Russia on Tuesday in formally objecting to Secretary-General Kofi Annan's decision to appoint Rolf Ekeus chief weapons inspector for Iraq, throwing the nomination into doubt and marking an ominous start to the United Nations' new policy for Baghdad.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak plans to head for home Monday and leave U.S.-hosted peace talks with Syria in the hands of lower-level negotiators, a senior Israeli source said Saturday.

With a February deadline looming, President Bill Clinton was using a meeting Thursday with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to try to speed up the pace of Mideast peacemaking.

International monitors gathered at a U.N. base in Lebanon on Friday in hopes of defusing the increasingly tense conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

Monitors meet to discuss border tensions

Israelis walk out of negotiation session

Hopes for a breakthrough in the stalled Middle East peace talks were pinned firmly on U.S. envoy Dennis Ross, who arrived in Jerusalem Monday to do what he could to bring the Mideast adversaries back to the negotiating table.

President Mohammad Khatami, leading a popular campaign for social and political reforms, has asked Iranians to strengthen his hand by voting in large numbers in Friday's parliamentary elections.

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Stalemate in last stretch of peace talks

Iraq complained Monday that the United States was preventing Baghdad from buying 15 live bulls through the U.N. humanitarian program on grounds the cattle could be put to military use.

Negotiators from Israel and Syria, two Middle East neighbors who have been technically at war for the last half-century, gathered at a secluded conference center in West Virginia on Monday to try to hammer out a framework for a permanent peace between their countries.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan struggled through the weekend to get Security Council approval for the head of a new United Nations weapons inspection commission for Iraq but missed a Sunday night deadline, diplomats said.

Mortars struck a publishing house Saturday evening in a central Tehran neighborhood housing key government offices including the Iranian president's office and Parliament. One person was killed and four were injured, Tehran television reported.