Meast

Clinton may tag him the party pooper, but his star has seldom been brighter among Palestinians and in the Arab world. But once he stops basking in the jubilation over his refusal to give up Jerusalem, he'll be left with a king-size political hangover -- how to create a Palestinian state without Israeli consent.

For decades, the Gaza Strip has been synonymous with squalor and despair. Although Gaza is no longer occupied by Israel and is run by the Palestinian National Authority, hundreds of thousands of refugees continue to languish in fetid camps -- their homes since Israel was established in 1948.

Two lame ducks and an ailing autocrat isn't much of a recipe for a peace deal -- and the odds are lengthening against an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough at Tuesday's Camp David summit. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Barak, joined President Clinton in the lame duck corner Sunday when his coalition collapsed following the walkout of three of his partners, forcing him to delay his departure for Washi...

Ten days at Camp David, and all President Clinton got was the proverbial lousy T-shirt. The T-shirt may, metaphorically, eventually be emblazoned with a dove bearing an olive branch, but it's no substitute for a substantial peace agreement, which may be why the President chose to leave town Thursday before Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak and avoid having to personally preside over the failed negotiat...

Ten days at Camp David, and all President Clinton got was the proverbial lousy T-shirt. The T-shirt may, metaphorically, eventually be emblazoned with a dove bearing an olive branch, but it's no substitute for a substantial peace agreement, which may be why the President chose to leave town Thursday before Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak and avoid having to personally preside over the failed negotiat...

The leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas urged Palestinians on Thursday to reject any peace deal with Israel to emerge from a marathon Middle East peace summit.

The leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group threatened on Sunday to destroy the U.S. embassy in Israel and kill its diplomats if the mission was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat started their Camp David summit with a jocular scuffle to be last into the room with President Clinton; now they're jockeying to be the first to leave in a huff. After all, if you can't bring home a peace deal, then a little righteous indignation helps you look tough back home in the district. Leaks from the delegations suggest Arafat has twice gestured toward the door...

Jordanian security agents shot dead a Syrian hijacker after he set off a grenade that wounded 15 passengers aboard a Royal Jordanian airliner flying to Damascus on Wednesday.

There was a moment of embarrassingly jumbled choreography as Camp David got started on Tuesday. Clinton went through the door to the lodge first, and then Barak and Arafat performed a lightly sinister little dance of after-you-no-after-you that ended in a wrestling match -- childish and weirdly unyielding and bubbling with nervous, hostile laughter.

Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres could compound Prime Minister Ehud Barak's woes if, as expected, he wins election as Israel's eighth president on Monday.

-- Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will arrive in Washington this weekend for meetings with U.S. officials in advance of next Tuesday's summit at Camp David, the State Department announced Thursday.

The opposite of peace isn't always war. And as President Clinton tries to cajole Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to conclude an agreement at Camp David, all parties are facing the truth that cease-fires and interim accords often provide more stability than the quest for a final peace deal, which inevitably forces both sides to confront their most intractable differences.

Here at the press filing center for the Camp David II Mideast peace talks, a TV reporter was lamenting to a White House press officer:

The new young leaders of Syria and Jordan agreed Wednesday to boost relations which were often strained during the rule of their late fathers.

Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak scuffled jokingly 15 days ago so as to be the last one into Camp David for peace talks; on Tuesday they were jockeying to be the first to leave amid what appears to have been an acrimonious breakdown. Each man ordered up his motorcade as the parties parted company with only a vague promise to keep talking. And while Barak and Arafat take home the consolation prize of h...

We may wince or cluck when civilians die in the course of a war we support, but most of us keep our eyes on the prize and accept the

U.N. peacekeepers took up positions on the Lebanese-Israeli border on Friday to extend their authority over the area occupied by Israel until two months ago, United Nations military sources said.

Day 7 and not a deal in sight. And that may be as much a relief for the U.S. Congress as it could be for both Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak.

Thirteen people were killed and at least 10 were missing after a six-story clothes factory was gutted by fire and then collapsed in northern Egypt late on Wednesday, security sources said on Thursday.

A technical problem caused a military plane to crash Tuesday during a training flight, a military spokesman said. All 14 soldiers on board were killed.

Afghanistan's ruling Islamic ideologues launched a media offensive Thursday with the publication of a new English-language magazine to counter

Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed disappointment on Tuesday at the failure of U.S.-mediated Middle East peace talks but encouraged the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to persist in efforts to find compromise solutions.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - When the roller coaster of Middle East peace talks screeched to a halt after nine inconclusive days on Thursday, the Palestinian and Israeli leaders held on for dear life.

Radical opponents of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat accused him Tuesday of making unacceptable concessions to Israel and vowed to wreck any deal to emerge from Camp David talks.

The arrest of a cross-eyed grocer accused by a judge of eyeing his wife while shopping in his store has sparked a riot in the town of Ghir in Iran's southern province of Fars, local journalists said on Monday.

Israel's foreign minister on Sunday toned down his threat to quit Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government, saying that he would leave by midweek only if Barak does not make an

An Israeli newspaper said Friday that Prime Minister Ehud Barak almost choked to death during the Camp David peace summit.

U.S. President Bill Clinton says the Palestinians will be making a

U.S. President Bill Clinton says the Palestinians will be making a

U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Friday Israeli and Palestinian officials were still trying to hammer out a peace agreement at Camp David, saying he could provide no details but was

Palestinian security forces captured a Palestinian militant Thursday after he again escaped from prison, this time by disguising himself as a woman and walking out with visitors, a security official said.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak travelled to Tripoli on Sunday for talks with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on clearing the way for an Arab summit on Middle East peace efforts, presidential sources said.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left Saudi Arabia on Sunday after talks with King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah on the troubled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at Camp David.

Egypt expects talks between Syria and Israel to resume within a few months, and President Hosni Mubarak's top political adviser urged Israel on Friday to take advantage of the opportunity for peacemaking.

Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Obeid on Saturday visited the site of a collapsed factory in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria where 21 people lost their lives and more than 50 others were injured, security sources said.

An Islamic militant professor was ordered Thursday to stand trial in a criminal court for libeling Egypt's top theologian after he approved a law making it easier for women to obtain a divorce, a judicial official said.

The family of a Bahrain princess who eloped with a U.S. Marine is willing to accept the teen-ager's wish to remain in the United States and even facilitate her stay there, the family's spokesman and lawyer said Monday.

The breakdown of the Middle East peace summit at Camp David carries a risk of violence which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had hoped to avert.

Foreign Minister David Levy kept Israelis guessing on Friday about his loyalty to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, casting doubts on the future of the government and Middle East peace moves.

Former President Amin Gemayel, a Christian leader whose alliance with the United States against Syria during Lebanon's civil war forced him into exile, returned Sunday for the first time in eight years.

The former chief U.N. weapons inspector told Israeli lawmakers Tuesday that he believes Iraq is expanding its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, posing a renewed threat to the region.

In a trip criticized on Friday by U.S. authorities, former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter is due to return to Baghdad on Saturday at the invitation of President Saddam Hussein to film weapons sites he was previously barred from probing.

Prisoners who had dug a tunnel more than 100 meters (110 yards) long had their escape bid thwarted Wednesday by the prison gardener, a news report said.

The militant Islamic group Hamas called on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Tuesday to return to the armed struggle against Israel after the Camp David peace summit ended without an agreement.

The Mossad is looking for a few good spies.

Iran's President Mohammad Khatami confirmed Wednesday he would seek re-election next year, a decision likely to come as a blow to rival hard-liners who have been trying to hang on to power against a tidal wave of support for the president.