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As far as Israel is concerned, Jordan is no longer the Arab friend it was under the late King Hussein.

Last week, at a limousine-clogged U.N. Millennium Summit on Manhattan's East Side, Bill Clinton pleaded with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to show more bend in the positions that divide them on a peace accord. The opportunity for a peace accord

Israel's Ehud Barak and the Palestinians' Yasser Arafat will try to break a peacemaking deadlock Monday during their first direct talks in two months, senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said.

Israel's Ehud Barak and the Palestinians' Yasser Arafat will try to break a peacemaking deadlock Monday during their first direct talks in two months, senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Friday that his country wants to help Palestinians and Israelis achieve peace but that it will not depart from what is acceptable to the Palestinians on the subject of Jerusalem.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, his pariah status softened by his role in freeing foreign hostages held in the Philippines, now wants a German PR expert to polish his international image.

Israel's Ehud Barak and the Palestinians' Yasser Arafat will try to break a peacemaking deadlock Monday during their first direct talks in two months, senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said.

Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah denied Thursday Iraqi allegations that his country was stealing Iraqi crude oil.

Israel's Ehud Barak and the Palestinians' Yasser Arafat will try to break a peacemaking deadlock Monday during their first direct talks in two months, senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said.

A group of 118 Lebanese who left for Israel with the Israeli army in May returned to their homeland Friday. Twenty-eight of them were former militiamen who were held for questioning.

Caught in Israeli-Palestinian cross fire, a father and son clung together behind a metal barrel, barely visible in the smoke, as shots flew overhead.

Forty years ago, in a time of oil glut, American petroleum giant Standard Oil announced a cut in the posted price of its Middle East crude exports.

A group of 61 Lebanese returned home on Friday almost four months after fleeing with Israel's retreating army which quit south Lebanon in May.

All 10-year-old Mohammed remembers is meeting a mysterious red-bearded man in his village in Pakistan, and then waking up from a drug-induced stupor in an airport thousands of miles away.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called Yasser Arafat on Saturday, a day after the Palestinian leader rebuffed efforts by Israel's prime minister to arrange a two-way summit.

For the second time in a week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Monday hailed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak as the driving force behind progress made between the Israelis and the Palestinians at the Camp David peace summit in July.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is seeking an icebreaking meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly ministerial debate, U.S. officials said Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright welcomed a decision by the Palestinian leadership to postpone a declaration of statehood for two months. She said Monday it would give the Clinton administration more time to work on a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Overwhelmed by garbage, the Egyptian port of Alexandria is getting organized, becoming the first city in the country to put its waste collection and disposal in the hands of foreign experts.

State Department suspends envoy's security clearance

A bill that would grant amnesty to Iranians who fled the country because of anti-government activities or ties to outlawed political parties is aimed at promoting national reconciliation and attracting badly needed investments, a lawmaker said Monday.

In the run-up to Egyptian parliamentary elections, political activists face increased risk of being detained apparently to prevent them from participating in the polls, Amnesty International said in a report released Tuesday.

Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting next month to discuss convening an Arab summit this year, Arab League sources said Wednesday.

Jerusalem's Arab population is increasing at three times the pace of the Jewish population, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Arabs grimly acknowledged on Monday that Palestinians had little choice but to defer their statehood dream, but some saw peace talks with Israel as futile.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agrees to trade land with Israel to accommodate Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and proposes to deal with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon before those in other countries, an American Jewish leader who met with him said Thursday.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat ruled out flexibility on Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, resisting an Israeli demand that he make more concessions in Middle East peace talks on Wednesday.

From the bridge of a fishing vessel, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat observed the bustle of activity Wednesday on a huge British Gas drilling platform, then bellowed into a walkie-talkie.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Tuesday the Palestinians had given peace another chance in order to avoid criticism by Israel and the United States.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has warned of a dangerous crisis in peacemaking with Israel as a new round of talks resumed on Sunday.

Lebanese security officials said Saturday they were investigating a threat to assassinate eight members of Lebanon's newly elected parliament unless imprisoned members of an Islamic group are set free.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat vowed Sunday to keep working for a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, but did not say when he might declare such a state.

An attempt to hijack an Iranian plane flying from the southern city of Shiraz to the central city of Isfahan was foiled by security police on board the aircraft, Iranian radio reported Monday.

Bahraini Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Sulman al-Khalifa underwent an eye operation in Paris on Friday, the official Gulf News Agency reported.

Bahrain said on Thursday it would soon make public taped exchanges between the control tower and the pilot of a Gulf Air aircraft which crashed off the Gulf Arab state last month, killing all 143 people aboard.

Iraqi officials have refused to cooperate with an investigation of the humanitarian situation in the country, which is suffering under the weight of a decade of U.N. sanctions, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Monday ruled out Islamic sovereignty over a key Jerusalem shrine sacred to Muslims and Jews, formally rejecting a Palestinian compromise proposal.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak appealed to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during a chance encounter Friday to get

Palestinians in Lebanon recalled family and friends killed in Beirut by Christian militiamen 18 years ago on Saturday in the worst atrocity of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Israel gave a hero's welcome on Wednesday to the president of Micronesia, whose tiny Pacific island state has stood beside it in the face of world condemnation.

Lebanese voters go to the polls on Sunday for a second and final round of general elections which could return billionaire ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri to power.

The head of the U.N.'s new arms inspectorate for Iraq believes his inspectors will be allowed into Iraq after November's U.S. presidential election, Sweden's TT news agency said Monday.

A British couple were killed in an explosion in the desert outside the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, the British Foreign Office said on Sunday.

The younger brother of Iran's supreme leader has been summoned to court on charges related to the reformist newspaper he launched in June, his aide said Monday.

A breakdown in the air traffic control system at Cairo airport Friday caused dozens of flights to be rerouted or delayed, airport officials said.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will hold separate talks with the leaders of Palestine and Israel next week to hear their assessments on the state of the Middle East peace process, officials said Friday.

Lebanon's Transport Minister Najib Mikati was quoted on Wednesday as saying he did not want to be the next prime minister despite being tipped as a likely candidate.

The banned Lebanese Forces, the biggest Christian militia during Lebanon's civil war, wants Syrian troops to quit Lebanon but without jeopardizing the ties between the two countries, a senior member said on Thursday.