ISRAEL

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, launching a rapid series of meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials to keep up pressure for a new Mideast peace deal.

Israel offered cautious praise on Friday for a U.N.-drafted, U.S.-backed proposal for dealing with Iran's enriched uranium, calling it a positive first step toward denying Tehran the means to make nuclear weaponry.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when she travels to the Middle East this weekend, a U.S. official said.

A U.N. panel of experts has demanded that Burkina Faso investigate weapons transfers to the rebel-controlled northern part of the neighboring West African state of Ivory Coast.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. President Barack Obama he would not run for re-election unless Israel dropped its refusal to freeze settlements, Palestinian officials said on Tuesday.

Iran said on Monday it could endorse a U.N. deal for it to send potential nuclear fuel abroad for processing, contradicting lawmakers who rejected the plan sought by world powers as a trap.

Intelligence agencies estimate that it would probably take Iran a minimum of 18 months to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to build one, Western diplomats and intelligence officials said.

Israeli police stormed Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound on Sunday, hurling stun grenades at Palestinians who threw rocks at them, in another outbreak of violence at the holy city's most sensitive site.

Afghan police fired into the air on Sunday to break up a protest by thousands of people who had gathered in the capital, Kabul, to protest against what they said was the desecration of a copy of the Koran by foreign troops.

It's always a sunny day on Sesame Street in the West Bank, where the neighbors are friendly and the muppets never see an Israeli army checkpoint all day long.

A major air defense exercise launched with Israel this week will help the United States craft its European missile shield, a U.S. commander said Thursday.

Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with Nazis purports to be an evenhanded investigation into the case of a Holocaust survivor who, by negotiating with Adolf Eichmann, saved many fellow Jews but apparently let many more perish. This compelling but lopsided documentary is best viewed by reading between the lines.

Epic swindler Bernard Madoff shared a prison cell with a 21-year-old drug dealer, and other fellow inmates included a spy and a mob boss when he was sent to prison in July, according to court documents.

For two decades, Aron Aronov has transported embroidered garments, oil portraits of rabbis and other examples of traditional Bukharian Jewish culture from his native Uzbekistan to a small museum in New York.

Iran's military accused the United States and Israel of terrorism as it held a funeral on Tuesday for high-ranking commanders killed in the deadliest attack in the Islamic Republic since the 1980s.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a lengthy diplomatic battle to delegitimise United Nations charges that Israel committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip, an official said on Saturday.

The U.N. Human Rights Council endorsed on Friday a Gaza report that accused both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas of committing war crimes.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he would hold elections as planned in January unless Hamas agreed to an Egyptian reconciliation deal that would delay the polls until June.

German industrial conglomerate Siemens agreed to buy Israel's Solel Solar Systems Ltd for about $418 million to expand its business with solar thermal power plants.

Palestinians will not be pushed into accepting the Mickey Mouse state which Israel has in mind for them as part of a peace deal, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad warned Wednesday.

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision that honored the first-year U.S. president more for promise than achievement and drew both praise and skepticism around the world.