ISRAEL

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday rejected a complaint by former prime minister Ahmed Qurie that he had lost his seat on the executive of Fatah in an unsound party election.

Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd agreed the $1.38 billion sale of a stake in Israeli telecom operator Partner on Wednesday as it offloads certain overseas units to offset losses elsewhere.

Scailex Corp said on Wednesday it had signed a deal to buy Hutchison Telecommunications stake in Israeli mobile phone operator Partner Communications for $1.38 billion.

Israel will hold Lebanon responsible for any future Hezbollah attack should the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militia be brought into Beirut's incoming government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.

Partner Communications, Israel's second largest mobile operator, posted a 2.1 percent rise in quarterly profit but said the launch of Apple's latest iPhone would hurt cash generation in the second half.

Reformists kept up pressure for leadership change in the dominant Palestinian party Fatah on Thursday, and Saudi Arabia said no Palestinian state could emerge unless such internal divisions were healed.

Iraq is considering blocking websites deemed pornographic or that incite violence or crime, triggering fears of a return to Saddam Hussein-style state censorship and government propaganda.

Australian police arrested four men they said were linked to a Somali militant group on Tuesday, accusing them of planning a suicide attack on an army base and raising fears the al Qaeda-linked rebels were seeking targets outside Africa.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday the United States would present a Middle East peace plan within weeks and Israel should accept it.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday he would quit if Israel's attorney-general adopted a police recommendation to indict him on corruption charges.

Shares of Savient Pharmaceuticals Inc fell 36 percent on Monday, a day after U.S. regulators declined to approve its experimental gout drug Krystexxa.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.

Iran's Supreme Leader endorsed the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a ceremony boycotted by leading moderates in protest at a disputed poll that plunged Iran into its worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Israel's gay community was rocked on Sunday by the killing of two people in a homosexual and lesbian youth center and the possibility they fell victim to a hate crime in the Jewish state's most freewheeling city.

Madonna's spiritual awakening was revealed in Israel's leading tabloid Yediot Ahronot.

A second New Jersey mayor arrested in a sweeping federal corruption investigation stepped down on Friday under pressure from voters and the state's governor.

Dennis Elwell, the Democratic mayor of Secaucus, New Jersey, resigned on Tuesday following his arrest last week as part of a federal corruption probe that netted 44 people.

The Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that Iran would strike Israel's nuclear facilities if the Jewish state attacked it, state television reported.

Iran's opposition urged senior clerics on Saturday to help secure the release of people arrested following June's disputed presidential election, after a protester died in prison.

Iran's top authority called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday to dismiss a senior official who had said Iran was friendly with everyone, even the people of its sworn foe Israel, state television reported.

Dozens of New Jersey politicians, officials and prominent rabbis were arrested on Thursday in a sweeping federal probe that uncovered political corruption, human organ sales and money laundering from New York to Israel, officials said.