Hopes for the quick formation of a new Iraqi government have been dashed after the first session of parliament failed to make progress.

Thousands of Sudanese protesters took to the streets of the capital Khartoum, chanting “freedom” and renewing calls for their autocratic president to resign.

Hezbollah fighters and Syrian rebels have exchanged fire in a remote area of eastern Lebanon overnight, leading to a number of deaths on both sides, according to a Lebanese security official.

Syrian government troops trying to relieve a besieged military base in the country’s north-west ambushed a rebel checkpoint today, killing at least 12 opposition fighters, activists said.

It is a characteristic of despots whose time as a supreme leader, unquestioned and all-powerful, nears an inevitable and bloody end that they grow ever more careless of the welfare of the people they once imagined loyal, happy citizens of their autocracy.

Al-Qaida gunmen shot dead four soldiers in one of the militants’ former south Yemen strongholds as the local governor declared that the country’s ill-equipped police force is incapable of filling the security void left by months of clashes.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood candidate has won a spot in a run-off election, according to partial results from the country’s first genuinely competitive presidential election.

A former leading Bahraini politician has claimed there are “fears we could see some casualties” during the course of this weekend’s Formula One grand prix.

A suicide car bomber struck a police building in an army camp in Pakistan’s main north-west city early today, killing five police officers and wounding at least 30.

THOUSANDS of Syrians called for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad yesterday at a funeral for protesters killed by security forces in the southern town of Nawa, a witness said.

State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said tonight an Egyptian reporter shot during clashes earlier this week died today of his wounds, the first reported journalist death in 11 days of turmoil surrounding Egypt’s wave of anti-government protests.

THE WikiLeaks website came under another powerful internet-based attack making it inaccessible for hours.

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl died of injuries to her genitals four days after a family-arranged marriage, a human rights group said.

Barack Obama marked his first visit to a Muslim nation as US president today with a declaration that the US “is not at war with Islam”.

A series of operations by US forces in eastern Afghanistan targeted an al-Qaida leader and a bomb-making cell, killing 19 militants, the coalition said today.

SUICIDE bombers targeted Shi’ite worshippers as they left morning prayers at two Baghdad mosques, killing 24 people and wounding more than 50 others, police said.

A missile from a US Predator drone struck a suspected terrorist safehouse in Pakistan and killed a top al-Qaida commander believed responsible for a bomb attack during a visit last year by Vice President Dick Cheney to Afghanistan, a US official said yesterday.

Former US President Bill Clinton turned to rocker Bono for advice when he was trying to solve a visa headache over Sinn Féin leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams.

Hundreds of angry Shiites poured onto the streets of two cities south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad today to protest over what they considered insults by Al-Jazeera television against Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

US and Iraqi troops are today pouring into Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold, testing the Shiites’ commitment to the US-promoted campaign to drive militants from the capital.

Iraqi security forces closed two Sunni Muslim television stations today for violating curfew and a law that bans airing material that could undermine the country’s stability after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang.

The Iraqi army has captured the personal cameraman for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq group, it was reported today.

Terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi planned to try to destroy the relationship between the United States and its Shiite allies in Iraq and help start a war between America and Iran.

The owner of a dinner cruise boat that capsized in late March, killing 58 people, has pleaded innocent to charges of involuntary manslaughter.

The US military command in Iraq today released previously unseen footage from a video purportedly posted by al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader, showing him decked out in American trainers and unable to operate his machine gun.

Police found 30 more victims of the sectarian slaughter ravaging Iraq – most of them beheaded – dumped on a village road north of Baghdad.

A car bomb exploded in a Shiite holy city and 13 members of one Shiite family were gunned down north-east of the capital today in a surge of attacks that killed at least 30 people despite heightened security aimed at curbing sectarian violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.

New images of naked prisoners, some bloodied and lying on the floor, threatened to revive public anger over abuse by US guards at Abu Ghraib prison at a time when tensions with the west are already running high in the Middle East.

Hundreds of worried pilgrims crowded around a photo display at a medical centre in Mina, Saudi Arabia, today, scanning anxiously for pictures of loved ones who may have been among the 362 people killed the day before in a deadly stampede.

Campaigning came to a stop today around Iraq to give the country’s 15 million voters an opportunity to reflect before deciding who will govern their country for the next four years.

JORDAN is the homeland of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and has previously arrested scores of Islamic militants for plotting to carry out attacks in the moderate Arab kingdom.

Security has been tightened at a massive US military detention facility in Afghanistan, a US official said today, a day after the military revealed that one of four men who escaped in July was a suspected al-Qaida leader in Southeast Asia.

AFGHANS chose a legislature for the first time in decades yesterday, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques.

An Islamic website statement claimed today that Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida in Iraq chief, has fled to an unidentified “neighbouring country” with two Arab doctors treating him for gunshot wounds to his lung.

Al-Arabiya television, quoting medical sources, said 60 Iraqis were killed in a suicide attack today at a police recruitment centre in Erbil, a Kurdish city 220 miles north of Baghdad.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned by his intelligence chiefs that the case for war against Iraq was being fixed by the United States to suit their policy, it was claimed yesterday.

A new online magazine purportedly posted by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq has launched an effort to recruit Muslims to rid Iraq of infidels and apostates - its names for Americans and their Iraqi partners.

MILITANTS loyal to Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who vowed an all-out war against Iraq’s election, claimed more than a dozen suicide attacks against voting stations on polling day.

Iraq's prime minister Iyad Allawi issued a strong warning to the country's neighbours to crack down on militants infiltrating from their territory, saying his country’s patience was wearing thin.

Up to 15 people were reported killed when explosions rocked a house in the turbulent Iraqi city of Fallujah today.

A GROUP led by al-Qaida-linked operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks across Iraq yesterday which killed 75 people.

IRAN last night ratcheted up the pressure in the growing diplomatic crisis over the detention of the eight British Navy sailors, parading them blindfolded on state-run television.

Arabs accused the United States of having double standards on human rights as anger grew today over images of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by smiling American troops.

The two remaining Japanese hostages in Iraq have been released, Arab TV stations reported today.