George Habash, a long-time rival of Yasser Arafat who led the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s second-largest faction which pioneered aeroplane hijackings, died today in Jordan. He was 81.

Arabs today criticised a Danish court’s decision to exonerate the newspaper that first published the Prophet Mohammed cartoons that provoked riots across the Muslim world.

Syria’s interior minister was found dead in his office, days before the release of a UN report that could implicate high-ranking Syrian officials in the murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister.