The president of the United Nations Security Council said important developments were under way in efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the 21-month war in Syria and there could be another US-Russia meeting with international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi next week.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sustained a concussion last week after becoming extremely dehydrated and fainting while suffering from a stomach virus, the State Department said.

More than 100 countries have recognised a new Syrian opposition coalition, opening the way for greater humanitarian assistance - and possibly military aid - for the forces battling president Bashar Assad.

Syria’s civil war spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon once again yesterday, with gun battles in the northern city of Tripoli between supporters and opponents of president Bashar al-Assad’s regime that left four dead.

Britain was tonight pressing with key allies for wide-ranging powers to intervene in Libya amid warnings that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces are closing in on the key rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

President Barack Obama condemned the violence in Libya as “outrageous ... and unacceptable” and said he was dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Geneva for international talks aimed at stopping the violence.

BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday became the first foreign leader to visit Cairo since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, styling himself as the friend of a revolution that remains unfinished.

Militants fired a rocket at a convoy carrying Britain’s deputy ambassador in Yemen and killed a Frenchman working for an oil company today in a pair of attacks increasing fears over the safety of Westerners.

A British embassy worker and three bystanders were injured in a rocket attack on a UK diplomatic car in Yemen today, officials said.

A COURT hearing for three suspects in the Russia spy case was postponed yesterday amid growing speculation the US and Russia are arranging a prisoner swap.

A court hearing for three suspects in the Russia spy case was postponed today amid speculation the US and Russia are arranging a prisoner swap.

Iran could amass enough nuclear material to build a bomb in about a year and could eventually produce a missile powerful enough to reach the US, military and intelligence chiefs said.

Republican US presidential candidate John McCain criticised his Democratic rival Barack Obama today for announcing his Iraq policy before visiting the country later this month.

AIDS experts have called for a mass circumcision programme in South Africa, condemning a “deafening silence” from policy makers since studies revealed it sharply cut infection rates.

An HIV drug has been recalled because “human error” led to a higher than normal level of a chemical which can cause cancer, its makers said.

The makers of the anti-viral flu treatment Tamiflu are to donate another two million courses of the drug to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it was announced today.

MORE than 200,000 Lebanese people took to the streets of Beirut yesterday in a demonstration of mourning for their former premier and an expression of hatred for Syria, whom they accuse of being behind his assassination.

Thousands of chanting, flag-waving mourners gathered today in an emotion-charged prelude to the funeral procession for slain ex-premier Rafik Hariri, the man credited with rebuilding post-civil war Lebanon and seen as quietly opposing Syrian influence in his country’s affairs.

An armed group linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah party today announced it would be willing to accept a ceasefire if Israel also agrees to stop its attacks.

Thousands of armed Palestinian police took up positions in the northern Gaza Strip to prevent attacks on Israel, and Islamic militants said they were suspending rocket fire – major steps toward a possible truce after more than four years of bloody Mideast conflict.

Intense emotions of both sorrow and defiance continue across the Middle East today, the day Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is honoured by international dignitaries with a military funeral in Egypt.

Under an emerging plan to dismantle settlements, Israel is considering moving Gaza Strip settlers to West Bank areas that Israel wants to annex under a final peace deal, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman said today.

A PEACE conference between the Israelis and Palestinians, organised by Glencree, was postponed yesterday after the Israelis refused to let one of the Palestinian delegation travel to Ireland.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is considering dismantling Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip while simultaneously annexing some West Bank settlements, Israeli media reported today.

The families of the 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing 15 years ago are likely to receive only half the £6m (€8.5m) Libya has agreed to pay each of them.

ISRAELI troops demolished the West Bank home of a teenage suicide bomber yesterday after two bombing attacks prompted Israeli warnings that peace moves will fail if the Palestinians do not start dismantling militant groups.

Israel has warned the Palestinians that there can be no progress towards peace in the Middle East unless they rein in militant groups, following two suicide bombings in less than an hour.

BARELY a week after the firstIsrael-Palestinian summit of his tenure, US President George W Bush is under pressure to show his mettle in containing the fallout from fresh Middle East violence and implementing the US-backed ‘roadmap’ to peace.

THE new Palestinian government will first try persuasion rather than force to subdue militant groups, a senior Palestinian official yesterday told a US envoy preparing the ground for a Mideast peace plan.

A SENIOR US official, launching talks on a peace "road map", yesterday said Israel should ease a harsh military clampdown on Palestinians to encourage them to reject violence.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has reached out for support from the foreign ministers of four UN Security Council nations as US and British diplomats crafted a proposed new resolution on disarming Iraq.

Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank today, while in the Gaza Strip troops split the territory into three parts, in an operation against the militant Islamic group Hamas.

Israeli troops have entered the West Bank town of Jenin, the military says.

Israel and the Palestinians today said they had reservations about a new US peace plan, as Washington launched its most ambitious mediation mission in months.

US secretary of state Colin Powell was expecting to win broad approval from Arab, European, Russian and United Nations leaders today on an ‘‘action plan’’ to help the Palestinian people over the next three years.

Israeli forces raided several villages overnight and arrested 26 Palestinians suspected of involvement in terror attacks, the Israeli military said today.

The US government has concluded that the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah faction of the PLO were involved in an abortive scheme to smuggle in 50 tons of weapons, a senior US official said.

Israeli helicopters attacked Palestinian police and security facilities in the Gaza Strip early today, after an Israeli soldier was killed in a mortar attack.

Israeli helicopters attacked Palestinian police and security facilities in several places in the Gaza Strip early today, according to eyewitnesses and officials on both sides.

The Islamic militant group Hamas threatened bloody revenge after the leader of its military wing in the West Bank was killed in an Israeli missile attack.

Five Palestinian children, aged between seven and 14, were killed in a Gaza Strip blast today after one of them hit an unexploded Israeli tank shell as they walked to school.

An Israeli tank shell hit a Palestinian elementary school today, killing four students and wounding several others, a Palestinian security commander said.

A Palestinian activist was killed today when the public telephone he was using exploded in the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinians immediately blamed Israel for the attack.

Tony Blair is to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about the conflict with the Palestinians.