A top Middle East envoy has criticised Israel in especially tough language for moving too slowly on negotiations to open Gaza’s borders, saying the country is behaving almost as if the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip never happened.

Israel is proposing a dual crossing between Gaza and Egypt to allow for free exit from Gaza but control over goods entering the territory, Israeli defence officials said today.

With blazing speed, Israeli bulldozers are demolishing the 2,800 homes left behind after Israel cleared the Gaza Strip of its Jewish residents in less than a week.

Two hundred opponents of Israel’s planned Gaza Strip evacuation stole into the coastal strip overnight in defiance of a military ban, even as security forces blocked thousands of protesters from marching into Gaza to bolster settler resistance to the withdrawal.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will today chair a meeting of foreign ministers from the G8 group of leading industrialised nations for talks on Iran, the Middle East peace process and Afghanistan.

An underground electric transformer exploded today, sparking a fire that forced authorities to close streets and evacuate several buildings – including the World Bank headquarters in Washington.

Private ownership around the world is key to easing poverty, outgoing World Bank President James Wolfensohn said as he toured the Pine Ridge Reservation, one of the poorest areas in the US.

President George Bush is to recommend that Deputy Defence Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to take over as head of the World Bank, a senior administration official said today.

Stunned by the devastation wrought by the Asian tsunami, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan toured a Sri Lankan town today where hundreds of shoppers at an outdoor weekly market were swept to their deaths.