Middle East News

JERUSALEM - Hamas leaders raced to Egypt on Monday amid signs of progress on a deal to swap hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for a captive Israeli soldier held by the Islamic militant group for more than three years.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament amended the country's vetoed election law on Monday with a version that failed to appease Sunni Arabs, who fear they are being marginalized.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian authorities have banned the country's largest-circulation newspaper for publishing a photo of a Baha'i temple, state media reported Monday.

Palestinians said Monday that negotiators were close to exchanging an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel has carried out such swaps in the past:

TEHRAN, Iran - Former Iranian Interior Minister Ali Kordan, who was dismissed after being accused of faking a law degree from the University of Oxford, has died, reports said Monday. He was 51.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Sunday began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack, state TV reported, as an air force commander boasted the country could deter any military strike by Israel.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed in action in Iraq.

CAIRO - Angry soccer fans rampaged through a posh diplomatic neighborhood in Cairo over the weekend, smashing shop windows and shouting obscenities in a frenzy fed by venomous headlines that portrayed Algerians as barbaric terrorists with a history of violence.

BAGHDAD - A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel said on Monday there was no deal yet on a prisoner swap with Hamas, as efforts appeared to gather pace on an accord that could see a Gaza-held soldier exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians.

BRASILIA, Brazil - The world must engage, not isolate Iran in the push for Middle East peace and Iran should negotiate with Western nations for a "just and balanced" solution to its polemical nuclear program, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's upcoming general election will be delayed, a top MP warned, because an amended electoral law agreed on Monday is likely to be vetoed for a second time by the country's Sunni vice president.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday urged his visiting Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to find a "just solution" with the West to Tehran's contested nuclear program.

SANAA (AFP) - Shiite rebels in northern Yemen accused Saudi forces of launching a major cross-border ground and air attack on Monday, a day after an alleged failed incursion.

BANJUL (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday vowed closer cooperation with Gambia at the end of a 24-hour visit to the west African nation and stressed the country's identical views on world issues.

SANAA (AFP) - A Japanese engineer kidnapped by tribesmen near the Yemeni capital on November 15 was released on Monday, Sanaa's governor Numan Duid announced.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The man named as Israel's new ambassador to Egypt is the son of a spy who had been sentenced to death in Lebanon but was eventually part of a prisoner swap, a foreign ministry official said on Monday.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday began a controversial visit to Brazil, the key leg of a tour to sympathetic Latin American and African countries he sees backing Tehran's vision of "a new world order."

AMMAN (AFP) - King Abdullah II of Jordan dissolved parliament on Monday and ordered a general election two years early, after months of press criticism of the ineffectiveness and in some cases alleged corruption of MPs.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has gained $5 billion through its policy of shifting away from the U.S. currency in favors of the euro, state television reported on Monday, citing Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - An Iraqi television presenter was wounded on Monday when unknown attackers shot him while he was driving to work in central Baghdad, police and the channel he worked for said.

Opposition activists want the U.S. to focus more on human rights, and they fear a nuclear deal with the West will boost the regime's domestic standing


JERUSALEM (AFP) - Two rockets were fired from the Islamist Hamas-run Gaza Strip into southern Israel on Monday, without causing casualties or damage, an Israeli military spokesman told AFP.

ISTANBUL (AFP) - Israel's trade minister Monday began a visit to Turkey to mend strained relations, saying Ankara could help resolve the conflict between Israel and Syria.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's central bank chief said on Monday that the country has gained five billion dollars by replacing the US dollar with the euro in its currency basket, state-owned English language Press TV reported.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's moral police have arrested a dozen couples for engaging in illicit sexual acts, including swapping of partners, the conservative Jomhuri Eslami reported on Monday.

ABUJA (AFP) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua is due to travel to Saudi Arabia late Monday for a medical check-up, his office said.

NAZARETH, Israel - A Palestinian nun who co-founded a charity dedicated to educating Arab girls on Sunday took an important step toward sainthood.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran released a former vice president on a $700,000 bail Sunday after his lawyer said he had been sentenced to six years in prison in the mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the post-election unrest.