The Obama team may get modest benefits from ending a five-year chill with Damascus but will find it hard, if not impossible to peel Syria way from hardline ally Iran and break the Arab-Israeli stalemate, analysts said.US President Barack Obama's administration said last week it submitted its nominee for ambassador to Damascus, the fruit of a year-long drive to engage Syria in a bid to promote Arab-Israeli peace

Palestinian officials demanded on Monday that any US-backed peace talks with Israel focus on border issues and be given a deadline of up to four months.Washington has proposed circumventing a dispute preventing the resumption of talks, stalled for more than a year since a war in Gaza, by reconvening in the form of "proximity talks" on an indirect basis, under closer US mediation

The Number two leader of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood and two other top figures have been arrested by police Monday in a dawn sweep targeting members of the nation's most powerful opposition group across the country.The arrests, part of an ongoing crackdown, come just as the group chose a new leadership and ahead of parliamentary elections set for October

The leader of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas met in Moscow Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks on efforts to reunify the two main Palestinian independence movements."We met to pursue our discussions, and our principal goal is to build on efforts brokered by Egypt to secure Palestinian unity," Lavrov told reporters at the start of talks with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal

Premier Nouri al-Maliki said on Monday he has received assurances that judges will resolve a simmering row over who can stand in Iraq's general election before official campaigning starts on February 12.Around 100 lawmakers had gathered earlier at Parliament for an emergency session to debate a contentious decision to allow hundreds of candidates allegedly

Iran's top reformist leaders on Monday rejected the authorities' accusation that the opposition movement had links to foreigners and urged people to attend rallies on Thursday marking the 1979 Islamic revolution.The opposition is expected to revive anti-government protests at the February 11 events, raising fears of further clashes with the security forces

Prosecutors in Turkey are seeking life in jail for the father and grandfather of a girl who was buried alive for befriending boys, local judicial sources said Monday.The pair were arrested after the body of 16-year-old Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a hole in a chicken pen outside her house in Kahta town, Adiyaman province, 40 days after she went missing

The Gulf kingdom of Bahrain resumed torturing detainees in 2007 after about a decade of not engaging in the "scourge," US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Monday.As of late 2007, "torture is back in the repertoire of Bahrain's security services" the international watchdog said in the report

Under the watchful eyes of a white-coated doctor, two orderlies in scrubs sedate the patient on a paper-covered stainless steel table, then begin the procedure - trimming her vital hunting tools.One of the orderlies carefully snips the brown and white falcon's wicked, two-centimeter talons, then files them back to points. Twenty-one other falcons, their heads covered in small leather hoods

An exchange of mortar shells between Somali government forces and rebels killed at least nine civilians and wounded 14 others, a human-rights group said Monday.The clashes started late on Sunday and continued on Monday morning, the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization said

Saudi Arabia's human rights commission has hired a lawyer to help a 12-year-old girl divorce her 80-year-old husband, the lawyer said, a move activists hope will lead to a ban on child marriages.Saudi Arabia, a patriarchal society that applies an austere version of Sunni Islam, has no minimum legal age for marriage

NATO commanders called on the Taliban to surrender as troops dug in Monday for a major assault on one of the last insurgent strongholds in southern Afghanistan, sending thousands of residents fleeing.The Taliban remained defiant as civilians of the Marjah plain accused the militia, which is leading an eight-year insurgency

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich on Monday pressed rival Yulia Tymoshenko to concede defeat after his slender victory in a presidential election that could tilt the ex-Soviet state back towards Moscow.With just over 97 percent of votes counted, official election figures gave Yanukovich a margin of 2.41 percentage points over Premier Tymoshenko