This comes as US Vice-President Joe Biden flies to the region, becoming the highest ranking US official to visit since Barack Obama took office.
On Sunday, Palestinian Authority leaders in the West Bank agreed to indirect talks with Israel.
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Preliminary results are not expected for several days but the turnout figure is down from the 75% who voted in the 2005 general elections.
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s State of Law Coalition is widely expected to win the most seats.
]]>They say an announcement will be made by Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau at an energy forum in Paris.
Israel is facing a crisis over electricity supplies, but environmental objections have blocked efforts to build a new coal-fired plant.
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The 81-year-old leader had the operation after complaining of gall bladder pain while in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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Biden, the most senior U.S. official to visit Israel since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, is widely expected to caution his hosts not to attack Iran pre-emptively while world powers pursue fresh sanctions against Tehran.
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Gates, on his first Afghan trip since President Barack Obama’s surge of 30,000 troops began arriving in the country last December, said NATO forces had made gains recently, including a push to take control of the Taliban stronghold of Marjah.
]]>The earthquake surprised many residents as they slept, crumpling buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into narrow village streets, some climbing out of windows, as nearly 80 aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 and 5.3 magnitude rattled the region.
The Kandilli seismology center said the 6.0-magnitude quake hit at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT, 9 p.m. EST Sunday) near the village of Basyurt in a remote, sparsely populated area of Elazig province. The region is 340 miles (550 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital.
]]>Ahmed Moustafa, 20, an engineering student, had been charged by a military court with “disseminating false information” and “tarnishing the image of the military.” He was detained in Kafr el-Sheikh, a city north of Cairo
]]>لم يقل مبارك (81 عاما) إن كان سيرشح نفسه مجددا في انتخابات عام 2011 الامر الذي أجج الحديث عمن سيحكم بعده. ويعتقد كثير من المصريين أنه اذا لم يرشح نفسه فسينقل السلطة الى ابنه. لكن يظل هناك مرشحون اخرون محتملون أو شخصيات مؤثرة يمكن أن تخوض السباق.
وفيما يلي نبذة عن شخصيات وجماعات ومدى فرصها فيما يتعلق بالانتخابات الرئاسية..
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The nerve-jangling movie about a US Army bomb disposal squad in Baghdad also took best picture and best screenplay while “Avatar”, made by Bigelow’s ex-husband James Cameron, won just three Oscars at Sunday’s awards.
“This really is, there’s no other way to describe it, the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow, only the fourth woman to be nominated for best director by Academy voters.
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