JERUSALEM – Irish foreign minister Brian Cowen, whose country has just assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union, arrived in Israel on Thursday for a two-day visit.

AMMAN – Jordan’s bar association has condemned the arrest of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by US forces as “kidnapping,” and demanded that he be handed over to Switzerland, as sponsor of the Geneva Conventions, which protect victims of war.

BRUSSELS – The European Commission has welcomed the formation of a new coalition government in breakaway northern Cyprus, headed by Mehmet Ali Talat – leader of the Republican Turkish Party which supports reunification before the island joins the European Union in May.

MANAMA – French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin has used a five-nation tour of the Gulf to lobby for a “new regional security architecture,” that would bring together the main countries of the region with leading members of the international community.

KHARTOUM – Sudanese police arrested the chairman and editor of a suspended independent newspaper on Wednesday, charging him with tax evasion. The newspaper has been suspended by the security authorities for undeclared reasons since November 28.

KHARTOUM – Rebels abducted 13 local government employees and ransacked a market in separate attacks in western Sudan, the state-run SUNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

THE HAGUE – Libya joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), it was announced on Wednesday – the same day Tripoli ratified the nuclear test ban treaty.

TUNIS – Tunisian President Zine AlAbidine Ben Ali, recently returned from Washington, said he wanted to “intensify and diversify cooperation” between the two countries. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tunisia had helped to lay the groundwork for Libya’s surprise announcement last month that it would halt its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

LONDON – Britain’s minister for Africa, Chris Mullin, this week left for Eritrea and Ethiopia hoping to help defuse a renewed border crisis between the two east African states. He met Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

NOUAKCHOTT – The United States has sent a team of military experts to the northwest African country of Mauritania to train army soldiers to fight “cross-border terrorism.” Washington is helping countries in the Sahel desert – Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger – to fight against infiltration by extremist groups.

MOSCOW – The pro-Moscow president of Russia’s war-torn Chechen republic, Akhmad Kadyrov, is to take part in this year’s Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, accompanied by Chechnya’s top Islamic official Akhmat Shameyev. The first members of the group will leave the troubled Caucasus republic on January 19.

ADDIS ABABA – The president of Ethiopia’s Gambella region, where 57 people died in ethnic violence in December, has fled into hiding. Okelo Okuaye vanished with his four bodyguards and a driver, leaving his car behind in the bush.

MOSCOW – A Russian company, KBP Tula, has denied that it sold military equipment to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in the face of renewed US charges that Russian companies did so in violation of United Nations sanctions.

JEDDAH – Around 400,000 pilgrims have already entered Saudi Arabia en route to Mecca for the annual Hajj pilgrimage due to climax in early February. Some two million people are expected to join the Hajj, more than half of them from abroad, despite a major security crackdown on suspected Islamist militants after a series of suicide bombings.

WASHINGTON – An expert panel this week failed to quell controversy over Israel’s attack on a US spy ship during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel claims the attack on the USS Liberty was a case of misidentification. Washington maintains the attack was the result of “gross negligence” on the part of the Israeli military, but not an intentionally hostile act.

MOSCOW – Three Russian servicemen died and a fourth was seriously wounded when a mine exploded in the Chechen village of Vashindoroi on Wednesday. A presumed Chechen rebel died when installing a mine at the side of the road in the capital Grozny.

Ndjamena, Chad – The United Nations has defended its decision to move 9,000 refugees from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region further into neighboring Chad. About 95,000 Sudanese have fled over the Chad border since April last year.

ASMARA – UN officials in Eritrea this week expressed dismay at new government regulations requiring aid agencies to request written authorization, at least 10 days before making a trip within the country.

MOGADISHU – At least 18 people were killed and 23 wounded in a dispute over land between the Murursade and the Duduble, sub-clans of the Hawiye clan, in the Elbur district of central Somalia on Tuesday.

BEIRUT – Former British hostage John McCarthy returned to Lebanon and met with Shia leaders this week, to film a documentary on the Muslim community that held him hostage from 1986 – 1991.

JERUSALEM – The Israeli air force is to cut back helicopter flights over the West Bank and Gaza Strip for fear of a ground attack by Palestinians. It will also stop using some helicopter landing pads in the Palestinian territories and use others only at night.

AMMAN – Jordanian authorities charged three Syrians with arms smuggling this week, and are seeking five accomplices, including a Jordanian national. The group was arrested in November, after they managed to smuggle weapons across Jordan’s border.

Naqura, Lebanon – A French peace keeper was killed on Wednesday after floods caused a wall at the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to collapse. UNIFIL was set up in 1978 to accompany a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, which finally took place in May 2000.

DAMASCUS – New US ambassador in Damascus Margaret Scoby presented her credentials to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad on Saturday, despite strained relations between the two countries.

BOSTON – A Saudi national arrested upon arrival in the United States earlier this month was this week charged with possession of pyrotechnics found in his hand luggage. Essam Muhammad Al Mohandis, 33, was charged with carrying three small firecrackers.

ALGIERS – An earthquake shook parts of Algeria last Sunday, injuring 300 people. The epicenter of the quake, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, was recorded in Boumerdass province, where more than 2,300 people were killed in an earthquake last May.

Bam, Iran – The last person to be pulled alive from rubble left by a devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran, died last Sunday from respiratory problems. The 56 year old was found 13 days after the quake.

SANAA – Chief of the Arab League Amr Mousa said Arabs had no quarrel with Jews, only with Israel because of its occupation of Arab lands. Mousa was speaking at the opening of an international conference on democracy in Sanaa this week.

Qalqilya, West Bank – Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei made his first visit on Sunday to the West Bank barrier being built by Israel outside the town of Qalqilya.

BAGHDAD – The most influential Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, this week said that members of an interim assembly must be chosen through direct elections, putting at risk the Bush administration’s plans to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis by July 1.

TOKYO – Japanese authorities said this week that troops being sent to Iraq to help with reconstruction will only be allowed to use weapons in defense of themselves or civilians under their protection – not their coalition colleagues.

BAGHDAD – Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio called for a bigger role for the United Nations in Iraq, where she was inspecting Spanish troops this week.