Reuters: Abbas swears in new cabinet 18 June

There has been some apprehension within Pakistan that the US could try to prop up Musharraf so that counter-terrorism operations in the region are not disturbed by the changing of the guard in Islamabad. Members of Sharif's party wore black armbands as they were sworn in, to protest against Musharraf, whom they consider an unconstitutional president. HL

Around 650 Palestinian troops are about to complete U.S.-funded training in Jordan. The planned deployment follows a similar crackdown by Palestinian forces in the larger West Bank city of Nablus in November.

The Fatah leader rejected demands by Hamas rivals for control of the breached Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in June after routing Abbas' secular Fatah forces, blasted open the Egyptian border last week in defiance of an Israeli blockade, letting Gazans pour into Egypt to stock up on goods in short supply.

Around 650 soldiers are about to complete U.S.-funded training in Jordan. The planned deployment follows a similar crackdown by Palestinian forces in the larger West Bank city of Nablus in November.

Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at the Jewish state hours after an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the Islamist movement's armed wing as they drove through southern Gaza. Two more militants were killed in a separate airstrike in northern Gaza while an eighth Palestinian was shot dead in the West Bank town of Nablus by an undercover Israeli unit. The mounting violence is overshadowing efforts to kickstart peace talks between Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert will meet at a U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland to relaunch talks on ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He was 80 and had been suffering from a heart condition. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Habash a "historic leader" and declared 3-days of mourning for the PFLP founder. Hamas said Habash's death was a "huge loss" for the Palestinian cause. Throughout his life Habash opposed peace with Israel. A refugee from the 1948 war of Israel's creation in British-ruled Palestine, he lived in exile in Jordan. The PFLP burst onto the world stage in the late 1960s with a series of airline hijackings, kidnappings and murders, but the movement found itself increasingly sidelined in the early 1990s when Yasser Arafat, then leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) signed interim peace deal with Israel.

The White House added that Musharraf had made his own decision to lift emergency rule and that the U.S. had not threatened the Pakistani President.

Mounting violence could complicate peace talks between Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority which the United States hopes can lead to a statehood deal this year.

In a move expected to put off elections due in January Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule and deployed troops across the capital in a bid to reassert his flagging authority against political rivals and Islamist militants. The state of emergency came after a tide of rising violence and political turmoil in the country.