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Haniya Announces Cabinet Reshuffle in Gaza

Ismail Haniya, head of the Hamas government in Gaza, announced a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, appointing seven new ministers including a new finance minister.

Haniya said the reshuffle was "normal procedure after nearly six years of work by some ministers and in order to achieve specific goals for the current period."

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Netanyahu: World not Giving Iran Nuclear 'Red Line'

The world is failing to draw a "clear red line" for Iran over its nuclear program, Israel's prime minister said on Sunday after a new U.N. report found Tehran had doubled its capacity at a nuclear site.

"I think that we should speak the truth -- the international community is not drawing a clear red line for Iran," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.

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19 People Killed in Iran Bus Crash as Moderate Quake Jolts Country’s East

At least 19 people have been killed in Iran's south after the bus they were travelling on struck a rock and flipped over, the state news agency said Sunday.

IRNA said the accident took place some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the southern Iranian city of Shiraz.

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Freedom and Fear in Syrian Rebel Town

Residents of this rebel rear base north of the key battleground of Aleppo were cleaning up on Saturday after a Syrian regime air strike killed at least 12 people.

"This was my house. Now nothing is left," said Yussef al-Wati, an engineer, as he clambered up a once enclosed stairway that is now open to the skies.

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Blair Holds Cairo Talks on Mideast 'Difficulties'

Quartet envoy Tony Blair met Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil in Cairo on Saturday for talks on the "difficulties" facing the Middle East peace process, MENA state news agency said.

The former British prime minister was also scheduled to hold discussions with Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr during his brief visit, it said.

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At Least 117 Killed Across Syria as Helicopters Pin Down Fighters in Taftanaz

At least 117 people were killed in countrywide on Saturday as Syrian helicopter gunships deployed from a nearby airbase kept rebel fighters pinned down in the town of Taftanaz of Idlib province on the border with Turkey.

According to the Syrian Coordination Committees among the killed were women and children. 44 were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs, among them 4 discovered in Daraya and 6 in Jobar; 19 in Deir al-Zour; 15 in Homs; 14 in Aleppo; 10 in Idlib; 9 in Daraa, 1 in Damascus Suburbs; 5 in Hama; and 1 in Lattakia.

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U.N. Envoy to Assad: Change is Urgently Needed

The U.N.'s new envoy to Syria said on Saturday that President Bashar Assad's regime should realize that the need for change was both "urgent" and "necessary" and that it must meet the "legitimate" demands of the Syrian people.

Lakhdar Brahimi's comments in an interview with al-Arabiya television came as Syrian warplanes and ground forces pounded the country's largest city, Aleppo, with bombs and mortar rounds while soldiers clashed with rebels in the narrow streets of its old quarter, according to activists.

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Orthodox Jews Stone Palestinians in Jerusalem

A group of ultra-Orthodox Jews hurled stones at Palestinian homes in the Shuafat refugee camp of annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday, injuring one person, police said.

"About 20 Jews of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, which adjoins Shuafat, threw stones at Palestinian homes, slightly injuring the head of a resident of the camp," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.

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Egypt Court Orders Mubarak Case Police Chief Reinstated

An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered the reinstatement of a former police chief who had been charged alongside toppled president Hosni Mubarak with killing demonstrators but was acquitted.

The official MENA news agency said the court ordered that Omar Faramawi, who was formerly responsible for security at the Six October area near the capital and was also a deputy interior minister, be reinstated at his ministry post.

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Morocco Bans Ruling Party Youth Ceremony

Moroccan authorities banned the closing ceremony of the ruling party's youth conference that was due to be held on Saturday, citing "security concerns," a party official told Agence France Presse.

"At around 10 pm (on Friday), a local official sent us a document banning the ceremony" due to take place in the northern city of Tangiers, the Justice and Development Party's (PJD) Khalid Bougueri told AFP by telephone.

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