(the above month /day/year only indicate when the section was opened)

The news below are excerpts from CNN (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/archive/)

June 7   40 years later, Jerusalem still a divided city: Israel claimed Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided" capital. The barbed wire and minefields that divided the city from 1948 until June 1967 might be gone, but invisible barriers still exist between Jews and Arabs.

June 5   Lebanese troops pounded Islamic militants hiding in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Tuesday, on the fifth straight day of the military's sustained assault to crush the Fatah Islam fighters.

May 28   U.S. and Iranian officials will meet in Baghdad later this month to discuss issues involving Iraq, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday.

May 24   Customs officers at Cairo's airport have detained a man bound for Saudi Arabia who was trying to smuggle 700 live snakes on a plane, airport authorities said.

April 16   The parents of BBC reporter Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped last month in Gaza, have appealed for news of his condition after an unknown militant group said it had killed him.

April 16   Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered six cabinet ministers from his political bloc to leave Iraq's government on Monday, making good on a threat issued last week after the prime minister rejected a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops.

April 10   A day after Iran announced it had begun production of nuclear fuel on an "industrial level," the head of the country's atomic energy organization said Iran had plans to greatly expand its nuclear program.

March 27   The U.S. Navy on Tuesday began its largest demonstration of force in the Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, deploying two aircraft carriers and conducting simulated aerial attacks.

March 7   Jordan's king urges U.S. to lead Middle East peace drive. Citing the risks of further delay, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Wednesday the United States must take the lead in creating conditions for a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

March 7  Former hostage Jill Carroll returns to report in Mideast. Jill Carroll, the journalist held hostage for nearly three months in Iraq last year, has returned to the Middle East to report for the Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper spokesman said Wednesday.

March 1   U.S. officials won't hold direct talks with Iran or Syria at a Baghdad conference next month despite the Bush administration's complaints that those countries are allowing weapons into Iraq, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Wednesday.

Februari 25   A combination of rocket and bomb attacks killed more than 50 people and wounded dozens of others Sunday in Iraq. The suicide bomber was a woman, an official with Iraqi interior ministry told CNN, based on eyewitness accounts. At least 40 people were killed and 55 wounded in the blast.

Februari 24   Critics of Iran's nuclear program are "bullying" Iran, its current president and a former president declared Friday, as they put up a united front a day after the United Nations' nuclear watchdog issued a report that opens the way for additional sanctions against Iran.

February 15   Israel on Thursday began operating live Internet cameras at a construction project next to a hotly disputed Jerusalem holy site, and agreed to a Turkish request to inspect the work, responding to intense criticism from the Muslim world. The Internet cameras, accessible from the Israeli Antiquities Authority Web site, showed three angles of the archaeological excavations, shifting from one to the next automatically. One camera showed the Western Wall plaza in the background, with visitors walking back and forth.

February 6   Shrugging off the threat of tougher U.N. sanctions, Iran has set up more than 300 centrifuges in two uranium enrichment units at its underground Natanz complex, diplomats and officials said Monday.
The move potentially opens the way for larger scale enrichment that could be used to create nuclear warheads. Iranian leaders have repeatedly said the Natanz underground hall would house first 3,000 centrifuges
and ultimately 54,000 machines.