UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no short cut to Middle East peace but Palestinians said they would press on with a request for U.N. recognition of their nascent state.

Amid frantic efforts to avert a diplomatic disaster, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the United Nations to grant the Palestinians the status of observer state, like the Vatican, while outlining a one-year roadmap to peace.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no short cut to Middle East peace, but Palestinians said they would press on with a request for U.N. recognition of their nascent state.

Amid frantic efforts to avert a diplomatic disaster, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the United Nations to grant the Palestinians the status of observer state, like the Vatican, while outlining a one-year roadmap to peace.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no short cut to Middle East peace, but Palestinians said they would press on with a request for U.N. recognition of their nascent state.

Amid frantic efforts to avert a diplomatic disaster, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the United Nations to grant the Palestinians the status of observer state, like the Vatican, while outlining a one-year roadmap to peace.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Iraq will need U.S. military trainers even after American combat troops leave this year, ending a mission that began with the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.

He ruled out any renewal or extension of a 2008 agreement under which the remaining 43,000 U.S. troops are due to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, trying to avert a showdown on Palestinian statehood, told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no substitute for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or a short cut to peace.

With U.S. credibility and influence in the Middle East at stake, Obama wants to dissuade the Palestinians from asking the U.N. Security Council for statehood in defiance of Israeli objections and a U.S. veto threat. But they have shown no sign of renouncing their plan to stake their claim on Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has captivated many Arabs with his tough talk against Israel, but voices at home and abroad question his drive to carve out a leadership role for Turkey in an Arab world once under the Ottoman imperial thumb.

“A Palestinian child crying in Gaza wrenches a mother’s heart in Ankara,” Erdogan told the Arab League in Cairo on Tuesday, using language calculated to delight Arab masses.

LONDON (Reuters) – Libyans celebrated, Western leaders exulted, but Arab governments greeted Muammar Gaddafi’s fall in near-silence on Monday, even though most had viewed him as an embarrassing, if not dangerous, maverick during his 42 years in power.

Despite their disdain for the Libyan leader, many Arab rulers are queasy at the spectacle of his violent overthrow at the hands of ragtag rebels backed by Western air power.

LONDON (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looks doomed, politically if not militarily, and the longer he clings to power by brute force the harder it will be to achieve an orderly transition and mend a ruined economy.

The 45-year-old leader has shown no sign he is willing to relinquish office. A military coup or a contest within elements of the army, security forces and the Baathist party elite could break the stalemate. Otherwise more bloodshed seems inevitable.

LONDON (Reuters) – Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure to have his wounds treated in Saudi Arabia offers Yemen a precious chance to halt a slide into civil war and achieve a peaceful transition of power. Much could go wrong.

Young protesters eager to add Saleh to the list of toppled Arab autocrats have greeted his exit with euphoria, but they fear a come-back by the wily leader, who was wounded along with other senior officials in an attack on his palace on Friday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – In an Arab world engulfed in political tumult and, in many cases, economic distress, U.S. President Barack Obama’s words can seem lofty, but limp.

“By the time we found (Osama) bin Laden, al Qaeda’s agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had taken their future into their own hands,” Obama declared.