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| Syrian foes move towards talks but fighting rages |
 By Dominic Evans BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition and the government of President Bashar al-Assad seem to be preparing to take part in an international peace conference against a background of some of the worst fighting this year. On Tuesday, Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and Syrian soldiers, backed by air strikes and artillery, renewed an offensive aimed at driving Syrian rebels from the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border, opposition activists said. ...
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| Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad ally barred from Iran election |
 By Marcus George DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian authorities on Tuesday barred former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate, from running in the June 14 election, along with a protégé of the current president, leaving mainly hardliners left to contest the vote. Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close aide to current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, failed to make it onto a list of candidates approved by the Guardian Council, state news agencies and television reported. ...
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| Kerry visits Oman for arms deal, talks on Syria, Mideast |
 By Arshad Mohammed MUSCAT (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Oman on Tuesday for Raytheon Co's signing of an estimated $2.1 billion arms deal and to consult on Syria and Iran, U.S. officials said. Oman is expected to sign a letter of intent to purchase a ground-based air defence system that would help protect against cruise missile, drone or fighter aircraft attacks, a senior U.S. State Department official told reporters aboard Kerry's plane. Part of the sale has been previously disclosed. In October 2011, the U.S. Defense Department notified Congress of a proposed $1. ...
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| Britain asks EU to put Hezbollah armed wing on terror list |
 By Adrian Croft BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it had asked the European Union to put Hezbollah's military arm on its list of terrorist organizations, urging Europe to respond robustly to evidence of the Islamist group's involvement in an attack that killed five Israelis. Britain's request came after Bulgaria accused the Lebanese militant movement in February of carrying out a bomb attack on a bus in the Black Sea city of Burgas that killed the Israelis and their Bulgarian driver in July last year. ...
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| World Bank boosts funds for Syria refugees, Africa |
 By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Bank plans substantial new funds to help Jordan cope with the influx of refugees from the civil war in Syria, and hopes new funds for central Africa will cement a peace deal there, the bank's President Jim Yong Kim said on Tuesday. "There will be significant amounts of new funding going to Jordan in the very near future to deal with this crisis," he said in an interview, after a speech at the U.N. World Health Assembly in Geneva. ...
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