WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said Thursday it had "nothing to indicate" the Palestinians have pulled out of indirect talks with Israel.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The Swedish parliament adopted on Thursday, against the advice of the government, a resolution recognising massacres of Armenians during World War I as genocide.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The Kurdistania alliance, made up of the Kurdish autonomous region's two long-dominant parties, was in the lead in the Iraqi province of Arbil, an election official told AFP on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqiya coalition is in the lead in the predominantly Sunni provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin, an election official told AFP Thursday.

ABU DHABI (AFP) - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have signalled a "willingness" to press China to support tough new sanctions on Iran, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters Thursday in a visit to Abu Dhabi.