Palestinian security forces patrol the streets in the West Bank city of Nablus.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday urged Israel to take more concrete steps to ease the lives of West Bank Palestinians on her latest trip to the region to boost peace efforts.
She also said Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank is “particularly problematic“ for the Middle East peace process.
“We hope to improve the opportunities around the West Bank for people to have economic opportunity in a secure environment,“ Rice said after meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah.[pict[
She told the AFP reporters that the changes should have “a real effect on the lives of people,“ adding that US mediators were “trying to
look not just at quantity but also at the quality of improvements.“
On her last visit to the region, Rice secured an Israeli pledge to remove some 50 of the 500-plus roadblocks across the occupied West Bank, but the Palestinians and the United Nations said the move was largely insignificant.
Rice told reporters that improving conditions in the West Bank depended on “responsible actions“ by Abbas’ Palestinian Authority which she said “are really now taking place“.
Rice specifically praised the decision to deploy some 600 Palestinian police reinforcements to the town of Jenin as part of a security crackdown in the north of the territory aimed at building confidence with Israel.
“I think you are going to see improvements in the West Bank and the Israelis will also really have to do their part,“ she added.

Food Aid Suspended Again
Hours later, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees announced it would again suspend food aid distribution in the Gaza Strip from Monday because of a lack of fuel due to the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-run territory.
UNRWA’s decision followed the Israeli army’s closure of two key crossings with Gaza through which most of territory is supplied after they came under mortar fire.
The agency previously halted aid distribution for four days last month for the same reasons.
On her 15th visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in less than two years, Rice said she remained hopeful that the two sides could strike a peace deal by the time Bush leaves office in 2009.
Abbas told the same press conference that “the negotiations are being carried on every day and every hour.
“Everyone seems serious, and expresses hope that we will arrive at an agreement to establish a Palestinian state this year,“ he added.

Probe Won’t Affect Goals
Olmert has vowed to press ahead with peace talks despite a new corruption probe against him, the fifth such investigation since he formed his government two years ago.
Olmert said Sunday that he would not let a new police investigation into his conduct prevent him from doing his job--his first public comments on a probe that has threatened to further weaken him politically as he tries to make peace with the Palestinians.

Egypt Slams Secrecy Veil
Egypt’s FM Ahmed Abul Gheit, criticized both Israel and the Palestinians for keeping the status of their negotiations under wraps.
“They do not want to reveal the nature of such negotiations, preferring to keep it secret,“ he said.
Cairo has been leading efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza militants that would see an easing of an Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory, which has been sidelined in the current peace talks. The foreign ministry in Cairo later clarified that Abul Gheit, in his remarks carried in Qatar’s Ash-Sharq, had not reported progress in the talks.
“There should not be a bad interpretation of the situation, to think that there is progress when there is nothing concrete to indicate this,“ it said in a statement.

Hamas Police Ferry Palestinians
The ruling Hamas party started using police cars on Sunday to ferry Palestinians around the Gaza Strip because of severe fuel shortages.
Orange stickers reading, “We are ready to drive you for free,“ were affixed to blue units of the Hamas-run police force.
Israel has restricted fuel supplies to Gaza in an attempt to pressure Palestinian militants to halt their rocket barrages at nearby Israeli communities, AP reported.
Israel defense forces Sunday closed the Karni border crossing and the Nahal Oz fuel terminal with the Gaza Strip after rocket attacks from Palestinian militants.
The spokeswoman of Israel defense forces told Xinhua that five Qassam rockets and one mortar shell were fired on the western Negev early Sunday, with the latter landing near the Nahal Oz fuel terminal.
Some 50 trucks of supplies were forced to turn back after the barrage of shelling, the spokeswoman added.

Yemeni policemen and tribesmen inspect the wreckage of a car that was hit by a suicide car bomb in restive northern region of Mareb city.

New peace talks are underway between the Yemeni authorities and Zaidi rebels to try to contain renewed clashes that have left at least 52 people dead since Friday, the rebels said on Monday.
“We met in Saada on Sunday in the presence of the Qatari mediators,“ the rebels’ chief negotiator Saleh Habra told AFP by telephone from the northern province which has been a rebel stronghold.
A further 19 rebels were killed in clashes with the army in Saada province on Sunday, raising the weekend death toll to 52, a local official said.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s army has warned rebels led by Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi that it will move to subdue them if they fail to implement a truce brought to the verge of collapse by a mosque bombing and days of clashes.
Qatari mediators returned to Yemen’s volatile northern province of Saada on Sunday, hoping to salvage the ceasefire agreement that ended six months of fighting between government forces and the rebels last June, Reuters reported.
A senior Yemeni military official blamed Houthi and his followers for the bombing--a charge the rebel leader denies.
The official warned in a statement on Yemen’s state news agency that unless Houthi abides by the truce “the state would be forced to assume its responsibility to spread the sovereignty of the regime and its law across all areas of Saada province.“
Fighting has raged on and off in Saada since a conflict broke out in 2004 between government forces and Houthi’s rebels.
The rebels, who oppose the government’s alliance with the United States, say they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression.

Warning
Houthi meanwhile warned that his group will escalate its fight against the government if the army continues an offensive that has left almost 20 rebels and soldiers dead over the past two days.
Six rebels and six soldiers were killed in clashes overnight Sunday in and around the mountainous rebel stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen, according to a security official and an eyewitness. A day earlier, three soldiers and four rebels were killed in similar clashes, AP said.
Truce Mechanism
The Qatari-mediated ceasefire agreement committed Yemen to rebuilding rebel areas and required rebels to give up heavy arms but did not include a clear mechanism for implementation.
The rebels fear that if they give up their weapons and prisoners first, they will be attacked.
Ali Abu Halaiqa, head of the government delegation, said that a mechanism was now being drawn up.
“We affirm that the political authority wants to resolve this problem in a peaceful way,“ he told Yemeni television. “The first step is to end the clashes between the two sides.“
A source close to Houthi said the Qataris along with the government delegation had met the chief rebel negotiator Saleh Habra on Sunday evening, raising hopes that a deal could be reached on implementing the ceasefire after a bloody week.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have fled their homes in Saada since the conflict began in 2004.
One of the poorest countries in the Middle East, Yemen is also grappling with dwindling oil and water resources, unemployment, corruption and a large community of Somali refugees.

At least six people were killed in overnight fighting between American forces and Mahdi Army fighters in Bahgdad’s Sadr City, Iraqi security and medical officials told AFP on Monday.
It was not immediately known whether the dead were combatants or civilians.
The officials said that another 40 people, including women and children, were wounded over the same period. A girls’ school which has been shut for more than a month because of the fighting was also damaged in overnight violence, they said.
Iraqi and American forces and fighters, mostly from anti-US cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, have been battling each other since the government launched a crackdown on militias on March 25.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the violence, which began in the southern port city of Basra and quickly spread to other Shiite areas of the country--particularly Sadr City where the death toll has been the highest.
In other news, the US military said that 11 Al-Qaeda insurgents were killed over the weekend in central and northern Iraq, after a powerful roadside bomb killed four Marines Friday in the deadliest attack in months in the former Al-Qaeda stronghold of western Anbar province.