Palestinian leaders have ruled out the possibility of extending peace talks with Israel beyond their nine-month timeframe, chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said on Monday.
"We turn down any extension," Erakat told the official Voice of Palestine radio station, adding that some of his recent remarks about the matter had been misinterpreted.

Syrian warplanes have killed more than 300 people in an eight-day bombing campaign on Aleppo, with the opposition National Coalition saying it will not attend planned peaced talks if the bombing continues.
The vicious campaign has seen aircraft drop barrels of TNT on rebel-held neighborhoods -- a tactic widely condemned as unlawful -- flooding hospitals with victims, according to activists, medics and others.

Talks on a timetable to form a new Tunisian government under premier-designate Mehdi Jomaa finally began Monday after being postponed three times.
The talks, mediated by the powerful UGTT trade union, will focus on when Jomaa, an independent, takes over from Prime Minister Ali Larayedh of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party.

The constitutional court in the oil-rich Gulf state of Kuwait on Monday rejected two petitions demanding that July parliamentary polls be nullified and the house dissolved because of procedural flaws.
"The court rejects the petitions," said judge Yussef al-Mutawa, head of the constitutional court, in a brief hearing.

All ministers in the Kuwaiti government submitted their resignations on Monday, the government spokesman said, after media reports of an imminent reshuffle.
"All the ministers have submitted their resignations to the prime minister to enable him to prepare for the requirements for the next stage," said State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah al-Sabah, the government spokesman.

Air traffic in Yemen stopped for hours on Monday as staff went on strike over a financial dispute with the government.
Five flights scheduled to leave Sanaa International Airport in the morning were grounded, the airport's director general Khaled Ahmed al-Shayef told Agence France Presse, as traffic at other airports also came to a halt.

A mortar round fired from war-torn Syria struck the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Monday in what was believed to be "errant fire", the army said.
No casualties or damage was reported.

Russia has air-lifted to Syria 75 vehicles and other equipment to help in the multinational operation to remove and destroy the country's chemical weapons, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.
"Over three days -- between December 18 and 20 -- 75 units of automotive equipment including 50 Kamaz trucks and 25 armored Ural vehicles have been brought by aircraft to Latakia airport," Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin via video linkup.

Mortar rounds struck an Iraqi army base west of Baghdad on Monday, killing four officers and two soldiers, security officials said.
A brigade commander was among the dead in the attack, which took place in the Abu Ghraib area, the sources said.

A rocket fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in the early hours of Monday hit a southern Israel community without causing damage or injuries, Israeli police said.
Bomb disposal experts found the "rocket fired from the Gaza Strip" in a community near the city of Ashkelon, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Police said the projectile hit near a school bus stop.
