AMMAN, Jordan, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Jordan says it is moving ahead with plans to build its first nuclear power plant, inking a $12 million deal with a Belgian firm to study environmental concerns.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Amid the gathering storm over Iran's controversial nuclear ambitions, the race is on among Arab states to build nuclear power plants of their own, opening up immense trade opportunities for the industrialized world as well as the specter of proliferation.

JERUSALEM, July 16 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may attend the opening ceremony of the United Nations General Assembly in September, government officials said.

SHUNEH, Jordan, May 18 (UPI) -- Israeli President Shimon Peres said Sunday in Jordan that he sees "eye to eye" with King Abdullah II after a meeting with the Jordanian monarch.

WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI wants to make his eight-day visit to Jordan and Israel a powerful symbol of his determination to reduce hatred in the world and build better ties between the Roman Catholic Church he heads and the other great monotheistic religions of Islam and Judaism. But the times are against him.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- In purely military terms Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, lost its three-week war in Gaza to Israel, but it is already making giant strides in winning the peace.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- The Israeli army looks like it is belatedly preparing for a longer, more massive ground action than it originally planned.

Obama's options: between observance and implementation; questioning Obama's choice of Clinton as secretary of state; 2008 brought diplomatic relations to Iraq.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Israel stepped up its bombing campaign against major Hamas centers in Gaza Tuesday as prospects grew that heavy ground forces might be sent in to topple the extreme Islamist regime there.