* Olmert, Arabs Negotiating Over Temple Mount Arab representatives who are negotiating an agreement with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office have made it clear that they will not accept any final peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish State forfeits the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.

* Iraq governor dies in bomb attack An Iraqi governor has died in a roadside bomb attack, the second assassination of a provincial leader in nine days.

* Iraqi PM comes to Syria for first visit Iraq’s embattled Nouri al-Maliki came to Syria on Monday on his first visit as prime minister amid efforts to garner neighbors’ support for curbing violence at home.

* ‘US pushing Israel to wage war against Syria with aid’ Washington is preventing Israel from making peace with Syria and instead is pushing it to wage war, the Arab country’s government-owned daily Tishrin read on Monday.

* Sadr vows to work with UN if it replaces US, UK in Iraq Radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr has pledged to commit his forces and followers to help the United Nations were it to replace American and British troops in Iraq, in an interview published Monday.

* Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they’re getting closer.

* Scientists Oppose Peres’ Dead Sea Canal Scheme The World Bank has finished a series of public hearings on a project which will link the Red Sea in the Gulf of Eilat to the depleted and polluted Dead Sea, located between Israel and Jordan.

* ILA leasing Arab-owned land in Jerusalem to Ateret Cohanim The Israel Lands Administration (ILA) is working together with the Ateret Cohanim association to wrest from Palestinian landowners control of 30 dunams (7.5 acres) of land in East Jerusalem and to transfer it to the association without a tender.

* Turkey holds new presidency vote Voting is taking place in the newly-elected Turkish parliament to choose the country’s next president.

* France most at ease with Muslim population Britons are more suspicious of Muslims than citizens of other big EU states while the French appear the most at ease with their Muslim population, according to a new poll.