* Gunmen fire near Mauritania embassy Six gunmen opened fire near the Israeli Embassy in Nouakchott, in the northwest African country of Mauritania early Friday morning.

* Egypt thwarts Hamas plan to attack Israeli tourists in Sinai Egypt arrested 12 Hamas militants with weapons and explosives in the Sinai Peninsula near its breached border with the Gaza Strip.

* Web cable to be fixed ‘within week’ Repair ships are going to the site of two undersea cables which were damaged this week, snarling Internet and phone traffic across the Middle East and parts of Asia.

* Nasrallah: Winograd proves we won “The Winograd report is a recognition of the defeat Israel suffered in the Second Lebanon War against our organization,” Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said.

* UN chief backs Kenya talks Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has called on warring political camps in Kenya to end the violence and urgently start a political dialogue.

* Barak to decide PM’s fate this weekend Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak will neither quit the government nor push for immediate elections.

* Top al-Qaeda commander ‘killed’ A senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed, Western counter-terrorism officials have told the BBC.

* ‘Anti-Zionist’ Arab charter inconsistent with UN norms’ The office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour expressed concern on Wednesday over the “incompatibility of some of the provisions” of the Arab Charter on Human Rights.

* Microsoft wants to purchase Yahoo Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.4bn) in cash and shares.

* Brussels watches as Serbs head to polls Serbians will on Sunday elect their new president, in a choice between current pro-Western leader Boris Tadic.