An oil tanker owned and operated by Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd was damaged in a "tremor" in the strait of Hormuz. Omani coastguard said on Wednesday that there was no evidence of an attack. "A minor earthquake of 3.4 magnitude happened in Bandar Abbas." Alarabiya.net quotes a representative of Iran's International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering as saying. A crew member was slightly injured and the ship was heading to port to assess the damage.

The case caused outrage at home and abroad has opened in Egypt. Two policemen are charged with brutality in the death of a 28-year-old man in June. Khaled Said died in police custody on a street in Alexandria. Witnesses say that policeman dragged Mr Said out of a cafe and beat him up to the death But the government says Said died of suffocation after swallowing a packet of drugs. A statement issued by Amnesty International on Monday expressed concern that witnesses in the trial could be harassed and urged the government to ensure their safety. Bbc.co.uk.

Yemeni army killed three suspected Al-Qaeda militants in clashes late on Sunday in Shabwa province, a security official said. One of them is believed to be a senior one. "Three Al-Qaeda members, one of them a top leader, were killed in the deadly exchanges with troops guarding an oilfield in the province”, Middle-east-online.com quotes a security official as saying. The militants opened fire with machine guns at the soldiers who were posted near a foreign oil company's plants the official said. Shabwa province is a stronghold of Al-Qaeda rebels.

France gave technical and logistical support to Mauritanian troops in a recent military operation against al-Qaeda's North African wing. "The terrorist group targeted by the Mauritanian army is the one that executed a British hostage a year ago and has refused to give proof of life or engage in negotiations to release our compatriot Michel Germaneau," Aljazeera.net quotes the French defence ministry as saying. Mauritanian authorities said that army attacked an al-Qaeda-linked group in the border region of northern Mali and Mauritania to release a 78-year-old French hostage facing execution but failed to find him. Michel Germaneau, an aid worker was kidnapped on April 19.

The head of the militant Shia movement Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah said that some of its members will be among those charged with the assassination of ex-Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafik Hariri. Mr Hariri and 22 other people were killed in Beirut in a car bomb in 2005. The leader of Hezbollah, said some of the group would be indicted by the UN-backed court (The Special Tribunal for Lebanon) within the coming months. Speaking by video link for security reasons, Nasrallah said it was part of a US and Israeli conspiracy to impose their will on the region. Bbc.co.uk.

Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Chad on Wednesday. This is his first visit to a full member state of the International Criminal Court demanding his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur last year. This month the court added genocide to the list of charges, accusing him of presiding over rape, torture and murder in the remote western regions of Sudan. The ICC said that as a member state Chad was obliged to detain Bashir. "The main element concerning Chad and all other member states is to implement judges' decisions and cooperate with a request for arrest," Alarabiya.net quotes ICC representative Fadi El Abdallah as saying.

The United Nations has included U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki of Yemeni origin in its terrorist list. It means that member countries are obliged to freeze his assets and ban his travel, the U.S. State Department announced yesterday. Al-Awlaki has played major role with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula as a recruiter planner and trainer. He also took part in planning recent terror attacks in the USA including the failed Christmas Day attempt to take down a Detroit-bound passenger jet. Alarabiya.net.

BP signed a major agreement with Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. on Monday to develop two offshore gas fields. This is the largest deal for the beleaguered energy giant since its notorious disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Egypt's petroleum ministry said in a statement that the deal would develop five trillion cubic metres of gas from the North Alexandria Deepwater concession and the Western Mediterranean concession. According to the ministry the fields will produce 900 million cubic metres of gas a day starting from 2014. BP said in a statement that the blocks will produce up to one billion cubic metres a day. BP and its German partner RWE will invest the nine billion dollars for the project according to their stakes. BP holds 60 percent of the North Alexandria concession and 80 percent of the West Mediterranean concession. Middle-east-online.com.

Hamas authorities ruling the Gaza strip are banning women from smoking water pipes in cafes and open places, claiming it violates customs, traditions and social norms. The smoking of water pipes loaded with scented tobacco, also known as shisha, is popular in cafes and public places of the Arab countries and was one of the few remaining leisure activities left in the isolated coastal strip. According to policemen, husbands often divorce women seen smoking in public. The owners of several coastal cafes said that in recent days they were ordered to stop serving the water pipes at all, before police clarified that the ban only referred to women and minors. Alarabiya.net.

Sudanese state media report says that nearly 400 people were killed in recent clashes between the Sudanese army and Darfur's main rebel movement Justice and Equality Movement (Jem). UN peacekeepers in Darfur confirmed that there were at least two major clashes between the two sides earlier this week. Eighty-six soldiers were reportedly killed. Members of the UN peacekeeping mission also said they were investigating reports of a third clash happened in Daba Tago, near the north Darfur settlement of Mellit. According to Aljazeera.net General Al-Tayeb al-Musbah told that the army destroyed "scores of Jem vehicles" during the conflicts.