Stories for Tuesday 4 March

Good morning, first up today is the Middle East – we didn’t talk about it yesterday but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is now in the region on a trip aimed at saving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas broke off contacts with Israel in protest at its recent offensive in Gaza, so I guess there are talks to save. I’m not sure how far they’ve got since the conference in Annapolis late last year.