Countries in the Gulf share the U.S. view on the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program and support an approach focused on sanctions against Tehran, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

"I think there is general support in the region for applying the sanctions and for doing what we can to make the sanctions effective, in trying to influence the Iranian government to walk away from their nuclear weapons program," Gates told reporters on his plane after a visit to the region.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday ruled out negotiations with Israel as long as it refuses to freeze settlement building, but did not specify if he would agree to indirect talks.

"We will not accept negotiations as long as settlements continue," Abbas told reporters in Cairo after more than one hour of talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Hackers claimed Wednesday to have attacked the websites of Mastercard and a Swiss bank in apparent revenge for their decisions to choke off funding for the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

But WikiLeaks insisted it had nothing to do with the hacking.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit urged the international community on Wednesday to call an "end game" in Middle East peace talks and set clear deadlines for reaching Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

"The Egyptian view is as follows: Let's agree on an end game," Abul Gheit said after talks in Sofia with his Bulgarian counterpart Nikolay Mladenov.

A fire killed at least 81 inmates in Santiago early Wednesday in what officials called the worst ever disaster at a Chilean prison.

"It's an immense tragedy -- probably the worst in the history of our prison system," said Health Minister Jaime Manalich, after firefighters extinguished the blaze that swept through a jail in the capital city.

Marine experts on Wednesday quizzed witnesses to shark attacks as beaches at Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh remained closed after a woman was torn apart by a shark.

South Sinai governor Mohammed Shosha told Agence France Presse authorities would announce later in the day whether they would reopen beaches which are visited each year by between three and four million tourists.

At least 17 people were killed in a suicide attack on a market in Pakistan's northwestern town of Kohat on Wednesday, the local police chief said.

The top U.S. military officer on Wednesday warned North Korea that the U.S. commitment to helping South Korea defend itself is "unquestioned," even as he pressed China to use its influence to push its ally Pyongyang to change.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called recent North Korean aggression, including an artillery attack last month that killed four South Koreans, "belligerent, reckless behavior." He said China appeared unwilling to use its enormous leverage to rein in the North.

Police are investigating the chef at a canteen of a leading university in Bangladesh after a student found a rat's head in a bowl of chicken curry, sparking protests.

The student made the gruesome discovery while eating lunch on Monday and fell sick immediately, the head of security at Rajshahi university in western Bangladesh, Chowdhury Muhammad Zakaria, told Agence France Presse.

Israel carried out two air raids on the Gaza Strip early Wednesday without causing any casualties, Palestinian security officials said.

The attacks came after Palestinian militants fired two projectiles into southern Israel from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday.