US A real chance exists for a Middle East peace deal after generations of violence and bloodshed, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said following optimistic talks with US President George W. Bush ahead of a conference in London next week. Mideast Beleaguered Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei scrapped his proposed new cabinet line-up, bowing to pressure to make a clean break from the Yasser Arafat era with a radical overhaul of government. North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has said his country is willing to return to nuclear disarmament talks despite an earlier threat to withdraw from negotiations, Chinese officials reported. Iran More than 230 people were killed when a huge earthquake struck Iran before dawn, leaving distraught villagers to claw through the rubble of their homes in search of missing family and friends. Iraq Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim Jaafari will be named as the candidate for the post of prime minister of the Shiite religious list that won last month's elections, a Shiite official said. Iraq Australia will send an extra 450 troops to Iraq to help protect a Japanese humanitarian mission in the south and bolster the country's transition to democracy, Prime Minister John Howard said. US US President George W. Bush expressed "deep concern" about European Union plans to lift an arms embargo on China, saying that it might upset relations between Beijing and Taiwan. US US President George W. Bush and his old adversary French President Jacques Chirac appeared to have turned the page on their differences over Iraq, uniting in calls for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. NATO NATO's chief vows to boost the political role of the West's former Cold War-era military bloc, winning apparent backing from France in a debate fueled by comments by Germany's Gerhard Schroeder questioning NATO's future. Afghanistan A top US senator called for a permanent American military presence in Afghanistan to protect his country's security interests in the region, where Iran is allegedly jostling for nuclear capability. OPEC OPEC president and Kuwait's Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah said there was no need for the oil cartel to cut output at present, but that the market must be monitored carefully.