Washington  - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began a series of closed-door meetings Wednesday with Israeli and Palestinian officials in an effort to nudge along the peace process.

Rice met with her Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, ahead of a planned three-way meeting with chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia.

Sydney, July 30 : Tourists have voted the United States as the most popular tourist destination, knocking Australia and the United Kingdom to the second and the third position, respectively, says a new poll.

Since its debut in 2004, Australia has always come out on top of the Lonely Planet Travellers'''' Pulse Survey.

But this year, for the first time, the US collected 1509 of the 17,500 votes from 132 countries, followed by Australia with 1222.

The United Kingdom took out bronze (965 votes) while Italy (836 votes) and New Zealand (648 votes) rounded out the top five.

Washington

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it would take 20 years to correct mistakes made by US President George W Bush's administration, the Fars news agency reported Wednesday.

"The US is currently going through its worst phase in history: They have an economic crisis, politically they have reached a dead end and even European nations hate the US thoughts and approaches," Ahmadinejad said.

Washington  - The Republican Party released a new television advertisement Tuesday that mocks Germany's adulation with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during his visit to Berlin last week.

The one-minute video contains interviews with some of the 200,000 people who attended Obama's speech in Berlin Thursday, suggesting his "international fan base" is unfit to judge who is best suited to be US president.

Washington  - Reaching a Middle East peace deal by the end of the year will be "difficult" but the Israelis and Palestinians are committed to the goal, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

Rice's comments came ahead of a meeting planned for Wednesday with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia in Washington.