US set to launch 'deal of century'

MANAMA/JERUSALEM - The first stage of US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan was expected to be launched in Bahrain on Tuesday at a conference the White House touts as a bid to drum up $50 billion in investment in the region. Palestinians, however, have derides it as an "economy first" approach doomed to fail.

The two-day meeting, led by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been billed as the first part of Washington's long-delayed broader political blueprint to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be unveiled at a later date.

But neither the Israeli nor Palestinian governments will send representatives to the curtain-raising event in the Bahraini capital, Manama.