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The White House lays the blame for the violence in Gaza on Hamas. But many analysts are closely watching for any indication of how President-elect Obama will deal with the Israeli-Palestinian issue when he takes office next month.

Israeli warplanes pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for a third consecutive day Monday. The Jewish state is prepared to launch a possible invasion after killing more than 300 Palestinians in air raids. Tension along the border between Gaza and Egypt is tense as Gazans try to escape the chaos. Hamas wants the border open permanently — Egypt refuses.

In a significant policy change, the U.S. has concluded there can be no power-sharing government as long as Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is in power. A State Department official spent days meeting with regional leaders in an attempt to get them to get tougher on the 84-year-old leader.

The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs is expected to meet in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday with top leaders of Somalia's transitional government. Somalia's capital is under siege from an Islamist insurgency. The meeting will likely be tense because the president fired the prime minister but the prime minister says he isn't going anywhere.

Officials from some 25 nations gathered in Bahrain for a security conference that included discussions about the booming piracy business in the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere. No one seemed to be offering a workable strategy for fixing what many agreed is the root of the problem, the failed state of Somalia.

Zimbabwe is suffering from a humanitarian crisis. The political unrest in the region has the economy in shambles. Millions of people are affected by post-election violence, diseases and malnutrition. U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, explains the challenges facing the African nation and how he would like regional leaders to help defuse the political standoff.

The group consists of a dozen former world leaders who tackle global issues such as war, poverty and human rights, as a group of elders would resolve conflicts in an African village. Musician Peter Gabriel came up with the concept in 1999.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Pakistan to cooperate with India's investigations into the Mumbai attacks that have sorely tested relations between the two neighbors.

India has demanded that neighboring Pakistan take "strong action" against those responsible for the Mumbai attacks, and the U.S. has pressured Pakistan to cooperate in the investigation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit India on Wednesday.

President-elect Obama announced Monday that Sen. Hillary Clinton, his Democratic primary rival, will be his secretary of state, and Robert Gates will stay on as defense secretary.