CAIRO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought a "new beginning" between the United States and the Muslim world on Thursday but offered no new initiative to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, an omission likely to disappoint many.
"We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world -- tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate," the U.S. president said in a major speech at Cairo University.
"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," he said. "America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."
Obama's speech was an effort to restore the tarnished U.S. image among many of the more than 1 billion Muslims around the world, damaged by former President George W. Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the treatment of U.S. military detainees.
It coincided with the release of new remarks by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden aimed at trying to undermine his message.
Bin Laden told Muslims alliances with Christians and Jews would annul their faith and urged them to fight Western allies in Muslim countries.
The choice of Cairo for the speech underscored Obama's focus on the Middle East, where he faces huge foreign policy challenges, from trying to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to curbing Iran's nuclear program.
Obama, who is hoping to build a coalition of Muslim government to back his diplomatic moves, offered no new proposals to advance the Middle East peace process, saying Palestinians "must abandon violence" and urging them acknowledge Israel's right to exist.
"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," he said. "This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop."
Before the speech, the U.S. president met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"We discussed how to move forward in a constructive way to bring peace and prosperity to people in the region," Obama told reporters after the talks with Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981 and kept a tight lid on opposition.
(Additional reporting by Cynthia Johnston in Cairo and Zahra Hosseinian in Tehran; Writing by Edmund Blair; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

London The hectic pace of US seems to have tired Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie, who is reportedly house hunting in Portugal.
The 'Changeling' actress who raises six children with partner Brad Pitt, is keen to embark on a more sedate lifestyle which has reportedly prompted her to find a place in the country, Femalefirst reported.
"She loves Portugal and wants to raise her kids there. She wants to move there as soon as possible," a source close to Jolie said.
The 33-year-old actress is said to be considering buying a property looking onto the beach in the village of Lagos, in the southern Algarve area of the country. It is not known whether Jolie will use her new home as her main residence or whether Pitt will move with her.
"Let's put it this way, they have an open relationship. Every day is a new day with them. I love them both dearly but I must confess things have been hard for them the past few month," the source said.

LONDON - STAR of the Harry Potter film franchise, Daniel Radcliffe, thinks sex scenes are boring, reported British media on Tuesday.
The actor, who had his first love scene in December Boys with Teresa Palmer in 2007, expected the encounter to be 'amazing' and was stunned to discover how tedious the process was.
'You wonder how those actors manage to control themselves but when you're doing it and there's people watching you, there's nothing sexy about it at all.
'It is not in the least bit exciting, no matter how beautiful the girl is,' he reportedly said. -- Reuters

The ‘Friends’ star is so fond of her pooch that she brings him to set when she is shooting ''The Baster'', reports the China Daily. "Norman is important in Jennifer's life, but the crew is fed up with having to dote on him. Jennifer needs him around all the time and she won't stand for him being chained up. So the dog has his own chair near the director, and Jennifer also has a doggy masseuse tend to Norman every day," a source told the National Enquirer magazine. The 40-year-old actress ensures that Norman is walked three times a day, and is given meals from the actors'' catering van. The source added: "She even insists that Norman eat with the crew and that he's fed organic, human-grade food. So Jennifer's assistant has special plates made up by the caterer with free-range white meat chicken and organic rice. Norman eats healthier and better than most humans." Jennifer's love for the 13-year-old corgi-terrier has always hit headlines, be it for the dog’s 250 dollars a week massages or acupuncture treatments to combat his aching joints.

Manuel Pellegrini has revealed that his ambition in coaching was to take charge at Real Madrid - and he believes his appointment is a dream that has now been fulfilled.The Chilean trainer was chosen by the club's new president, Florentino Perez, after a stunning spell in charge of Villarreal that saw him help transform the modest Valencian outfit.

New releases every week, glamorous Hollywood-like premieres and intense advertising have characterized the fiercely competitive summer season for Egypt’s cinema industry. For the past decade or so, summer has been the most lucrative season for Egyptian films, with more than one-third of annual productions released in June, July and August.
But last year’s summer season was cut short with the holy month of Ramadan starting on Sept. 1, and this year the season will get even shorter with Ramadan starting on Aug. 22.
Since this won’t be changing anytime soon — with the holy month beginning earlier every year — the cinema industry has had to re-strategize. One insider even said that summer’s no longer the “hot” season and that distributors are trying to cash in all year round.
Two major distribution companies in Egypt, Oscar/El Nasr/Massa and Misr Al-Arabeya have created an earlier schedule for their releases, kicking-off the season in May with “Youm Ma Et’abelna” (The Day We Met) and “Dokan Shehata” (Shehata’s Store) as well as four other movies lined up for the summer.
“Every year we say the season is getting shorter, but when you look at it, it’s only getting shorter by one week so it doesn’t have such a big effect,” Abdel Gileel Hassan, spokesperson of Misr Al-Arabeya Production and Distribution Company, said.
“Summer is no longer the top season of the cinema industry, nowadays the season is all year with new releases coming out without considering the date. This is all to the benefit of the viewers,” Hassan added.
The current average grosses of what can be branded a blockbuster are LE 15 million and summer has traditionally been the safest season to reach that multi-million-pound mark. With a lot of time on their hands during the summer months, viewers sometimes watch the same movie more than once, which means robust revenues for the industry.
But that way of doing business is quickly changing. Big names no longer keep their movies locked up until the summer and revenues are high at other times of the year. For example, Ahmed El-Sakka released his movie “The Island” during the 2008 winter vacation and it was quite a hit. Mohamed Heneidy’s “Ramadan Mabrouk Aboul Alamein Hammouda,” released earlier this year, also broke all records.
“With Ramadan eating up the summer — and it will be coming even earlier in the coming years — this opened up the season more and it is no longer confined to June, July and August,” Sayed Fathi, director of the Federation of the Egyptian Cinema Industry, said.
Prominent film critic Rafiq El-Sabban said that this change is of great benefit to the audience. The short season has forced producers to release exceptional films, distinctive enough to face the fierce competition.
In the past couple of years, Egyptian audiences have had a wide variety of movies to choose from — no longer a few comedies led by longstanding box-office champs such as Adel Imam.
The competition has intensified as production and marketing costs escalated, propelled by a flood of aspiring young actors appearing on screen every year.
“Since last summer we have been seeing many surprises,” El-Sabban said, noting that last year producer Ahmed Sobky, notorious for making some of the worst reviewed films in the past decade, surprised critics and audiences with the highly-acclaimed “Cabaret.”
“This year we are also expecting a lot of great movies. Already there is ‘Dokan Shehata’ and ‘Ibrahim El-Abyad’ — two major productions,” he added.
There are only two conglomerates controlling movie distribution in Egypt, the Misr Al-Arabeya and Oscar/Al-Nasr/Al-Massa, and rumors of their rivalry always abound.
But Hassan refutes this claim. “Just because we are two companies in the market doesn’t mean we are rivals,” he said, “each company shows its movies in the theaters it owns and both companies are satisfied with this current state.
“There aren’t any losses — if no one is losing and no producer is hurt by our competition, then at the end of the day it is in the benefit of the film industry and our culture.”
Fathi concurs, saying that “there aren’t any problems between the distribution companies as each of them have their movies lined up to be released in the company’s own theaters,” he said.
Because of the relatively short length of last year’s season, no new films were released during Eid El-Fitr and the summer movies continued playing in theaters. This year will be different with new movies lined up for the holiday and some summer movies staying on.
Experts, critics and players in the market all believe that a good movie will survive and succeed no matter when it is released.
“A good movie, even if it doesn’t have any big name [actors] or is released at a peak season, will attract the audience and will succeed no matter what,” said Hassan.
At the same time, “fans will make time to go watch their favorite star’s movie at any time of the year,” Fathi said.

Saddened by the continuing racist attacks against Indians in Australia, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan has refused to accept an honorary doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
The University’s highest honorary award was to be conferred on Big B at a major public event on July 30, at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, to recognise his outstanding contribution to creative industries over several decades. Expressing his distress on the issue, Amitabh, in his latest blog post, said, "I have been witnessing with great dismay and shock, the recent violent attacks on Indian students in Australia, on the electronic media the entire day." "I mean no disrespect to the Institution that honours me, but under the present circumstances, where citizens of my own country are subjected to such acts of inhuman horror, my conscience does not permit me to accept this decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow countrymen," he added. Amitabh is only the second person from India, after IT leader Narayan Murthy, to be chosen for such an honour from QUT. Australia has recently seen a series of attacks on Indian students, the most serious being the assault of Shravan Kumar, a 25-year-old student from Andhra Pradesh who is battling for life in a hospital here after being stabbed by a screwdriver by a group of teens in a weekend attack that also left three of his friends injured.