Latest Middle East News
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Multiple bombings in Iraq leave over 60 dead
BAGHDAD, Iraq - More than 60 people, including Iranian Shia pilgrims, were killed in a series of car bombings and shootings across Iraq Monday, officials said. The worst hit in Monday's violence was Baghdad where eight car bombs and a roadside bomb ripped through bus stops, marketplaces and other crowded areas in Shia neighbourhoods. The attacks left 12 people dead and 109 wounded, a senior ...
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Hezbollah loses 23 militants in clash with Syrian rebels claim activists
BEIRUT, Lebanon - At least 23 elite fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, fighting alongside the Syrian government troops, were killed near the Lebanese border Monday, an activist group said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syria's war, said more than 100 Hezbollah members also have been wounded in the fighting around the opposition-held ...
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Construction begins on new island off Jumeirah Beach in Dubai
Work began on Monday on the development of a man-made island in Dubai, 500 metres directly opposite the Jumeirah Beach Residence complex. To be known as Bluewaters Island, the new development will house five star hotels and resorts, al fresco dining and entertainment zones, and residential apartments and villas. The focal point of the island city, which will cost $1.6 billion, will be a 688 ...
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9 killed 53 wounded in attacks against mosques in southern Iraq
Beijing, May 21 (Xinhua-ANI): At least nine people were killed and 53 others wounded in bombing attacks against two Shiite mosques in Iraq's southern city of Hilla on Monday, a police source said. A suicide bomber wearing explosive vest blew himself up at Al- Wardiyah mosque in Hilla, some 100 km south of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and about five minutes later a bomb exploded in the nearby ...
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Past Differences Hamper US-Russian Efforts to Help Syria
Public diplomacy experts say a difference in perceptions dating back to the Cold War era could hamper U.S. and Russian efforts to deal with the ongoing civil war in Syria. Heritage Foundation senior fellow Helle Dale said there is a "love-hate" relationship between the United States and Russia that is "quite complicated." On VOA's Encounter program, Dale said she agrees with an ...
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Wave of Attacks Kills At Least 76 in Iraq
A wave of car bombings and suicide attacks against Shi'ite Muslims ripped through Iraqi cities Monday, killing at least 76 people and wounding scores more, extending the worst sectarian violence since U.S. troops withdrew from the country in December 2011. The attacks increased the number of Iraqis killed in sectarian clashes over the past week to more than 200, including 70 who died Friday ...
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Khurshid to undertake two-day visit of Saudi Arabia from May 25
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will undertake a two-day visit of Saudi Arabia on May 25 and 26, at the invitation of Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal. A government release said on Monday that this would be Khurshid 's first bilateral visit to Saudi Arabia and to the region as India's External Affairs Minister, and added that he will hold discussions with his ...
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Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne reconcile on red carpet with kiss
Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne took another step toward a possible reconciliation with a big red carpet kiss on Saturday night. The couple, who very publicly split following Ozzy's admitted fall from sobriety last month, attended the L.A. Gay 'n' Lesbian Center's 'An Evening With Women' at the Beverly Hilton, Radar Online reported. The pair was accompanied by daughter Kelly. ...
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13 killed 72 wounded in Iraq car bombings
Beijing, May 20 (Xinhua-ANI): At least 13 people were killed and 72 wounded in a series of car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and the southern city of Basra on Monday, the police said. One of the attacks occurred in the oil-hub city of Basra, some 550 km south of Baghdad, when two car bombs went off almost simultaneously in the western part of the city, leaving at least nine ...
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Syria army regains large part of strategic al-Qussair city
Beijing, May 20 (Xinhua-ANI): The Syrian army on Sunday launched a wide-scale operation to recapture the border city of al-Qussair near Lebanon, and has regained large swathes of the strategic city, local media reported. The offensive aims to cut the rebels' main supply line in the central region of the country, analysts said. Earlier, the official Sham FM radio said the troops have reached ...
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Attacks Kill 7 in Iraq
Officials say a suicide bombing followed by clashes between militants and Iraqi troops left three soldiers dead Tuesday in Tarmiyah, north of the capital, Baghdad. Farther north, two car bombs exploded in Tuz Khormato, killing three people, while car bombs in Kirkuk killed at least one person. Both cities are in an area that Iraq's Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous ...
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Officials More attacks in Iraq 7 killed
A police officer says a suicide blast at a checkpoint, followed by militants who opened fire at Iraqi troops, has killed three soldiers in Tarmiyah. The town is 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of ...
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Israel Bank RobberyFour people have been dead Be’er Sheva bank robbers Breaking News
At least four people – three men and one woman – were killed and several others were injured, including one person in serious condition, during a robbery gone wrong at a Be’er Sheva bank on Monday. The victims reportedly died during a shootout at a branch of Bank Hapoalim in the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva. A further shot was heard from the bank at around ...
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Iran approves agreement on Argentine bombing probe diplomat
Eduardo Amadeo, a legislator from the opposition Peronist Front, left, speaks against an agreement between Argentina and Iran in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013. The signs read in Spanish "Iran kills," left, and "Do not betray their memory, no to the agreement with the Iran regime." (AP Photo/Victor R. ...
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Hezbollah sends new fighters to bloody Syria battle
Members of Lebanon's Hezbollah carry the coffin of their comrade Fadi Mohammed al-Jazzar during his funeral in southern Beirut on May 20, 2013. AFP ...
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Qatar Economic Zone 1 first phase to open in 2016
The first of Qatar’s three planned economic zones may be open for business as early as the first quarter of 2016, according to Fahad Rashid Al-Kaabi, CEO of Qatar Economic Zone Projects. Speaking on the sidelines of the MEP Conference in Qatar, Al-Kaabi added that the opening of the third economic zone could follow soon after in 2016 Q2. "We have a phased approach on all the ...
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Iran to host meeting on Syria on May 29
Iran ian Foreign Ministry spokesman announced on Tuesday. Abbas Araqchi said "from the very beginning, we believe that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis and that a national dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition will lead to a rational solution" to the crisis. The slogan of the upcoming meeting in Iran's capital of Tehran is "Political ...
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IMF again raises Egypt inflation forecast to 3-year high
The International Monetary Fund Inflation in Egypt is expected to climb to 10.9 percent this year, the highest level since 2010, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, more than it expected in April."Inflation is expected to rise in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia, reflecting recent and planned subsidy cuts and, in some cases, pressure from monetization of fiscal deficits and ...
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Israel returns fire after vehicle hit in the Golan no casualties reported
Israeli soldiers in the occupied Golan Heights (AFP) Israeli soldiers patrolling the disputed Golan Heights along the border with Syria fired back after coming under fire overnight Monday, an Israeli Defense Force statement said, reporting a "direct hit.""Overnight, shots were fired at an IDF patrol on the border in the central Golan Heights, damaging a military vehicle," ...
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Saudi Arabia executes crucifies 5 Yemenis for murder SPA
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday executed and crucified five Yemenis convicted of murder and forming a gang which carried out robberies across several towns in the conservative Muslim kingdom, the interior ministry said. The five were executed in the southwestern town Jizan, it said, quoted by state news agency SPA, bringing the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to 46, according to an AFP ...
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Egypts anti-Morsi rebels gather millions of signatures
An Egyptian activist covers her face with the petition for "Tamarod," Arabic for "rebel," a campaign calling for 15 million signatures expressing "no confidence" in Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and calling for early presidential elections, during a protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo on May ...
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Syrian watchdog says rebels are putting up fierce resistance to Hezbollah-led assault on Qusayr.
BEIRUT - Dozens of people, mostly combatants, have been killed in ongoing battles for the Syrian town of Qusayr, a watchdog said Tuesday, as Hezbollah sent new elite fighters to the rebel ...
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Romney speaks during campaign event in Virginia
U.S. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign event in Richmond, Virginia, the United States, Nov. 1, 2012. With less than one week to go until the election day, Romney is campaigning in Virginia. (Xinhua/Fang ...
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Syria highlights US political impotence
By Ramzy Baroud In an article published on May 15, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, "Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States in particular and Western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria." Those limitations are ...
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Qatar National Bank to start India ops in expansion push
DOHA | Tue May 21, 2013 4:39am EDT DOHA May 21 (Reuters) - Qatar National Bank (QNB), one of the most acquisitive Gulf Arab lenders, will start operations in India in the third quarter of this year, the bank said on Tuesday, expanding its reach to Asia's third-largest economy. The state-owned bank, which has a presence in nearly 25 countries, said it had received all regulatory ...
Middle East Focus
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Israel and Palestine as one country?
Peace in the Middle East, it’s as illusive now as it was ten years ago and ten years before that. For many commentators, peace in the Middle East has become a myth, something local and international governments strive for or claim to support without any real hope of realization of the goal. With the current impasse between Israel and the Palestinian Authority ongoing, an old theme is being kicked around again, that of a single state that incorporates Israel and Palestine.
A single state solution is an idea that grew up in the 1920s and then died with the Six-Day War when divisions between the newly-founded Israeli state and the rest of the region were too entrenched for the idea to retain any traction. The political landscape after the war and even today is what many Jewish groups feared when Jewish Zionists were calling for a return to the biblical homeland to develop a Jewish state. Read more
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