Latest Middle East News
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Kerry urges Israel to promote peace talks not settlements
US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Israel's government on Friday to prevent further settlement construction where possible to help revitalize Middle East peace hopes, but stressed that the Jewish state and Palestinians alike should remain focused on the larger goal of restarting direct negotiations. Explaining part of the strategy of his now 2-month-old peace initiative, Kerry said ...
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Syria willing to attend peace talks
/enpproperty--> Damascus has agreed "in principle" to attend a conference proposed by Russia and the United States on ending Syria's civil conflict, Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday. It was the first confirmation that President Bashar al-Assad's government would be willing to take part in the talks with the opposition. But despite the announcement from ...
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Royal Congratulatory Messages To Jordan
Bandar Seri Begawan - His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam has consented to send a congratulatory message to His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and member of the royal family, as well as the people of Jordan, on the occasion of Jordan's Independence ...
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Analysis In Syria winning is a relative term
Syrian army soldiers taking position in the Jarba area in rural Damascus, Syria, in this photo released May 13 by the official Syrian Arab News ...
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Salafists on the Move
BEIRUT - The sudden escalation of fighting in the north Lebanese city of Tripoli is troubling on two fronts and noteworthy on a third. The troubling dimensions are the chronic nature of urban warfare on ...
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Al-Assad Syria will slash roots of Israeli adventurism
Al-Assad: Syria will slash roots of Israeli adventurism Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has emphasized on Tuesday that Damascus is able to confront the Israeli regime's adventurism, alluding to the recent Israeli aggression against the Arab country. The Syrian president stressed that the Israeli offensive is evidence of interference by Tel Aviv and its Western and regional allies in the ...
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News Wrap Russia Says Syria Has Agreed to Peace Conference
In other news Friday, Russian officials announced that Syria has agreed "in principle" to attend an international peace conference on outlining a transition for new leadership. Also, in Kabul, Afghanistan, a guest house used by an international aid group was targeted by a suicide car bomber and five armed ...
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US Turkey Qatar seek urgent UN rights debate on Syria
The United States, Turkey and Qatar called Friday for an urgent debate on Syria at the UN's top human rights body next week, citing the escalating conflict and the regime's assault on the central town of ...
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Syria opposition demands goodwill gestures from Assad
Syria's opposition called Friday on President Bashar al-Assad to prove it is working for a transition of power in the war-torn country, as they gathered in Istanbul to discuss a US-Russian initiative for ...
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Bahrains GPZ in deal with 1800 workers to end strike
Bahraini labour ministry has said around 1,800 workers at G P Zachariades (GPZ) contracting firm who went on strike last week, claiming they hadn't been paid for the past two months, have returned to work, Gulf Daily News has reported. "There was an agreement that the company would pay one and a half months salary and the balance would be paid in a couple of days," said the ...
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Egypt in talks with Qatar Iraq over energy imports
Egyptian oil minister Sherif Haddara has said negotiations with Qatar over a gas swap deal and Iraq over oil imports are ongoing and will "soon" be finalised, Ahram has reported. "Communications are open with them," Haddara said. "These are big deals and need time. Soon we will hear that they are ...
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Over 1 lakh Indians face arrest in Saudi Arabia
naturalisation law or Nitaqat, which seeks to replace foreigners in companies with its own people, India is in the midst of a gigantic effort to bring back over 75,000 people in the next few months. After having failed to regularise their work status, these people have applied for emergency exit certificates to leave the country by July 3, the deadline set by Saudi Arabia for deportation of ...
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Syria’s opposition says may take part in Geneva conference
ANKARA, May 25 (Itar-Tass) - National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces is ready to take part in the Geneva-2 talks on resolving the conflict in Syria but it puts forward certain conditions, Haled Hojja, a representative of the coalitions participating in a conference of irreconcilable oppositionists in Istanbul ...
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Over 2500 refugees from Qusair arrive in Lebanon
United Nations refugee agency could, however, provide some details about the new arrivals. According to its weekly update, more than half of the Qusair refugees arrived with neither legal documentation nor belongings, and many reported they had had to flee to different cities ...
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Kenya Egypt rebuilds its Energy sector after Turmoil
Egypt . "Coming on the heels of Cabinet-level approval for the project, the concession agreement between Mashreq and the Port Said Port Authority clears the way for the fast-tracking of this critical project, which stands as a backup to Egypt's national energy security," said Mashreq Petroleum Chairman and Managing Director Dr. Tamer Abubakr. Mashreq Petroleum is a core platform ...
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Syrian refugees in Jordan unmoved by peace bid
A Syrian woman buys supplies from a make-shift store, at the Zaatari refugee camp, near the Syrian border, in Mafraq, Jordan, Monday, April 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Mohammad ...
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U.S. spy servers found in Syria spark queries
BEIRUT: Reporters Without Borders is calling for explanations from a Californian Web security company after a hacktivist group discovered 34 of its servers were being used by the Syrian government, potentially to spy on Internet users. The Blue Coat servers use Deep Packet Inspection technology "to analyze and control the activities of Syrian Internet users – censuring websites, ...
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Regime likely to succeed in bid to take Qusair secure vital corridor
Aleppo last summer." Opposition activist Hadi Abdullah, from Qusair, said rebels repelled a government advance in the town’s outskirts Thursday while George Sabra, the acting head of the National Coalition, urged fighters to "rush to the rescue" of the town. However, analysts say that due to their superior military capacity and manpower, it is likely President Bashar ...
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Bahrainis protest over raid on ayatollah’s home
Bahraini women hold pictures of Bahraini senior Shiite cleric Sheikh Issa Qassem during a protest against the regime and to show solidarity with the cleric in the village of Abu Saiba, west of Manama, on May 17, 2013. (AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED ...
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Ahead of hajj WHO to help virus-hit Riyadh
Saudi Arabia dig deeper into deadly outbreaks of a new SARS-like virus to draw up advice ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage, which attracts millions of Muslims. The U.N. agency, which is not currently recommending any restrictions on travel to the kingdom or screening of passengers at airports or entry points, will send a second team of experts in the coming weeks, WHO ...
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Iran stacks presidential candidate list with safe Khamenei men
FILE -- In this Saturday, May 11, 2013 file photo, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 78, waves to media, as he registers his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, ...
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U.S. casts doubt on credibility of Iran’s upcoming election
United States Friday called into question the credibility of Iran’s presidential election next month, criticizing the disqualification of candidates and ...
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Bahrain Condemns Crime That Claimed Life of British Soldier in London
Manama, May 24 (BNA)--Bahrain strongly condemned the crime which claimed the life of a British soldier in London, the UK, yesterday. Meanwhile, it expressed full support to the British government in confronting terrorism. The Foreign Ministry stressed in a statement Bahrain's call to prevent the extremists and terrorists from using the land of any country to receive funding and exploit ...
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Seychelles and Emirates work together to assure sustainable hotel development
Ministers Pierre Laporte (Finance, Trade & Investment), Rolph Payet (Environment & Energy), Alain St.Ange (Tourism & Culture), and Christian Lionnet (Land Use & Habitat) met this morning with Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and CEO of Emirates Airline and Group & Vice President of Dubai, and his Emirates delegation Mr. Timothy Clark, the President of Emirates, and ...
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Palestinian kids swept up in wave of Israeli arrests
Ahmed Jawabreh, 14, was arrested in the middle of the night for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the West Bank refugee camp where he lives and wasn't released for another 18 days. His was only one of a recent wave of arrests of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities, human rights groups ...
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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