Latest Middle East News
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Scottish News Yousaf on Middle East trade trip
May 19 2013 External Affairs Minister Humza Yousaf has travelled to Qatar to begin a three-day visit to promote Scottish exports and expertise in the Middle East. Humza Yousaf's trip follows First Minister Alex Salmond's visit to the country last October, and is aimed at further strengthening Scotland's economic, diplomatic and cultural links with the region. The Minister was ...
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Syrian Troops Said to Strike Town Near Lebanon
AMMAN, Jordan -- The Syrian military on Sunday launched an offensive to retake a strategic rebel-held town near the Lebanese border, a government official said, as activists reported that regime airstrikes and shelling of the town have killed at least 16 people, including opposition ...
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France in talks with U.S. Israel to buy drones minister
PARIS (Reuters) - France is in talks with the United States and Israel to buy intelligence-gathering drones to build up a modern fleet, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on ...
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Iran hangs alleged U.S. Israeli spies
TEHRAN, Iran Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency. Sunday's report says Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, were hanged. The report didn't say when ...
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Paper Syrias Assad vows no dialogue with terrorists
Syria's President Bashar Assad (R) sits during an interview with journalists from Argentina in Damascus in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on ...
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Russia gives Assad sophisticated missiles to repel enemies coming from afar
WASHINGTON - Russia's shipment of anti-ship missiles to Syria will "embolden" the regime and fuel the country's civil war, the US military's top officer said ...
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U.S. Develops Anti-Rocket Laser
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- A U.S. defense major, mindful of the threat to Israel,has overseen the development of a laser that could destroy missiles ...
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Netanyahu takes aim at weapons leakage in Syria
Reuters © Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem May 19, 2013. REUTERS/Ronen ...
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Revisiting U.S. Commitment To The Middle East
Two years ago on May 19, President Obama called for a new chapter in American diplomacy, promising to make it a top priority to support democracy and human rights in a changing Middle East. Some experts say that the U.S. has failed to live up to that commitment in places like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The conflict in Syria has also opened a darker chapter in the Arab ...
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Syria Army Storms Rebel Town - Report
Syrian government forces have surrounded the rebel stronghold of Qusair and are storming it from several directions, says Syrian state TV. Fighting has gone on around the town, near the Lebanese border, for weeks. Syrian opposition activists said government air strikes and heavy shelling had killed at least 16 people in the town so far. Opposition groups say militants from the Lebanese ...
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Iran hangs two men accused of spying for US Israel
A fuzzy picture shows Mohammad Heidari, one of the men accused of spying for Western intelligence agencies. He was hanged at dawn on Sunday. Picture courtesy of ...
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DreamWorks Studios Signs Additional Foreign Output Deals
David Garrett's Mister Smith brokers deals for the studio's output across Europe, the Middle East and Africa including one with Samuel and Victor Hadida's Metropolitan ...
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Insect invasion Israel battles plague of locusts
By Dave Copeland, Cameraman, NBC News TEL AVIV - Israel’s Negev Desert is alive – with locusts.Huge swarms of the newly hatched critters have begun marching across the sand, devouring everything in their path.With the help of high-tech irrigation methods, much of Israel’s desert has been transformed into lush farmland that supplies supermarkets across the country with fresh ...
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Three car bomb attacks leave 8 dead 50 wounded in southern Iraq
BAGHDAD, April 29 (Xinhua) -- At least eight people were killed and 50 others injured when three car bomb attacks hit two cities in southern Iraq on Monday, an interior ministry source said. Two car bombs exploded in a market in Amarah, some 300 km southeast of Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 30 others, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Another car bomb struck ...
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Syrian activists Shelling near Lebanon kills 16
A Syrian supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, holds a placard with his picture and the national flag as he participates in a protest outside the US Embassy in central London, Saturday, May 18, 2013. (AP Photo/Lefteris ...
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PM Israel will keep stopping weapons transfer to Hezbollah
Sunday Times , reconnaissance satellites have revealed preparations made by the Syrian army to deploy surface-to-surface Tishreen missiles. Syrian President Bashar Assad, the report said, is ready to use these missiles should Israel decide to conduct a strike on ...
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Kuwait deports hundreds for traffic offences
KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait has deported hundreds of expats for traffic offences in the past month, a report said on Sunday, drawing condemnation from a human rights group.The Al-Anbaa newspaper cited a senior interior ministry official as saying that as many as 1,258 foreigners have been deported for traffic violations since a crackdown began about a month ago.Foreign residents caught driving without a ...
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EU to delay labelling West Bank settler goods report
A picture taken on May 17, 2013 shows houses in the Mitzpe Lachish Israeli settlement outpost in front of house belonging to Palestinians (background) in the West Bank village of Beit Awwa. AFP PHOTO / HAZEM ...
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Syria military pounds rebel town killing 13 activists
Syrian troops patrol the village of Haydariyah, some seven kilometers outside the rebel-held city of Qusayr, after taking control of it, on May 13, 2013. AFP PHOTO/JOSEPH ...
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29 killed in South Sudan cattle raid local official
Refugees coming from the Nuba Mountains, in Southern Kordofan, cue for registration at UNHCR offices in Yida, Unity State, South Sudan on May 31 2012. (AFP PHOTO/Giulio ...
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Kuwait deports 1258 expats in a month
The deportations have been criticised by the Kuwait Labour Union and former MP Abdullah Al-Turaiji, who claim they are a violation of human rights and are ...
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Irans Revolutionary Guard warns against possible post-election turmoil in June
TEHRAN, Iran - Several Iranian newspapers are citing a senior Revolutionary Guard commander as warning his forces will be on watch for possible unrest after the June 14 presidential election. Col. Rasool Sanaeirad says a "possible riot in Tehran could spread" to other regions. He claims chances for turmoil are heightened because Iran is for the first time holding both presidential and ...
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Aoun defends Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria civil war
Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun defended during a dinner on Saturday evening Hezbollah’s siding with the Syrian regime in its crackdown against the pro democracy uprising, citing the protection of the Lebanese people in Syria as the main cause of the intervention. "Hezbollah's intervention in fighting only started when towns inhabited by Lebanese people fell in the ...
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Assad Syrias future is up to Syrian people
Syrian President Bashar Assad says he won't step down before elections and the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics. Assad has raised new doubts about a US-Russian effort to get him and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. Assad says Syria's future is up to the Syrian people and a decision on his political future must be ...
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Oman floats tenders for Sharqiya road projects
Oman’s Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources (MRMWR) has issued eleven tenders for the design and construction of internal roads in North and South Sharqiya. Six tenders were floated for the design and construction of internal roads in North Sharqiya governorate in the wilayats of Al Qabil, Bidiyah, Dima Wa Al Tayeen, Ibra, Mudhibi, Wadi Bani Khalid. The ministry also ...
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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