Latest Middle East News
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Yemen Denies Need for Foreign Forces to Confront Al Qaeda
WAM SANAA, May 21th, 2013 (WAM) -- The Yemen Ministry of Defense has stated that Yemen does not need foreign forces' support to combat Al-Qaeda terrorism, pointing out that the Yemeni armed forces and security had managed within a short period of time to ward off plans and threats of terrorism in the areas of Abyan, Shabwa and Al Bayda City. An official source in the Ministry of Defense ...
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3 Hezbollah fighters die of wounds from Syria
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Three members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group died of wounds sustained while fighting for control of strategic Syrian town near the Lebanese border, activists said Tuesday, as the battle in the area raged for the third straight ...
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Wave of Violence Continues in Iraq
New attacks in three Iraqi cities have killed at least seven people and wounded more than 60 others. 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 ...
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Qatar National Bank to start India operations in expansion push
Qatar National Bank, 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 approvals to establish a fully-owned subsidiary under the name of QNB India ...
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Saudi Arabia executes five Yemenis
Saudi Arabia executed five Yemenis and displayed their bodies in public for killing a national and forming a gang that committed robberies across several towns in the kingdom, the interior ministry says.The five were executed in the southwestern town of Jizan, bringing the number of people executed in the kingdom this year to 46, according to an AFP tally.A witness in Jizan said the five bodies ...
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After the al Qusayr victory Syria and Hizballah plan war on Israel
the strategic town of al Qusayr, Sunday, May 19, are making no secret of their plans for the "great confrontation," i.e. military confrontaiton withIsrael after they win the Syrian civil war. Israel's military leaders are taking with the utmost seriousness the words of Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the Hizballah organ Al Akhbar, and a close buddy of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who ...
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Erekat throws his weight behind Kerrys peace bid
The top Palestinian negotiator with Israel on Monday threw his weight behind US Secretary of State John Kerry's bid to revive stalled peace talks, while describing the situation in the West Bank as apartheid worse than that suffered in South Africa.Kerry is due to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah on Thursday and Friday. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told a UN committee in New York on ...
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IDF denies Syrian claim Israeli vehicle destroyed in Golan
Syrian military leadership says on state TV that its armed forces destroyed an Israel vehicle, but the IDF says it was just lightly damaged; soldiers return fire; defense source: "The fire was directed at ...
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Israel returns fire after gunshots from Syria
/enpproperty--> JERUSALEM - The Israeli military fired missiles into Syria after its troops got shot on a patrol near the Syrian frontier on the Golan Heights, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement Tuesday. There were no casualties on the Israeli side but a military vehicle was damaged in the incident, the statement said. Israeli media said an artillery unit fired across the ...
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Qatars QNB set to launch Indian operations in Q3
QNB (India) will take the role of extending consultancy and advisory services in the field of investment and finance for the Middle East companies that are willing to establish businesses in India or invest in ...
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Qatar expansion driving down credit growth - Barclays
"Annual credit growth is likely to be closer to 14-17% y-o-y" Qatar's banks' credit is likely to grow by 14% to 17% year-on-year (y-o-y) in 2013, much lower than the average 27% expansion seen in the previous two years, according to a Barclays study.The recent Qatar Central Bank (QCB) data showed a fall in credit during the first quarter of 2013, with quarter-on-quarter ...
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VTB finds tricky main SPO buyer Qatar
Finance Qatar's sovereign wealth fund will become the main purchaser in VTB's secondary public offering, buying $1 billion of the available $3.3 billion shares. It may prove to be a difficult shareholder for Russia's second largest lending bank. The Sovereign Fund of Qatar is aiming to secure a business partnership in order to develop new joint projects. After the purchase it ...
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India leads Asian cuts in Iran oil imports ahead of waiver review
Tue May 21, 2013 6:12am EDT * India cuts Iranian crude imports 17 pct Dec-April vs previous 6 months * China may reduce Iranian imports 5-10 percent in 2013 * U.S. due to review Asia's waiver extensions on Iran sanctions 3rd time By Nidhi Verma and Meeyoung Cho NEW DELHI/SEOUL, May 21 (Reuters) - India has slashed Iranian oil imports by almost a fifth since December, the sharpest cut among ...
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Syria says destroys Israeli vehicle which crossed ceasefire line
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria said on Tuesday its armed forces destroyed an Israeli vehicle after it crossed a ceasefire line into Syrian territory from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The statement by Syrian military leadership, broadcast on state television, came ...
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Eight bosses sacked in big Kuwait Petroleum shake-up
State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) has sacked the heads of all of its eight subsidiaries in the company's largest ever shakeup, following a controversial $2.2bn compensation payment to US firm Dow Chemical, according to local ...
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Qatar to get $500m of shares in Russian bank VTB
The sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Norway and Azerbaijan will each get about $500m of the new shares being issued by VTB, the Russian bank's chief executive Andrei Kostin said on Tuesday.The $500m allocation is the "kind of ticket we are thinking of" Kostin told Reuters in London. The allocations will give the investors more than half the new shares being sold in VTB's ...
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US criticises Egypts civil rights record
WASHINGTON - The United States expressed concern Monday at the repression of civil rights in Egypt, particularly the free speech rights of political activists and ...
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Iran wants to take part in Syria peace conference
TEHRAN - Iran said Tuesday it is willing to attend an upcoming peace conference on Syria, arguing all influential parties must be included in the process for it to be a ...
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IMF predicts Saudi economic slowdown
RIYADH - Saudi economic growth will slow to 4.4 percent in 2013 from 6.8 percent last year due to an expected fall in oil production, and cuts in government spending, the International Monetary Fund said ...
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Iran has funds to develop South Pars
Iran will invest $16 billion in development of the offshore South Pars gas complex over the next 10 months, a natural gas company director said. Managing Director of the Pars Oil and Gas ...
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11 militants killed in operations in Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Up to 11 militants have been killed and 40 others detained in the latest military operations in different Afghan provinces, authorities said Saturday. "Afghan police supporting by army and the NATO-led coalition forces carried out eight cleanup operations in Kapisa, Kunduz, Sar- e-Pul, Ghazni, Paktia, Farah and Helmand provinces, killing five armed Taliban ...
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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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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 ...
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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