Latest Middle East News
RSS-
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 ...
-
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, ...
-
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 ...
More Middle East News
RSS-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
Bahrains Rights Britains Failure
, claimed that "so-called human rights organisations" are "largely administered by ex-ideologists and even terrorists". It continued: "As much as beasts cannot be left to roam freely, so in human society the feral element’s freedom should be under control." In fact, it is well documented ...
-
Syria opposition seeks to unify as talks get...
Demonstrators shout slogans as they wave Syrian opposition flags during a protest against Syria's President Bashar Assad at the courtyard of Fatih mosque in Istanbul on Friday. ...
-
UNHCR Keep Borders Open to Fleeing Syrians
GENEVA -- The United Nations refugee agency is appealing to nations to keep borders open to refugees fleeing worsening violence in Syria. With Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq already hosting more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warns the number is expected to grow as the conflict intensifies. Responding to reports that Syrians ...
-
Russia says Syrian government agrees to peace talks but skepticism persists on both sides
Demonstrators shout Islamic slogans as they wave Syrian opposition flags during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at the courtyard of Fatih mosque in Istanbul May 24, 2013. (MURAD ...
-
LeBron James Will Eventually Top Michael Jordan As Basketballs Greatest Player
Although there will be resistance, LeBron James will ultimately be seen as the greatest basketball player of all time, surpassing Michael Jordan. And it shouldn't really be close. It seems like an appropriate time to examine the comparison as James, 28 and finishing his 10th NBA season, is essentially halfway through his career barring injury. Worth noting is that it's also a career ...
-
Israeli-Palestinian problem at base troubles in Middle East says Jerusalem Patriarch
"There is no doubt that the Palestinian problem is the focus of all conflict in the Middle East for the last one hundred years. This is the truth that we cannot circumvent," said Latin-rite Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem. Speaking at a conference in Beirut on Christians in the Middle East, sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Patriarch said that the Israeli-Palestinian ...
-
High Court Government didnt handle Iraq abuse case adequately
The British government's handling of allegations that British troops abused and killed Iraqi civilians was inadequate, a court ruled. Britain's High Court ruled that the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, an investigative team set up by the Ministry of Defense, did not fulfill the United Kingdom's human rights obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, the BBC ...
-
Soldier shortage Israel’s Army ‘half as big as it was 30 years ago’
Special to WorldTribune.com TEL AVIV -- Israel’s military has reported a manpower shortage. Officials said the military, particularly the Army, was facing a growing gap in manpower requirements. They attributed the gap to a decreasing pool of conscripts as well as cuts in the defense ...
-
Syrian rebel groups plan to attack Hizbollah in Lebanon
ISTANBUL // Syrian rebels are planning to attack Hizbollah in its Lebanese strongholds, in response to the Shiite militant group's growing combat role on the side of President Bashar Al Assad in the Syria conflict. Such attacks would mark a significant escalation and spread of what is fast developing into a highly sectarian, regional war. "It is really a question of when, not if, ...
-
Israel in reassessment thinks Syria’s Bashar Assad will last awhile
JERUSALEM - Israel has reversed its assessment about the staying power of Syrian President Bashar Assad and now thinks he’ll remain in control of at least part of his country for some time to come – a conclusion that makes it likely, a growing number of officials think, that an escalation of violence between the two countries may be inevitable. Israeli defense officials said that ...
-
Assad has enough sarin to wipe off Damascus Aleppo Homs
Exiled Syrian chemical weapons scientist tells Al Jazeera the Assad regime used sarin in small quantities to stop rebel advancements, mixes gases to make it harder to detect WMDs use; adds weapons were developed against ...
-
Syria - Syria stepping up Internet surveillance
DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) technology to analyse and control the activities of Syrian Internet users - censuring websites, intercepting emails, obtaining details of sites visited and so on.As the Assad regime recovers territory in the civil war, the installation ...
-
Iran - Governments actions threaten prospect of free and fair elections in Iran
Serious electoral flaws and human rights abuses by the Iranian government undermine any meaningful prospect of free and fair elections on June 14, 2013, Human Rights Watch said today. Dozens of political activists and journalists detained during the violent government crackdown that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election remain in prison, two former presidential candidates are under ...
-
Obamas drone speech well-received by Pakistan Yemen UN
US President Barack Obama speaks at the National Defense University May 23, 2013 in Washington, DC. Obama used the speech to outline and justify his administration's counterterrorism policy, including increased cooperation with Congress on matters of national security, added transparency regarding the use of drones, and a review of current threats facing the United States. (Win ...
-
Fighting has turned Tripoli Lebanon into a battleground – and brought the Syrian war home
He doesn't feel it, strapped up in his bed at the Nini Hospital, swathed in bandages, two bottles of painkillers pumping into him. He was driving his motorcycle on Thursday night from Badawi past the end of Syria Street - an aptly named thoroughfare that divides Tripoli's two warring neighbourhoods of Bab el-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen - whence came a single sniper's round."It ...
-
Irans clerical leaders cut presidency down to size
"I think it is not possible to run the country worse than this," said the former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, right, after he became one of 700 candidates barred from standing in the election this week. He is normally reticent in criticising the Iranian authorities. There has frequently between tension between Iranian presidents and Iran's supreme spiritual leader ...
-
WHO to help Saudi Arabias coronavirus investigation before hajj
Men wearing surgical masks as a precautionary measure against the novel coronavirus speak at a hospital in Dammam, Saudi Arabia on Thursday. Officials in Saudi Arabia say they've tightened infection control ...
-
10 men suspected of brutally killing 3 women in Egypt for alleged affairs
LUXOR, Egypt – A mother and two daughters were allegedly killed by male relatives in southern Egypt who believed they'd had affairs, the latest apparent example of so-called "honor killings" in which women are slain for violating traditional morals in the conservative region, a security official said Friday. Police believe the 10 men stormed the house of the women, ...
-
Amnesty International says Israel Hamas both guilty of war crimes
Gaza last year. The human rights group, which is based in London, released a report Thursday that alleged the Israeli air force carried out bomb and missile strikes on residential areas in Gaza, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported. Those strikes were "disproportionate and caused heavy civilian casualties," Amnesty International said. The Israeli navy also carried out ...
Middle East Focus
-
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
News from around our Network
