BAGHDAD: Iraq’s government said yesterday it had demanded the autonomous Kurdish region hand over Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi for trial on charges of running death squads, a case that caused a political crisis when US troops withdrew last year.
BEIRUT: Few close observers of the Syrian conflict believe the uprising that began nearly a year ago is anything like over, and nor do they believe that President Bashar Assad can use the siege of Homs as a springboard to regain full control of the country.
BEIRUT: The Red Cross delivered emergency aid to areas around the battered Baba Amro district of the Syrian city of Homs yesterday, but was blocked for a third day from entering the former rebel bastion amid reports of bloody reprisals by state forces.
KHARTOUM: Sudanese police used batons to disperse more than 100 students protesting in the center of Khartoum against the closure of their campuses following the independence of South Sudan, witnesses said.
TRIPOLI: Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood teamed up with other Islamists on Friday to establish a new political party that is set to be a leading player in the country’s first elections since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising.
SANAA: Two suicide bombers drove a car packed with explosives into a Yemeni Army base in the southern province of Al-Bayda yesterday, killing one soldier, the Defense Ministry said. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. Another soldier was killed by one of two blasts aimed at a central security forces building in the southern coastal town of Mukalla, where a suicide bombing a week ago killed at least 26 people. Authorities said they had made several arrests.
SANAA: Two militants drove a car packed with explosives into a Yemeni army base in the south of the country on Saturday, killing themselves and a soldier, the Defense Ministry said. The attack targeted barracks of the Republican Guard forces in the province of Al-Bayda at dawn, the ministry said on its website. It blamed Al-Qaeda for the blast. The attack targeted barracks of the Republican Guard forces in the province of Al-Bayda at dawn, the ministry said on its website. It blamed Al-Qaeda for the blast.
CAIRO: Egypt’s ruling generals are facing a backlash over the departure of Americans on trial over charges that their pro-democracy groups fomented unrest, with the country’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood and others accusing military leaders of bowing to pressure from Washington.
ALGIERS: Twenty-three people were wounded on Saturday when a suicide bomber drove a four-wheel drive vehicle packed with explosives at a paramilitary police base in a Sahara desert town, local media and security officials said.
CAIRO: Egyptian lawmakers clashed Saturday over who should have the right to draft the country’s constitution, in a heated debate focusing on the influence of Islamists on the crucial document and how religiously conservative Egypt will be.
BEIRUT: The prosecutor of the UN-backed tribunal investigating the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri has issued a new indictment adding a fifth name to a list of suspects in the 2005 attack, a Lebanese security source said on Friday.
WASHINGTON: Western trade sanctions against Iran are strangling its oil exports even before they go into effect, a US advisory body has found, amid warnings that any shortages will only push up crude prices and strain a weak global economy.
CAIRO: Egypt’s airport authorities have been told that a travel ban on US pro-democracy activists has been lifted, airport sources said yesterday, opening the way to defuse a row that US officials linked to $1.3 billion of annual military aid. A judge had said on Wednesday that Egypt was scrapping the ban, which barred the departure of US citizens and others working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that Cairo says received foreign funds illegally. Judge Abdel Moez Ibrahim told state media on Thursday that, after an appeal by those charged, the case was switched from a criminal court to one handling misdemeanors where the maximum penalty was a fine, not jail.
SHVUT RACHEL, West Bank: Israel has quietly legalized one of the oldest and largest of the unsanctioned settler enclaves dotting the West Bank, a step denounced by the Palestinians and Israeli activists as a show of bad faith ahead of talks next week between the Israeli leader and President Barack Obama.
MAHDASHT/TEHRAN: Iran opened a key space facility to visiting journalists for the first time yesterday in an apparent effort to show its willingness to allow glimpses at sensitive technology even as Tehran and UN inspectors trade accusations about access to nuclear sites and experts.
UNITED NATIONS: UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said on Wednesday she was “deeply disappointed” that Syria has refused to allow her to the visit the country, where she had hoped to assess the need for emergency relief in besieged towns.
CAIRO: An Egyptian with the same name as a long-sought senior Al-Qaeda leader was arrested yesterday in Cairo, but he denied any link to the terrorist network and said it was a case of mistaken identity.
TEHRAN: An Iranian appeal court has upheld a one-year jail sentence handed down to one of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s close aides for insulting the country’s supreme leader, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
EL PASO, Texas: A retired British businessman whose extradition to the US to face allegations he tried to sell missile batteries to Iran caused an uproar in his home country will seek his release on bond Friday.
TUNIS, Tunisia: Tunisia’s president says he is ready to offer asylum to Syria’s President Bashar Assad as part of a negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict.
WASHINGTON: Israeli officials say they will not warn the US if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations with US officials, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and in Congress.
GENEVA: Iran said on Tuesday that it expected talks with the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to continue and it was optimistic that they would proceed in the right direction.
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said on Tuesday that an argument could be made that Syrian leader Bashar Assad is a war criminal.
BENGHAZI, Libya: The United Nations said Monday that the situation in a remote southern part of Libya where more than 100 people were killed in tribal warfare this month remains tense although a cease-fire brokered by local officials is still holding.
JERUSALEM: Ultra-Orthodox parties inside Israel’s government say they will oppose any new law that would apply Israel’s compulsory military draft to ultra-Orthodox men — a stance that bodes ill for the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
BAGHDAD: A Shiite militia has handed over the body of the last US soldier missing in Iraq, closing a final chapter of the war two months after US troops left and more than five years after the soldier vanished while secretly visiting his wife in Baghdad.
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Sunday it was ready to help with international efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Syria without intervening directly in the bloody conflict enveloping its neighboring enemy.
BEIRUT: Syrian forces bombarded parts of the shattered city of Homs anew yesterday and blocked the first Red Cross aid meant for civilians stranded for weeks without food and fuel in the former rebel stronghold, activists and aid workers said. The renewed government assault came a day after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had received "grisly reports" that President Bashar Assad's troops were executing, imprisoning and torturing people in Syria's third largest city.
TEHRAN: Iran yesterday declared an initial turnout of 64 percent in a parliamentary election shunned by most reformists as a sham.
KABUL, Afghanistan: A series of mistakes led to the burning of Qur’ans at a US military base in Afghanistan and at least five American military personnel involved may face a disciplinary review over the issue, a Western official said on Saturday.
AMMAN: Armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad bombarded the Jobar residential neighborhood of Homs on Saturday where thousands of civilians from an area overrun by the army had taken refuge, an opposition activist organization said.
ISTANBUL: Syrian President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on opponents bears the hallmarks of war crimes and his violent repression of protest is dimming any chance of negotiation, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday.
BEIRUT: A Red Cross aid convoy prepared to enter the shattered Baba Amro district of Homs on Friday after a Syrian official declared the area “cleansed” and the opposition spoke of a massacre by President Bashar Assad’s forces.
BEIRUT: The Red Cross said it would bring aid to the shattered former Syrian opposition enclave of Baba Amro on Friday, after government forces pushed out rebels in a victory for President Bashar Assad’s campaign to crush a year-long uprising.
TEHRAN: Faithful supporters of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei flocked to the polls early on Friday but most reformists stayed home, saying the parliamentary election was meaningless.
BRUSSELS: France said Friday it is closing its embassy in Syria, a day after two French journalists escaped to Lebanon after being trapped for days in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.
French reporters evacuated from Syria fly home
BEIRUT/DAMASCUS: Weary Syrian rebels left a shattered district of Homs yesterday after a 26-day military siege aimed at crushing a symbol of the almost yearlong revolt against President Bashar Assad.
TEHRAN: Clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has tightened his grip on Iran’s faction-ridden politics after loyalists won over 75 percent of seats in parliamentary elections at the expense of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a near-complete count showed.
BEIRUT: Red Cross teams handed out food, blankets and medical kits in central Homs province on Sunday even as the government blocked access to the worst-hit district of Baba Amr three days after government troops drove rebels who had been holding the neighborhood out.
