Middle East

Dominic Macintyre: Palestinians throw down challenge to Obama and UN

As so often in the Middle East, we have been here before. The latest suggestion – that a frustrated Palestinian leadership would unilaterally declare a state and invite international recognition for it – is not new. It was made a decade ago by Yasser Arafat when Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now, was Prime Minister. It was made again after the collapse of the Camp David talks a year later, when then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, like some of Mr Netanyahu's more hawkish ministers now, threatened to annex the most populous settlements in the West Bank in retaliation. And as the second intifada – and Israel's determined military response to it – gathered momentum, nothing came of it.

Inside Middle East

Palestinian push for an independent state causes Israeli alarm

Monday, 16 November 2009

Netanyahu to denounce Prime Minister's drive to sidestep Israel and secure support from UN Security Council

Iraqi 'was beaten and sexually abused'

Monday, 16 November 2009

Lawyer says new claims point to 'systematic abuse' of detainees by British soldiers

British soldiers sexually abused us, claim Iraqis

Sunday, 15 November 2009

Graphic torture allegations emerge as lawyer warns of hundreds of legal cases

Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah

Sunday, 15 November 2009

Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest Intel Sabbath work

Saturday, 14 November 2009

More than a thousand devout Jews are protesting in Jerusalem against plans by computer chip maker Intel to operate on Saturdays.

Iran creates new spy agency to fight protests

Friday, 13 November 2009

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has created a powerful new intelligence organisation to try to quell any further public unrest in the wake of June's disputed election, an exiled Iranian opposition group said yesterday.

New law defuses Iraqi ballot row

Monday, 9 November 2009

Iraq's parliament yesterday passed a long-delayed election law paving the way for a national vote in January after overcoming a potentially explosive row over the disputed city of Kirkuk, lawmakers said.

World Focus: Without Abbas, does doomsday loom?

Saturday, 7 November 2009

When Western diplomats considered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's announcement that he did not want to stand for re-election yesterday, they must have asked themselves the famous question attributed to Metternich about the death of a rival, "What did he mean by that?"

UN chief sending Gaza war crimes report to Security Council

Saturday, 7 November 2009

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday he will send a report calling for Israel and the Palestinians to investigate alleged war crimes during last winter's conflict in Gaza to the UN Security Council "as soon as possible."

Abbas makes shock decision not stand in Palestinian poll

Friday, 6 November 2009

The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, last night chided the US and announced that he did not want to stand for another term in elections officially scheduled for January.

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