Middle East

New law defuses Iraqi ballot row

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.

Inside Middle East

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.

Iran's reformists use key anniversary to defy regime

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Official rallies marking 1979 hostage crisis hijacked by opposition marchers. By Katherine Butler.

Israel seizes cache of arms ‘bound for Lebanon’

Thursday, 5 November 2009

The Israeli navy yesterday seized a ship carrying what defence officials said was five hundred tons of Iranian-supplied weapons bound for Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, including Katyusha rockets that could be used in the event of renewed Israel-Hizbollah hostilities.

Paedophile rapist to be beheaded and crucified in Saudi Arabia

Wednesday, 4 November 2009

A man who kidnapped and raped five children, one of whom was left in the desert to die, has been sentenced to be beheaded and his body publicly crucified.

Settlement by stealth belies promises of restraint

Wednesday, 4 November 2009

Hillary Clinton has praised Israel for its policy on settlers but, the displacements go on

Clinton backtracks on Israeli settlements after Arab anger

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, was forced into an awkward diplomatic pirouette yesterday, insisting to Arab foreign ministers that Washington had not capitulated to Israel's continuing hunger for new Jewish settlements even if statements she had made 24 hours earlier seemed to imply exactly that.