By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s coalition government presented a divided front on Palestinian statehood on Tuesday as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry prepared a new mission to revive long-defunct peace talks. Appearing before a parliamentary committee, Israeli chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni outlined a vision she said she shared with Prime Minister [...]
By Arshad Mohammed MUSCAT (Reuters) – Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Oman on Tuesday for Raytheon Co’s signing of an estimated $2.1 billion arms deal and to consult on Syria and Iran, U.S. officials said. Oman is expected to sign a letter of intent to purchase a ground-based air defence system that would [...]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Monday it had canceled a visit by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to Jerusalem’s Old City, saying the Palestinians had sought to politicize a conservation mission. No one was immediately available for comment at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters. A month ago, it announced it would send [...]
By Yeganeh Torbati DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s electoral watchdog said on Monday it would bar physically feeble candidates from running for president, in an apparent hint that it could disqualify 78-year-old former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from the race. Rafsanjani, if he is allowed to run, would be a significant challenge to conservative hardliners who [...]
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian authorities executed two men on Sunday convicted of working for Israeli and U.S. spy agencies, Iran’s Fars news agency reported. Mohammad Heidari, accused of passing security-related information and secrets to Israeli Mossad agents in exchange for money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, accused of gathering information for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, were [...]
By Miriam Arghandiwal and Ibrahimi Aziz KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s parliament failed to pass a law on Saturday banning violence against women, a severe blow to progress made in women’s rights in the conservative Muslim country since the Islamist Taliban was toppled over a decade ago. President Hamid Karzai approved the law by decree in [...]
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish police have detained a man they believe to be one of the main perpetrators of car bombings that killed more than 50 people near the Syrian border, officials said on Friday. Turkey has accused Syria of involvement in the two bombings last weekend in the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province, [...]
By Parisa Hafezi ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Iran is prepared to pursue nuclear diplomacy with world powers before or after next month’s presidential election in the Islamic Republic, its chief negotiator said on Thursday. Saeed Jalili, who is also a candidate in the presidential race, was speaking after talks on the nuclear dispute with European Union [...]
BEIRUT (Reuters) – A video published on Thursday showed fighters of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Syria executing 11 men they accused of taking part in massacres by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The film is believed to be from eastern Deir al-Zor province and dates from some time in 2012, according to the Syrian [...]
By Miriam Arghandiwal KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber in a car attacked a convoy of foreign troops in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including six Americans, Afghan and foreign officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in months. Forty people were wounded in the blast at [...]
