Pope meets Abbas amid Mideast tensions
VATICAN CITY: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas met Pope Benedict XVI on Friday amid heightened tensions across the Middle East and Vatican concern about the treatment of Christian minorities in the…
NATO raids pound Tripoli as Moscow readies peace bid
TRIPOLI: Explosions rattled the Libyan capital early Friday as Russia prepared to send an envoy on a shuttle mission to try to broker a negotiated settlement between its Cold War…
Bomb outside central Iraq mosque kills 17
TIKRIT: A bomb placed outside a mosque frequented by provincial officials in the central Iraqi city of Tikrit killed at least 17 people and wounded 50 after the main weekly…
‘First’ outbreak of mystery bacteria kills 18
BERLIN: The World Health Organization warned Thursday Europe was seeing the first outbreak of a lethal bacteria, as its death toll climbed to 18 and the first suspected cases were…
Syria forces kill 10 protesters in Hama: rights group
BEIRUT: Syrian security forces shot dead at least 10 demonstrators in Hama on Friday, Syrian rights group Sawasieh said, as protesters defied a widespread military crackdown to demand President Bashar…
Editorial: What dialogue?
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ (SCAF) almost obsessive preoccupation with “communicating with the public” stands starkly in contradiction with its complete failure to do…
Egypt military quizzes reporters over Islamist deal story
CAIRO: Military prosecutors questioned a newspaper editor and a journalist on Friday over a report alleging Egypt's military would back an Islamist group in elections, a source said. The editor…
Iraq says to repay old debt of $408 million to Egypt
BAGHDAD: Iraq has agreed to pay Egypt $408 million in cash to settle old debts owed by Baghdad from more than two decades ago, a government spokesman said on Thursday.…
The Arab Spring and Europe’s turn
By Ana Palacio NEW HAVEN: Until now, and with few exceptions, the West has nurtured two distinct communities of foreign-policy specialists: the development community and the democratic community. More often than…
American public opinion and the Middle East peace process
By John Zogby Zogby International has been polling American opinion on the Arab-Israel dispute and the path to peace since the early 1990s. This is the one foreign policy issue that…