Fatah rejects bilateral talks with Hamas
RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has rejected a call for talks with arch-rival Hamas ahead of early November Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo, his spokesman said on Wednesday. Fatah and…
Lebanon and Syria open diplomatic ties
DAMASCUS: Syria and Lebanon formally established diplomatic ties on Wednesday for the first time since independence 60 years ago, turning a new page in relations between Beirut and its powerful…
Bush administration gave nod for CIA waterboarding: report
WASHINGTON: The administration of US President George W. Bush authorized the CIA to waterboard Al-Qaeda suspects according to two secret memos issued in 2003 and 2004, the Washington Post reported…
Marketing tactics of Obama's presidential campaign
CAIRO: Change we can believe in? It's the slogan that might just make Barack Obama America's 44th president, but the American Chamber of Commerce is hoping that it will inspire…
Egypt must prop exports amid financial crisis, says Rachid
CAIRO: Since the ripple effects of the US credit crunch began making their way towards the region, Egyptian officials have enacted a number of strategies to reduce the impact of…
Glaxo expands in Egypt with $210 mln acquisition
LONDON: GlaxoSmithKline Plc is buying the Egyptian mature products business of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co for $210 million, to extend the British drug company's recent expansion into emerging markets. The deal…
Egypt's new economic courts breed both confidence and ire
CAIRO: A set of new courts, which opened on Oct. 1 after more than three years of planning, have taken on economic cases formerly handled by the traditional judiciary, said…
THE REEL ESTATE: Not another teen movie
Kobolat Masrooka (Stolen Kisses), the latest teen drama from director Khaled El Hagar, arrives in theaters with a buzz surrounding the "steamy love scenes and the 105 kisses featured in…
IN FOCUS: Silent revolution within the Brotherhood
A year ago, I wrote about the phenomenon of the Brotherhood bloggers and predicted then that bloggers would represent a real problem to the group unless it dealt with them…
The Indian Exception
NEW DELHI: The ratification by the United States Congress of the historic India-US Nuclear Agreement marks a remarkable new development in world affairs. Initially signed in July 2005, the agreement…