Middle Orient

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks with Israel have failed to reach any breakthrough, despite nine months of negotiations.

The outgoing commander of US troops in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, has said that he will never declare victory there.

Saudi Arabian police say they have arrested five men on charges of using the internet to recruit for al-Qaeda.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told a group of reporters in Ankara on Wednesday that his country and Turkey have plans to continue deliberations on reaching an energy agreement.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Iraqi government has succeeded in improving the conditions in Iraq in favor of the Iraqi nation and expressed hope that the war-torn country would move forward on the path to reconstruction and national solidarity.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Falah Mohammed peered over his shoulder as he spoke of how militants threatened to kill him and his family unless he quit his government job.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Sunni Arab neighborhood patrols have been vital to cutting violence in Iraq. But how the Shi’ite-led government handles their future could foster sectarian reconciliation or start a new round of bloodshed.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli authorities and settlers have seized large tracts of land in the occupied West Bank for security zones around Jewish settlements beyond an Israeli-built barrier, a human rights group said on Thursday.

Israel has annexed thousands of hectares of West Bank land beside the barrier it is building, according to an Israeli rights group.

Two Israeli rights groups have accused their government of tearing Palestinian families apart by curtailing the right to live in the West Bank.