Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran and Beirut are keen to expand ties and implement mutual agreements, Iranian envoy to Lebanon said on Friday. Speaking in a meeting with Lebanese Minister of Industry Ghazi Zoayter, Mohammad Reza Sheybani added that the agreements had already been signed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his …

TEHRAN (FNA)- An Iranian aid ship carrying medical supplies for Gaza arrived in Beirut after its organizers said Friday it was denied entry by Egypt. “The ship was forced to change course after Egypt denied it entry,” Ghazanfar Rokn-Abadi, spokesman for the Gaza Reconstruction Committee of Iran, said. “We waited …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Former Lebanese captive Samir Kantar said that Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution breathed new hope to Muslims and the whole Arab world. Kantar who spent 29 years in the Zionist regime’s prisons was released in July 2008 as part of a prisoner swap between Lebanon and the usurper regime. …

UNITED NATIONS  – Israel must investigate allegations that its army violated international law during its three-week war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, the new U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday. “We expect Israel will meet its international obligations to investigate and we also call upon …

BAGHDAD  – Gunmen killed three candidates on Thursday in separate incidents two days before provincial elections in Iraq, police said. Police said all three were from the Sunni Arab minority. Hazem Salem Ahmed, a candidate from the National Unity List, was shot outside his home in Mosul, the volatile capital …

RAMALLAH, West Bank  – U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell called on Thursday for an opening of trade crossings into the Gaza Strip with the involvement of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Following talks in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is at odds with Gaza’s ruling Islamist movement Hamas, …

GAZA  – Whole streets lie in ruins, many thousands of Palestinians are homeless after weeks of Israeli bombing and foreign aid cash is piling up. As a builder in the Gaza Strip, this should be Anwar al-Sahabani’s big moment. Instead, though, he sits at home, angry and sad, not just …

TEHRAN (FNA)- The European Union is responsible for its negative and pernicious decision to remove the name of the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), from its blacklist, Iran announced. The European Union decided Monday to remove the MKO from its blacklist, a move which angered Iranian people …

GAZA  – Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes threatened on Thursday to undermine efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy to reinforce a fragile Gaza ceasefire. Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip launched one rocket into Israel late on Wednesday — the first since the January …

MOSUL, Iraq  – In Iraq’s most violent province, where al Qaeda and a medley of insurgent groups are making a last stand, an election in two days could help bring peace or stoke fresh conflict between Arabs and Kurds. Iraqis vote on Saturday for the first time since 2005 in …