Middle Orient

Hamas said on Tuesday it still hoped Washington would soften its position toward a Palestinian unity government despite Israeli statements that the United States and Israel would shun it until it met several conditions.

Six former officials in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq regime today denied crimes against humanity for a crackdown on Kurds in the 1980s.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today rejected international demands for his country to suspend its uranium enrichment programme as a UN deadline to do so approached.

Israel said Tuesday it would stop dealing with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas if he goes ahead with plans to join Hamas in a new government, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arab allies sought a way to break the Hamas logjam and push forward the stalled peace process.

Israel said Tuesday it would stop dealing with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas if he goes ahead with plans to join Hamas in a new government, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arab allies sought a way to break the Hamas logjam and push forward the stalled peace process.

A suicide bomber struck a funeral in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least seven people as militants show increasing defiance to a major security operation in the capital.

The Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee Chairman Mikhail Margelov is to travel to Iran for talks with the Iranian leadership on the situation in the region.

A Marine who said he never fired a shot in the kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi man has been sentenced to eight years in military prison — the longest sentence yet in the case.

Kiki Munshi was showcased by the media in September as a seasoned U.S. diplomat who came out of retirement to lead a rebuilding group in Iraq.

Senate Democrats said Sunday they might try to restrict President Bush’s ability to wage war in Iraq by approving a more limited version of the 2002 measure that authorized the use of force against Saddam Hussein.