Middle Orient

Israeli air stirkes in Lebanon have killed 27 civilians and forced the closure of Beirut’s international airport. An Israeli woman was also killed after Hezbollah fired rockets across the border with Israel into the northern town of Nahariya.   The closure of the new Rafiq Hariri airport on Thursday came …

BEIRUT, (SANA)- Lebanese al-Manar TV announced on Thursday that the Israeli shelling which targeted a branch station in Southern Beirut Area caused material damage and three workers were injured.

DAMASCUS (AP) — Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in the Syrian capital Monday in a government-sanctioned protest to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip under attack following last month’s capture of an Israeli soldier.

BEIRUT — Rarely have Western news organisations wooed Arab hearts and minds so avidly — or with so little certainty of political or commercial reward.

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) — Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah approved Monday a new 16-member Cabinet that remains dominated by the ruling family despite the opposition’s victory in June elections.

BAGHDAD — While condemning in public the sectarian death squads that gunned down 40 people on Sunday in a Sunni part of Baghdad, some Iraqi Shiite leaders say in private retaliation for Sunni insurgent bomb attacks is understandable.

SANAA (AP) — Nineteen alleged Al Qaeda members accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel used by Americans were acquitted by a judge who also exonerated some of fighting US troops in Iraq.

CAIRO (AFP) — Hundreds of journalists demonstrated Sunday outside the Egyptian parliament where a draft bill allowing jail sentences for journalists and preventing them from investigating fraud was being debated.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali Islamic fighters on Sunday declared “absolute” victory over the remaining warlords in the lawless capital Mogadishu after deadly clashes that claimed at least 21 lives, marking the end of the notorious warlords’ rule in the Indian Ocean city.

ISTANBUL  (AP) — About 20,000 pro-Islamic Turks chanted “Down with Israel” to protest Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, a day after the Turkish foreign minister called the offensive in response to the abduction of an Israeli soldier “horrifying”.