Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq’s parliament, pushed to the brink of a midnight deadline, gave negotiators an extra week on Monday to complete a draft constitution after weeks of intensive talks failed to bridge sectarian and ethnic rifts. Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders now have seven more days to agree the …

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Powerful Somali warlord Hussein Mohammed Aidid said Monday he hoped to mediate an end to a bitter dispute in the lawless nation’s transitional government that has sparked fears of deepening anarchy. Aidid, the deputy prime minister in the government, travelled to Mogadishu on Sunday after a four-year …

THE DECISION BY Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pull Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank has shaken Israel’s Orthodox Jewish community to its foundations. Never before has an Israeli government relinquished what the religious population universally regards as holy land, promised to …

ALGIERS (AFP) — Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has unveiled a draft charter for peace and national reconciliation that will be put to a referendum on September 29, national television reported on Sunday. The draft calls for “concrete steps to stop bloodshed and restore peace” in the north African country after …

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran named an outspoken hardliner to run its nuclear policy Monday in a move likely to intensify international concerns following the Islamic regime’s rejection of European incentives for abandoning ultra-sensitive fuel cycle work. New President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated the former director of state broadcast media, Ali Larijani, …

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday the Iraqi parliament “needed a little more time” to work out compromises but had made “substantial progress” towards drafting a constitution despite missing is self-imposed deadline. The process is working in an orderly fashion, and “I believe they are going …

AL ARISH (AFP) — Two Canadian women peacekeepers were wounded in a bomb blast Monday in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that officials described as a terrorist attack. “Terrorists planted two gas canisters on the road and linked them to an electrical wire. They hid in nearby apricot groves and blew them …

RAFAH — The official start of the Israeli evacuation of settlements in Gaza was marked in Rafah with midnight prayers of thanks at mosques across this conflict scarred border city in the southern Strip. And as another blisteringly hot day dawned, so, it seemed, did a growing realisation that a …

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqis tasked with drafting the new constitution failed Tuesday to make progress in resolving issues holding up the completion of the charter as rebel attacks left at least 33 dead. The constitution committee tried to solve some of the issues as parliamentarians vowed that the draft charter …

Northern and southern Sudanese clashed in Khartoum on Tuesday in a second day of violence sparked by the death of ex-rebel leader John Garang who helped end two decades of war in Africa’s largest country. Authorities sent in police and helicopters to quell the violence in a shantytown on the …