Middle Orient

BAGHDAD — Baghdad is getting only around six hours of electricity a day, down from 11 in October, and attacks on Iraqis working on US-backed reconstruction projects are at a record, the US military said on Wednesday.

Greek patriarch boycotts Israeli Christmas party OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Reuters) — The Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem boycotted an annual Israeli Christmas party on Thursday because the invitation failed to recognise him as the church’s new leader, a church official said. A clergyman sacked by the church over an alleged land …

CAIRO — Staff members at a Riyadh hospital got a surprise when they looked at the fine print on the paper cups they were using. Workers in a storeroom at a Dubai hospital were similarly shocked when they took a close look at the tags on a large shipment of …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to return to hospital early next month to undergo a minor procedure in order to repair a tiny hole in his heart, his doctors said on Monday. Professor Haim Lotan told reporters that Sharon would undergo “a catheterisation in the …

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of the influential Maronite Catholic Church has publicly urged Lebanon’s president to consider his position, saying he prayed that Emile Lahoud will take a decision that would reassure the nation. In a Christmas Day sermon on Sunday, Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir came closer

CAIRO (AP) — A US-educated Saudi dissident, who was part of a media campaign against the kingdom’s rulers during two years in self-exile in London, returned to Jeddah, saying he regretted those activities and admitting he had been wrong, Saudi newspapers reported Monday.

TRIPOLI (AFP) — Libya’s supreme court on Sunday ordered a retrial for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for their alleged role in infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV. The decision overturned death sentences that would have been carried out by firing squad and gave …

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Nineteen Iraqis, including eight policemen, died in insurgent attacks in and around Baghdad on Monday as two Shiite politicians were gunned down and a provincial governor escaped an assassination bid.

CAIRO (AP) — The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s main Islamic opposition group, said Thursday that the Nazi Holocaust was a myth and slammed Western governments for criticising disclaimers of the Jewish genocide. The comments by Mohammed Mahdi Akef — made on the heels of his group’s strong showing …

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran has spelled out clearly it will not back away from its bid to conduct sensitive nuclear fuel work, limiting the chance for a compromise at a key meeting on Wednesday with Britain, France and Germany.