Middle Orient

TEHRAN (AP) — Raising the stakes before a possible showdown at the UN nuclear agency, Iran’s parliament on Sunday approved a bill requiring the government to block in-depth inspections of its nuclear facilities if the nation is referred to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Of 197 lawmakers present, 183 …

BAGHDAD — Safia Taleb Souhail has ambitions to be Iraq’s first woman president one day. A month before a poll in which she hopes to win a parliamentary seat, the former exile is upbeat about women’s rights and democracy.

RAMALLAH — The resignation of much-admired Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad will deliver a major blow to efforts to attract investment and highlight the limitations of a reform drive, analysts said Sunday. Fayyad has submitted his resignation, it emerged over the weekend, in a move that sources said was the …

2 more Americans, one British soldier killed BAGHDAD (AP) — Insurgent attacks took their toll on coalition forces Sunday, with a roadside bomb killing a British trooper in southern Iraq and a US soldier slain by gunfire northwest of Baghdad. A US Marine also died of wounds, the US command …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq’s interior minister dismissed reports of prisoner abuse at a secret Baghdad bunker on Thursday, prompting a stern response from the US embassy in an affair that threatens to aggravate sectarian tensions. Less than two hours after Interior Minister Bayan Jabor tried to justify his ministry’s actions …

Muasher refutes Washington Post article on US plans to move military equipment to Jordan to pressure Damascus THE UNITED STATES expressed concern Thursday at the delay in questioning of six Syrians about the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister, and reminded Damascus of the UN demand for full cooperation in …

TEHRAN (AP) — They said the satellite would be purely scientific. But a month after its launch — and only weeks after the Iranian president said Israel should be wiped off the map — the head of Iran’s space programme now says the Sina-1 satellite is capable of spying on …

BAGHDAD — A month before Iraq holds elections, Washington and the government it backs in Baghdad find themselves battling for credibility, rather than being able to tout progress towards democracy and human rights. With the discovery of a torture bunker at Iraq’s interior ministry in Baghdad, and the admission that …

ISRAELI FORCES KILLED two Palestinian fighters Thursday during a West Bank arrest raid, riddling their car with bullets when it tried to run a roadblock outside the town of Jenin, the army said. The shooting, part of a recent increase in Israeli raids in Palestinian towns, threatened to inflame tensions …

TUNIS (AP) — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday denied there are Al Qaeda cells operating in Gaza or the West Bank, countering claims made by Israel’s president earlier this week. “I don’t think that there are cells of Al Qaeda in Gaza,” he told Associated Press Television News in …