Middle Orient

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.

EL-GENEINA (Reuters) — Chad’s army said on Monday its forces had killed about 300 rebels after they launched a failed offensive on a border town in one of the worst attacks in an escalating conflict. Chad’s foreign minister said the troops then chased the rebels into Sudan and destroyed their …

BAGHDAD (AFP) — The trial of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein resumes on Wednesday with further testimony from witnesses detailing abuses they suffered at the hands of the former Iraqi regime. The trial of Saddam and seven associates for perpetrating the massacre of Shiite villagers of Dujail in 1982 was …

BEIRUT (AFP) — Lebanon’s powerful pro-Syrian Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was engaged on Tuesday in talks with anti-Damascus forces in a bid to save the fragile coalition government after a boycott by Shiite ministers.