Middle Orient

CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian women have launched two separate initiatives, one calling on citizens to wear black clothes and the other a white ribbon, to protest the assault of several women during last week’s referendum. Female activists protesting against the nature of the constitutional referendum submitted to Egyptians on May …

RIYADH (AP) — Authorities are interrogating more than 30 Saudis who may have been trying to enter Iraq from Syria to join the insurgency, but were sent home at a time when Syria is under heavy American pressure to stop foreign fighters from crossing its borders. Brig. Mansour Al Turki, …

TEHRAN (AFP) — Leading Iranian presidential candidate Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani released his election manifesto on Monday, promising a “interactive and constructive diplomacy” but without mentioning relations with the United States. In a 24-page “pact with the people,” the top cleric also vowed to “effectively” defend human rights, improve freedom of …

TEL AVIV — Military action would not stop Iran’s nuclear programme but could be a last resort to delay any quest for an atomic bomb, the mastermind of Israel’s 1981 air strike on the Iraqi reactor at Osiraq said on Monday. While Israel and its US ally have not excluded …

KHARTOUM (Reuters) — Sudan arrested the local head of an international aid agency on Monday over a report on hundreds of rapes in Darfur in the first such action against a top relief worker since a rebellion in the area began in 2003. Paul Foreman, the country head of the …

MOGADISHU (Reuters) — Rival Somali factions armed with truck-mounted machineguns fought on Monday for control of a town where President Abdullahi Yusuf plans to set up a temporary capital, killing and wounding several people, residents said. Hundreds of militiamen attacked the southern town of Baidoa at about 3:45am (0045 GMT) …

RIYADH (AFP) — Saudi Arabia moved again on Monday to reassure the world over the health of King Fahd, but the absence of any medical report after four days in hospital is causing rumours about the gravity of his condition. “Stable and reassuring” — the two words have been repeated …

RAMALLAH (AP) — The Palestinian Authority is moving ahead on securing the coastal Gaza Strip area that Israel is to evacuate this summer, putting out a call for 5,000 new security forces, an interior ministry spokesman said Saturday. But although there are fears Palestinian fighters will fire on Israeli targets …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — She had been getting away with it for years. But fate, in the shape of the Israeli border police, finally caught up with JJ, as she always knew it would, at the Qalandiya checkpoint into Ramallah. After what was an apparently random stop, perhaps since she was …

RIYADH (AFP) — King Fahd, the ruler of oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia, remained in hospital Saturday with a lung infection as worries about his health sent crude prices higher and the authorities insisted there was no cause for concern. “His condition is stable… The results of medical tests make us …