Middle Orient

NEW YORK — Numbers and words, words and numbers, repeated so many times they begin to lose meaning. A suicide car bomber rams a military checkpoint. Police find 28 bullet-riddled bodies in shallow graves. A man walks into a restaurant and blows himself up.

BAGHDAD — The new Iraq is still a place where violence reigns and ethnic and sectarian divisions are growing deeper one year after the handover of sovereignty by the US-led occupation. On the bright side, 8.5 million Iraqis voted in the watershed January election and the political process appears to …

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari late Friday sought to ease sectarian concerns about the shape of Iraq’s future government and denounced those who continued to foment violence against it. “There is a strong determination of the Iraqi people to succeed on this path,” Jaafari said …

Attitude least positive in Jordan WASHINGTON (AFP) — Anti-US sentiment is firmly entrenched around the world, mainly because of President George W. Bush and his policies, to such a degree that even US humanitarian efforts do little to curb it, according to a poll released Thursday.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Persistent Iraq violence that killed at least 32 people and wounded dozens more Saturday overshadowed a diplomatic offensive that saw high-profile trips by the war-torn country’s president and prime minister.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — The first group of Jewish settlers announced Saturday they plan to move out of their Gaza Strip homes next month, several weeks before the army is officially set to withdraw from the coastal area.

LONDON (AP) — The world reacted warily Saturday to a hardliner’s victory in Iran’s presidential election, with many nations expressing worries about Iran’s nuclear programme. Many urged Iran to respond to international concerns about the programme, while Russia said it was willing to keep working with Iran on nuclear power …

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Ultra-conservative Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swept to a stunning landslide victory in presidential election on Saturday and immediately vowed to turn Iran into a strong and exemplary Islamic state.

An Aljazeera cameraman who has been incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay since 2001 has suffered extreme physical, sexual and religious abuse, his lawyer has said. Clive Stafford-Smith, who visited clients in the US detention camp in Cuba a few weeks ago, told Aljazeera.net that Sami al-Hajj had been beaten by his …

BAGHDAD (AFP) — US troops may start withdrawing from Iraq next March, a US general said Tuesday, as the new US ambassador to the volatile country pledged to help Iraqis crush a ruthless insurgency. As many as four or five US military brigades (up to 20,000 people) could leave then …