Middle Orient

BRUSSELS (AFP) — More than 80 foreign ministers and officials gathered in Brussels Tuesday for a conference aimed at showing solidarity with violence-wracked Iraq, and to hear Baghdad’s plans for how to rebuild it. While organisers admitted the Brussels talks may be short on major new initiatives, they played up …

RIYADH (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticised Saudi Arabia’s record on democratic reform and the jailing of three activists but was firmly rebuffed Tuesday by Washington’s staunch Middle East ally. “The row is really meaningless,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal told a post-midnight news conference …

TEHRAN — Left in a state of shock by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s surprise election success, young professional women in Tehran fear they could lose all their hard-won new freedoms if the ultra-conservative wins the presidency. “We are always worried. We have never been working at ease. But now, with Ahmadinejad as …

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Electoral officials said on Tuesday they were guarding against fresh attempts to manipulate voters in Iran’s presidential election run-off after charges that military bodies rallied support for a hardline candidate. Friday’s run-off, after an inconclusive first round, pits pragmatic cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani against ultra-conservative Tehran Mayor …

A bomb killed an anti-Syrian politician Tuesday in the second such assassination in three weeks, fuelling opposition fears that Damascus and its Lebanese allies are hitting their enemies in a bid to restore their fading authority. Former Communist Party leader George Hawi, 67, was killed by an explosion under his …

TEHRAN (AP) — Tehran’s arch-conservative mayor capped a stunning political rise Saturday to claim second place in Iran’s presidential race and face one of the nation’s most famous statesmen in a head-to-head vote. Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a 49-year-old former student radical backed by Iran’s ruling clerics and their military …

BAGHDAD — Donny George of the Iraq Museum is more concerned about security than most museum directors. Books on George’s shelves summarise his struggle: “Institutional Trauma: Major Change in Museums and its Effect on Staff,” “Museum Security and Protection” and “Moving the Mountain: A Guide to Moving Collections.”

ABUJA (AFP) — African Union mediators continued informal negotiations on Saturday to break the deadlock over Chad’s participation in the ongoing peace talks to end the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, an AU spokesman said, while playing down the problem. “Negotiations are continuing at the highest levels to reach a …

CAIRO (AFP) — Khartoum and Sudan’s largest opposition bloc on Saturday signed a landmark reconciliation agreement that officials said would boost efforts to bring peace back to Africa’s largest country. But an opposition leader told AFP that despite the signing, all issues had not been resolved and negotiators would remain …

BEIRUT (AP) — UN investigators said a truck bomb probably was used to kill former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, but they are not sure whether the bomber died as well. “We are talking here about a probability of 99.9 per cent” that the explosion was above ground, chief UN investigator …