Middle Orient

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush will try to persuade sceptical Americans this week that the war in Iraq is winnable while shoring up his own weak approval ratings. Neither task will be easy. As part of a newly honed White House focus on Iraq, Bush will travel to an …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that American forces would not defeat Iraq’s rebels but would make way for Iraqis to put down an insurgency that could go on for a decade or more. His remarks came on another day of bloodshed on which three …

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.