December, 2005

• 15 December

  Ahmadinejad says Holocaust ‘myth’

  TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh attack against Israel on Wednesday, dismissing the Holocaust as a “myth” and saying the Jewish state should be moved as far away as Alaska. And with just a week to go before scheduled talks with the European Union — which …

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• 15 December

  Lebanon shows cracks under weight of killings

  BEIRUT — It has become all too familiar in Lebanon. An anti-Syrian politician or journalist is killed, condemnations pour in from friends and foes alike, the funeral attracts thousands, while officials urge unity. Yet the longer a UN inquiry into the murder of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri drags on, the …

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• 15 December

  Iraq locks down for elections

  BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Quiet fell across most of Iraq on Wednesday on the eve of its parliamentary elections, with a stringent security lockdown preventing all but sporadic violence. A traffic ban was in force for three days, borders were sealed and shops and businesses closed. Most Iraqis stayed at home …

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• 12 December

  Iran offers US share in nuke power plants

  TEHRAN (AP) — Iran opened the door Sunday for US help in building a nuclear power plant — a move designed to ease American suspicions that Tehran is using its nuclear programme as a cover to build atomic weapons. The offer, which did not seem likely to win acceptance in …

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• 12 December

  Iraq to close borders for polls

  BAGHDAD (AP) — Voting begins today in hospitals, military camps and even prisons across Iraq, launching the process to choose a new parliament that the United States hopes can help quell the insurgency so US forces can begin heading home.

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• 12 December

  Insurgents urge Sunnis to vote, warn Zarqawi

  SADDAM HUSSEIN loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday’s polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning Al Qaeda militants not to attack. In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar …

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• 12 December

  Gaza development in limbo despite Israeli pullout

  GAZA CITY — Three months since Israel left the Gaza Strip, ambitious plans to develop the impoverished Palestinian territory have been stalled by delays over shifting the rubble of former settlements, officials say. Israel withdrew from the territory on September 12 and handed the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinian

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• 12 December

  Saddam casts shadow over elections

  BAGHDAD — He sits alone in a cell, writing poetry, reading and preparing for appearances before a court that could sentence him to hang. But Saddam Hussein is very much a player in Thursday’s national elections, even if he is not a candidate.

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• 12 December

  Palestinians sue Israeli ex-security chief in US

  OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (REUTERS) — Palestinians who lost relatives in a 2002 Israeli air strike in Gaza have filed a US civil lawsuit against the former head of Israel’s internal Shin Bet security service, accusing him of committing war crimes.

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• 12 December

  Whatever happened to Lebanon’s ‘Cedar Revolution’?

  BEIRUT — In Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, 11 photographs hang on a wooden wall, showing hundreds of thousands of anti-Syrian protesters thronging the city’s streets after the February assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

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