Eurasia Press & News

BAGHDAD (AP) — Insurgents killed 19 Iraqi security forces Saturday in clashes around Baqouba, while US and Iraqi forces intensified an offensive in a rebel-infested city that the Americans subdued last year — only to have the Iraqis lose control. Eight policemen died in a pair of shootouts in Baqouba, …

VIENNA (AP) — Iran faced a deadline Saturday to freeze work that could enable it to make an atomic weapon. European Union representatives warned Tehran had just weeks before a likely referral to the UN Security Council. The probability of Security Council action grew after an IAEA report revealed Friday …

DAMASCUS (AP) — Syrian troops have clashed with members of a militant group in the northern city of Hama — a region that once saw brutal clashes between the government and radicals. Five militants were killed, Syria’s state-run news agency reported Saturday. SANA, quoting an unnamed official at the Syrian …

CAIRO (AP) — A court ruled Saturday that civil society groups will be allowed to monitor Egypt’s historic multi-candidate presidential election set down for next week. The administrative court also referred articles for a controversial law regulating Wednesday’s first-ever presidential vote to a court to determine their constitutionality. Both decisions, …

GAZA CITY — Palestinian children started their school year Saturday hoping that Israel’s withdrawal from the war-weary Gaza Strip meant they were free of the military raids that made their student days a nightmare. One million pupils returned to schools across the West Bank and Gaza, as Israel was putting …

BEIRUT (AP) — Under intense pressure to cooperate with a UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Syria on Saturday invited the world body’s chief investigator to Damascus to meet Syrian authorities within days. But in a move sure to turn the heat further up …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — With January 25, 2006 set as the new date for Palestinian parliamentary elections, most talk has been about what the ruling Fateh faction can do to stop the apparently inexorable rise in popularity of the opposition Hamas Islamists. Indeed, the delay in holding the elections originally slated …

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) — President George W. Bush ordered more troops to help evacuate and secure New Orleans on Saturday as rescuers moved thousands of desperate refugees out of the city and shut down two huge shelters that had become the scene of murder, rape and chaos. Under fire for …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that he would challenge Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for leadership of the ruling Likud Party and replace him as premier, setting off a bitter fight that could shake up Israeli politics and paralyse Mideast peacemaking. Appealing to his hawkish supporters, Netanyahu lashed …

EL GENEINA — The killings and burning of homes has diminished since terrified villagers in West Darfur state fled to camps for the displaced and African Union soldiers arrived to protect them. But a campaign of intimidation blamed on semi-nomadic “Arabs” known as the Janjaweed continues, and has cut so …