MANAMA — Arab activists meeting in Bahrain on Tuesday to press for democratic change find themselves caught between battling “dictator” regimes and US-led initiatives for reform, which are suspected of serving US interests. While some activists at a Manama conference insisted that Arab democratic movements are too weak to implement …

CAIRO — Omar Abdul Moneim, an Egyptian in his early 40s, listened carefully as the instructor summarised the purpose of the crash course, aimed at teaching students how to minimise election fraud on polling day. “Our country has a history of vote-rigging. I hope our presence at the polling stations …

DAMASCUS (AP) — Syria accused Israel on Tuesday of seeking to exploit intense US-led pressure on Damascus to reject calls for peace talks over the occupied Golan Heights. “Israeli officials are trying to exploit the wave of political, media and psychological pressure on Syria in order to express in a …