ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - German coach Wolfgang Sidka on Monday signed on as manager of the Iraqi national football team ahead of its defence of its 2007 Asia Cup championship in Qatar next year.
The 56-year-old, a former manager at Werder Bremen, put his name to a one-year deal worth 500,000 dollars, Iraqi Football Association (IFA) president Hussein Said said at a press conference in the northern c [...]
RIYADH (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of BlackBerry users were awaiting Monday a decision by the Saudi telecoms watchdog on banning the smartphone's messenger service after tests aimed at allaying security concerns.
The regulator had postponed the suspension due to come into force on Friday, allowing time until Monday evening to test suggested technical solutions that would give authorities acce [...]
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi traffic police began to arm themselves with high-powered weapons for the first time in two years as an escalation in attacks against the force saw another officer killed on Monday.
The roadside explosion at a police station in Ghazaliyah, western Baghdad, also killed a civilian and left 10 people wounded, including seven traffic policemen, officials said.
The blas [...]
TEL AVIV (AFP) - An Israeli man freed by Libya after being held for five months on suspicion of spying flew back home on Monday, with Israel praising Tripoli for its handling of secret negotiations to secure his release.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, accompanying Rafael Hadad on a flight from Austria, said the Libyans had "behaved in a very responsible way," speaking to journalists at Ben [...]
DAMASCUS (AFP) - Iran is ready to discuss its nuclear programme with the United States, the adviser to the Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday during a visit to Syria.
"While we do not have any faith in the American government... Iran is ready for talks on its nuclear programme," Ali Akbar Velayati told reporters at a news conference in the Iranian embassy [...]
PARIS (AFP) - Iran has sentenced seven leading members of its Bahai religious minority to 20-year jail terms, French and US members of the faith told AFP on Monday.
The United States and the European Union had criticised Iran's detention of the Bahai members, and their reported jailing will revive calls for Tehran's Islamic regime to respect religious freedom.
"On Sunday, authorities announced [...]
TRIPOLI (AFP) - A charity group run by the Libyan leader's son Seif al-Islam Kadhafi said on Monday it signed a 50-million-dollar deal with a UN agency to rebuild 1,250 refugee homes in the Gaza Strip.
"We have signed an agreement with UNRWA to build 1,250 homes in Gaza for a total cost of 50 million dollars," the executive director of the Kadhafi Foundation, Yussef Sawan, told AFP.
Israel lau [...]
VIENNA (AFP) - The International Press Institute on Monday named Iranian journalist and dissident Akbar Ganji as its 59th "World Press Freedom Hero" in honour of his defence of freedom of speech and equal rights.
Ganji, 50, spent six years in Iran’s infamous Evin prison for articles that accused high-level political figures and clerics of involvement in the assassinations of intellectual [...]
KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - Kuwaiti telecommunications giant Zain on Monday announced an almost five-fold rise in first half net profit mainly due to the sale of its African operations for 10.7 billion dollars.
Zain posted 895.3 million dinars (3.085 billion dollars) in net income in the first six months of 2010, compared to just 533.5 million dollars in the same period last year, a jump of 480 percent [...]
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran has scrapped a second liquefied natural gas (LNG) project which was to be executed by French energy giant Total, a report said on Monday, after a similar facility to the Anglo-Dutch Shell was recently dropped.
Mohsen Khojastemehr, Deputy Oil Minister, told the oil ministry's news agency Shana that the plan now was to "inject the gas from South Pars blocks 11, 13 and 14 into [...]
Passengers jump out of plane in India after bad landing
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