CAIRO (AFP) - (AFP) - Egypt's military, which faces growing condemnation for cracking down on critics, on Wednesday sentenced two men to six months in prison each for chanting anti-military slogans, a prosecution official said.
One of the men, 18-year-old activist Hassan Said, was arrested in a central Cairo square on August 2, a day after soldiers and police violently dispersed a weeks-long si [...]
BEIRUT (AFP) - (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas hoisted the flag of "the state of Palestine" in Beirut on Wednesday as he inaugurated the Palestinian embassy in Beirut.
The ceremony, which saw the Palestinian delegation upgraded to an embassy, was attended by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and top Palestinian officials, including chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and intelligence chi [...]
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - (AFP) - A radical anti-US Shiite cleric warned of "war" if US forces stayed in Iraq beyond a year-end deadline for their withdrawal, in a brief statement viewed on Wednesday.
Moqtada al-Sadr did not give any further details in the written reply to a follower's question, released by his office in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.
Asked whether or not he would negotiate directly [...]
NINEVEH COMBINED COORDINATION CENTRE, Iraq (AFP) - (AFP) - New neutral arbitrators will be needed at centres set up to prevent disputes between Kurdish and Arab forces after the year-end departure of US troops from Iraq.
All US troops must leave by December 31 unless Baghdad and Washington reach an accord to allow a training mission to stay on.
Without an extension, the three centres which med [...]
BAGHDAD (AFP) - (AFP) - Violence in central and north Iraq on Wednesday left five people dead and 22 wounded, security officials said, just two days after the country's bloodiest day in more than a year.
In Wednesday's worst attack, two people were killed and seven wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the home of a police chief north of Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.
[...]
JERUSALEM (AFP) - (AFP) - At least 10 people were hurt when gunmen attacked two buses on a road near the Egyptian border in southern Israel, sparking a heavy gunbattle with security forces and reports of several deaths.
Israel's Channel 10 television said there were "several dead" in the attacks, but it was not immediately clear how many people were killed or if the attackers were among them.
[...]
ADEN (AFP) - (AFP) - Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen have seized control of the town of Shaqra in lawless Abyan province, a stronghold of the jihadist network in southern Yemen, a local official said on Thursday.
"Al-Qaeda fighters have attacked positions of armed tribesmen" tasked with defending the town on Wednesday, and have "managed to drive them away without any resistance," the official told AF [...]
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) - (AFP) - Palestinian Musa Abu Jarrad shrugs off any notion of reconciling with the Hamas group he blames for the death of his son, a Fatah member, in 2007 factional fighting in Gaza.
"The angel Gabriel himself couldn't make me reconcile with my boy's killers," the 70-year-old says, anger shaking his slender frame.
Abu Jarrad lost his son Bahaa, 36, in [...]
ANKARA (AFP) - (AFP) - Turkish jets bombed 60 targets in northern Iraq used as bases by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) following an ambush by the rebel group that killed nine troops, the military said Thursday.
A PKK spokesman, reporting no casualties, said the air strikes in northern Iraq, the first since late 2010, carried on through Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Turkey's air for [...]
BENGHAZI, Libya (AFP) - (AFP) - As Libyan rebels fought to close in on Tripoli on Thursday, their chief said he feared a bloodbath in a battle for the capital that could come by the end of August.
Anticipating victory, the rebels' political leaders have set out a plan to transform the country from autocracy to a fully blown democracy, in a roadmap which could help define Libya for the coming de [...]
Passengers jump out of plane in India after bad landing
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