Latest Middle East News
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U.S. Israeli defense chiefs met on Iran Syria
WASHINGTON, June 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. and Israeli defence chiefs on Friday reaffirmed cooperation to counter threats from Iran and condemned the alledged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon reiterated during a meeting that the two allies "will continue to work together to counter threats posed by ...
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Panic over MERS virus fades in Saudi Arabia
People in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province have again started greeting friends with the traditional kiss on the cheek, and face masks in public are becoming rarer, as panic subsides over the outbreak of a deadly respiratory disease that hit the country last ...
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Two U.S. men allegedly tried to make X-ray weapon to secretly harm foes of Israel
Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, of Galway, N.Y., leaves the federal courthouse in shackles after being arraigned Wednesday June 19, 2013, in Albany, N.Y. Federal authorities accused Crawford and 54-year-old Eric J. Feight, of Hudson, N.Y. of assembling a portable X-ray weapon that they intended to use to secretly sicken opponents of Israel. Investigators said Crawford approached Jewish organizations ...
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‘The Devil’s Fire’ Syria’s Unique Blend of Pure Horror
A land that has been fought over by Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, Canaanites, Judeans, Samaritans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Franks, Turks, Mongols, British, French and Israelis. Not necessarily in that order, and in the case of some of the combatants, more than once. Home to a variety of Muslim sects and Christian churches, not to mention a substantial community of ...
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Men built X-ray gun to shoot Israel opponents – FBI
Israel .An indictment charges 49-year-old Glendon Scott Crawford and 54-year-old Eric J Feight with conspiracy to provide support to terrorists with the weapon.Investigators have said Crawford approached Jewish organisations in 2012 looking for funding and people to help him with technology that could be used to surreptitiously deliver damaging and even lethal doses of radiation against those he ...
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WMD Regulation in the Middle East
"For the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus and how the United States approaches these issues," President Obama recently said. "So this is not an on and off switch. This is an ongoing challenge that all of us have to be concerned about." Evidently, current methods to control WMD, such as relying on ...
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Apology to Professor Amiram Goldblum
Apology to Professor Amiram Godlblum In July 2008 I published in my information site (www.imra.org.il) a piece against Prof. Amiram Goldblum, wrongly attributing to him activity to bring back a convicted terrorist to continue his PhD studies at Hebrew University. The source of this false information was the journalist Gil Ronen, who quoted in part a totally wrong story by the journalist ...
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Oman Air orders planes worth $473m from Boeing
With this new order, the airline now has a backlog of six 737-800s and five 737-900ERs. In addition, Oman Air has six Boeing 787-8s on order, the statement ...
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Ashton in power struggle over Middle East policy
This microsite has been made possible by support from the European Patent Office (EPO). The sponsor has no control over the content for which European Voice retains full editorial responsibility. EPO maintains a sponsored content section on this microsite. EPO articles are labelled as sponsored ...
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“Everything’s Up For Discussion” Open Debate in Oman
‘Things Are OK'; was the official name of an informal event that took place in Salalah's largest ballroom last Friday night with none other than H E Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Oman's Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs. The aim of the meeting was to invite young people in Dhofar to meet with His Excellency in an informal setting as part of the National Youth ...
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U.S. tries to save peace talks after Karzai objects to Taliban’s Qatar ‘embassy’
Hopes dimmed for talks aimed at ending the Afghan war when an angry President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday suspended security negotiations with the U.S. and scuttled a peace delegation to the Taliban, sending American officials scrambling to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the militants. What provoked Afghanistan’s mercurial president and infuriated many of his compatriots was a ...
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Damning Suicide Note to Iran’s New Prez
Benny Avni Did the eldest son of Iran’s President-elect Hassan Rouhani kill himself to protest the "hypocrisy" of his father and the regime he serves? Iranian news reports at the time said the son shot himself with his father’s pistol in 1992. But now Iranian dissident Ali Reza Nuri reports that the son wrote a suicide note. Writing in the London-based, Saudi-owned pan-Arab ...
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Analysis US arming Assads foes forces Iran to bleed resources in Syria
WASHINGTON - In a darkening Syria, airstrips serve as the veins of the Assad government. Flying over quiet, unsupervised Iraqi airspace, Iranian craft transport undocumented weapons to their chief ally in the region on a routine basis.To the frustration of military experts and Western officials, the Iranians release no defense budget, and certainly no inventory for covert ...
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Bahrain - Bahraini rights defender faces reprisals for collaborating with UN
The Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) and Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) express their serious concern over the ongoing campaign of judicial harassment against human rights defenders in Bahrain, that includes the very recent trial of defender Mohamed Al-Maskati on freedom of assembly related charges.On 19 June 2013, human rights defender and president of the Bahrain Youth Society for ...
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HARPER Media overlook key player in Middle East crisis
As the U.S. media have focused on the Syrian civil war and Iran’s elections, news organizations have failed to concentrate on what I consider a key player in the equation: Hezbollah, the Shiite militia.Having covered both al Qaeda and Hezbollah, I think the U.S. news outlets have placed too much emphasis in recent months on the Sunni group, al Qaeda, helping the Syrian rebels rather than ...
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Kerry calls Karzai twice to smooth waters over Taliban talks
Hamid Karzai twice to try to mend fences over the U.S. outreach to the Taliban. The phone diplomacy occurred after Karzai said the Afghan government had suspended security talks with the United States in Kabul "in view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the peace process." "The secretary spoke with President ...
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Syria opposition vows to fight on to topple president Bashar al-Assad
United Nations to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces in rebel-held areas, and said it "reserves the right to use all means at its disposal" to topple Assad. "The Assad regime has continuously killed civilians using ballistic missiles, chemical weapons and warplanes. It is the only source of terrorism ...
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New York KKK member designs death ray against enemies of Israel
A KKK member from upstate New York was arrested on Tuesday after he allegedly designed a "death ray" that is meant to kill Muslims and other "enemies of ...
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Egypts BOP deficit narrowed by 81.2 pct in 9 months
The deficit in Egypt's balance of payment (BOP) narrowed by 81.2 percent to $2.1 billion in the period between July 2012 and March 2013, Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said Wednesday.In a statement, the CBE said the BOP deficit in the first nine months of the fiscal year 2012-2013 (which starts on July 1, 2012 and ends on June 30, 2013) declined thanks to the 0.7 billion dollar drop in the ...
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Obama United States not ready to go to war
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The assault appears aimed at decisively pushing rebels back and securing the suburb of the shrine, Abdel-Rahman said. Hezbollah fighters as well as Iraqi Shiite militiamen have been reported fighting in the area in the past weeks. The international community has been largely unable to end the Syrian civil war, now in its third year, which has killed nearly ...
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While Claiming Battle Gains Against Rebels Syria’s Assad Is Facing Currency Crisis
Even as President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is proclaiming battlefield momentum against the insurgency with the help of his Hezbollah ally, he appears to be facing a new threat: a rapidly weakening currency that has unnerved many ...
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Op-Ed Contributor Lebanon Overrun by Syrian Refugees
ZAHL, Lebanon -- MY eyes kept being drawn to the shoes. The tiny pink running shoes with Velcro straps, on the feet of the 2-year-old girl sitting quietly on her mother's lap. She fidgeted only a bit -- jostling occasionally with her 7-year-old twin sisters while her father told ...
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Morsy’s appointees spark clashes across Egypt
Egyptians chant slogans during clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's president and his Muslim Brotherhood in Luxor, Egypt, Wednesday, June 19, 2013. On Sunday, Morsi appointed 17 new governors, including seven members of the Brotherhood and one from an ex-militant group to rule the ancient city of Luxor. That appointment outraged Luxor residents, as the governor's group ...
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Israel and Palestine Consequences of Deterrence
"Deterrence has to be maintained," said Gabi Siboni, a colonel for strategic affairs at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "It was only a question of time until this moment arrived." It seems the Palestinians are of like mind. As things stand, this latest round of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians was probably inevitable. Escalation and ...
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China Russia and Uzbekistan drop on U.S. human trafficking list
The U.S. State Department Wednesday downgraded China, Russia and Uzbekistan on its human trafficking list, meaning they could face sanctions. The department promoted Azerbaijan, Congo-Brazzaville and Iraq from its Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2. China, Russia and Uzbekistan were moved from the watch list to Tier 3 on the four-tier system. The shifts came as, for the first time, the department was ...
Cairo Discussed
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Cairo leading new wave in literature
The publishing industry in Cairo is undergoing a profound change that may have implications for the day-to-day life of Egyptians for years to come, it is a kind of revolution in literature that may one day put Cairo on the map, nestled among those other publishing powerhouses, New York, London, and Chicago primarily, but also regional publishing centers like Johannesburg, Mumbai, and Sydney.
Cairo is already a literature producing city, but it is more commonly associated with Arabic texts, and these pieces of literature are further associated with sweeping assessments of society, societal change, politics and religion on a macrocosmic level. Traditionally, there has also never been much of a local market for literature in Cairo or wider Egypt, leading to an old saying that books are written in Cairo, but published in Beirut and then read in Baghdad. Read more
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