RAMALLAH: The Israeli forces operating in West Bank on early Thursday arrested seventeen “wanted” Palestinian activists, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
AMMAN: The development could deprive the Islamic Action Front, Jordan’s largest opposition party, of any voice in the reforms. The party also boycotted last November’s parliamentary elections.
GAZA CITY: Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, announced the formation of a new government headed by the group’s leader Ismail Haniya on Thursday.
Opposition blames Israel for mysterious explosion alleged to be responsible
CAIRO: Clashes that broke out when a Muslim mob attacked thousands of Christians protesting the burning of a Cairo church killed at least 13 people and wounded about 140, officials said Wednesday.
ABU DHABI: A group of academics and professionals urged Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE president and ruler of Abu Dhabi, to initiate free and democratic elections in the country.
TUNIS: A Tunisian court ruled on Wednesday that the party of former President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali be dissolved, triggering street celebrations as one of the last vestiges of the ousted leader’s era was dismantled.
RAMALLAH: The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s legislative body will meet on March 16 to evaluate the stalled peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israeli and the future of the peace process, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.
MANAMA: Bahrain’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim opposition groups have met to try to curb sectarian tensions that have escalated into street fights after weeks of protests aimed at bringing down the government.
BAGHDAD: A surge of protests against Iraq’s US -backed democratic government has provoked a violent crackdown on demonstrators and journalists that is raising concerns about a rollback of civil liberties throughout the country.
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: Thousands of Kurd forces will remain in their new positions around the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk for the time being, a senior Kurdish official said Wednesday.
RAS LANOUF, Libya: A high-ranking member of the Libyan military flew to Cairo on Wednesday with a message for Egyptian army officials from Muammar Qaddafi, whose troops pounded opposition forces with artillery barrages and gunfire in at least two major cities.
STRASBOURG: Representatives of the Libyan opposition seeking endorsement for their rebel administration met the EU foreign policy chief on Tuesday and planned to speak at the European Parliament on Wednesday.
TEHRAN: Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost his position on Tuesday as the head of a powerful clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing Iran’s supreme leader.
JUBA, Sudan: Fighting between southern Sudan’s military and forces loyal to a southern rebel leader has killed 51 troops and dislodged the renegade army commander from his bush outpost, officials said Tuesday.
MANAMA: Three Bahraini opposition groups said on Tuesday they had formed a coalition aimed at pressurizing the government to bring about sweeping political changes in the country.
CAIRO: Clashes between Christians and Muslims escalated on Tuesday with thousands of people burning tires, smashing parked cars and cutting off a main road despite military moves to control a day of violent protests in Egypt’s capital.
MUSCAT: Oman's ruler dissolved the office overseeing economic affairs on Monday in a concession to a key demand of protesters calling for more jobs and political openness.
STRASBOURG: Representatives of the Libyan opposition seeking endorsement for their rebel administration met the EU foreign policy chief on Tuesday and planned to speak at the European Parliament on Wednesday.
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s president plans to create two additional states in the western Darfur territory, officials said, in what rebels described as bid to curb their influence and strengthen central control from Khartoum.
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates is stable despite a wave of Arab protests that has reached other Gulf Arab countries, and is not considering new initiatives to reinforce security, Dubai’s police chief said on Tuesday.
RAMALLAH: In a clear message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian state will not be created on 1967 borders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that the Israeli army will remain in the Jordan Valley in any future peace agreement.
TEHRAN: Iran urged the US on Tuesday to provide new information about a retired FBI agent who disappeared inside the country, and says it will keep trying to discover his fate.
SANAA: Yemeni protests demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule spread to a tribal area considered his political stronghold on Tuesday, and military vehicles deployed in the capital.
RAS LANUF, Libya: Britain and France spearheaded a drive at the United Nations for a no-fly zone over Libya as battles raged across the country and Muammar Qaddafi’s son said a civil war would erupt if his father stepped down.
AMMAN: Hundreds of Jordanian journalists working in state-controlled media on Monday demanded an end to government curbs on media freedom, saying they were an obstacle to democratic transformation.
SANAA: The United States warned citizens in Yemen on Sunday to consider departing as protests seeking the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh gather momentum, saying the security risk in the impoverished state was extremely high.
TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad narrowly avoided losing his second minister in as many months on Sunday when parliament voted not to impeach him by just one vote.
KHARTOUM: Renegade militia fighters clashed twice with south Sudanese soldiers, both sides said on Sunday, in the latest sign of instability in the oil-producing territory months ahead of its expected independence.
RAMALLAH: The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) on Sunday said that the rate of construction in West Bank settlements quadrupled since the temporary building freeze ended in last September.
MUSCAT, Oman: Government officials say protests demanding economic reforms by Oman’s ruler have reached a key oil region in this Arabian Peninsula country.
SANAA: Increasing pressure on Yemen's embattled president, several members of his ruling Congress Party resigned Saturday as tens of thousands again took to the streets to demand his ouster and Britain warned its citizens against all travel to the impoverished Arab nation.
Saleh rejects opposition’s offer for early exit
MUSCAT: Sultan Qaboos bin Said ordered the second top-level shakeup in a week Saturday replacing three top government ministers.
KIEV: The Palestinian engineer vanished from a Ukrainian train in the middle of the night. Now, the United Nations refugee agency confirms his wife’s fears that he is being held in prison by the Israeli secret service, most likely after being kidnapped nearly three weeks ago.
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s prime minister Thursday defended his government’s performance in the face of protesters demanding more jobs, better services and less corruption — charging that lawmakers were just as much to blame for the crisis.
SANAA: Yemeni security forces and the opposition exchanged accusations over the responsibility of the clashes that erupted on Tuesday night between police and the protesters in the capital.
MANAMA: Thousands of protesters in Bahrain demanded Wednesday that naturalized immigrants be stripped of their citizenship and sent out of the country.
ANKARA, Turkey: The Anatolia news agency says heavy snowfall has blocked access to hundreds of remote villages in eastern and northern Turkey and paralyzed life in the Turkish capital.
TRIPOLI: Forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi recaptured Zawiyah on Wednesday after a fierce attack on the closest rebel-held city to the capital Tripoli, residents said.
RAS LANOUF, Libya: The scream of an ambulance siren shattered the calm and the staff of the Ras Lanouf hospital sprang into action as the paramedics rushed in a camouflage-clad fighter with a head wound. The battle against government forces was back on.
RAS JDIR, Tunisia: The tanks of pro-Qaddafi forces were reported to be closing in on the rebel-held main square of the western city of Zawiyah on Wednesday, hours after Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi vowed on television to topple rebels in the east.
TRIPOLI: After dramatic successes over the past weeks, Libya’s rebel movement appears to have hit a wall of overwhelming power from loyalists of Muammar Qaddafi. Pro-regime forces halted its drive on Tripoli with a heavy barrage of rockets in the east and threatened Tuesday to recapture the closest rebel-held city to the capital in the west.
Libyan rebels meet EU’s Ashton
KUWAIT CITY: Protesters gathered outside Kuwait’s main government building Tuesday to demand sweeping changes on how the oil-rich country is run as another Gulf state joined the surge for reforms around the Arab world. Security forces stood by as hundreds of demonstrators moved into an area outside a building holding key offices including Kuwait’s emir and the prime minister.
SANAA, Yemen: About 2,000 inmates staged a riot at a prison in the Yemeni capital after taking a dozen guards hostage and joined calls by anti-government protesters for the country’s president to step down, a security official said Tuesday.
CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his family against a top prosecutor’s move to seize funds that could total in the billions of dollars.
RAS LANOUF, Libya: Libya’s opposition battled for military and diplomatic advantage against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime on Thursday, winning official recognition from France and hitting government forces with heavy weapons on the road to the capital.
RABAT, Morocco: King Mohammed VI said Wednesday that Morocco will revise its constitution for the first time in 15 years, aiming to strengthen democracy in the face of a push across the Arab world.
