Latest Articles

• Palestinian Authority

  18 Dec 2008

  The UN Security Council approved a resolution Dec. 16stressing that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process initiated by the United States last year is irreversible and urging intensified efforts to achieve peace throughout the Middle East. The vote was 14 to 0, with Libya abstaining. The resolution - cosponsored by the US and Russia - backs “the determined efforts” by Israel and t…

• Libya

  18 Dec 2008

  Libya, the North African nation constrained by international sanctions for two decades, plans to sell shares in more state-owned companies as the government seeks to boost the economy and develop the bourse set up last year. The state-run Economic and Social Development Fund aims to offer foreign investors about 15 percent of 10 companies, said Suliman Alshohmiy, head of the Liby…

• Israel

  18 Dec 2008

  Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Dec. 16 said peace with Syria would have to involve more than mere culinary tourism, speaking in response to reports of Syria’s demands in indirect negotiations with Israel. Earlier it emerged that sources familiar with the peace talks said this week that Syria has drafted a document defining potential boundaries for the Golan Heights and i…

• Egypt

  18 Dec 2008

  In the darkest alleys of Shubra, a district in Cairo, illegal organ traffickers hunt down destitute young Egyptians to try to persuade them to sell a kidney for less than USD 3,000. “It is a risk-free operation - that was what the broker told me as he talked to me about selling my kidney for good fast cash,” recalled Idris, 33, a laborer who he sold his kidney seven months ago fo…

• United Kingdom

  18 Dec 2008

  PM Gordon Brown said British forces will leave Iraq in the first half of 2009 after a six-year war that ejected Saddam Hussein from power and helped bring down Tony Blair. Brown and his Iraqi counterpart, Nuri al-Maliki, said the government in Baghdad approved a draft law providing for the withdrawal of troops from the UK, Australia, Romania, Estonia, and El Salvador no later tha…

• Ukraine

  18 Dec 2008

  Ukraine’s hryvnia plunged 13 percent to a record low against the dollar as a government official said the weakening currency may trigger defaults on more than half of loans. The 44 percent slide in the hryvnia this year threatens repayments of loans and mortgages denominated in foreign currencies, Roman Zhukovskyi, head of the social and economic department in President Viktor Yu…

• Turkey

  18 Dec 2008

  PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Dec. 17 said he will not join a group of Turkish intellectuals who issued an apology on the Internet for the World War I-era massacres of Armenians in Turkey. “If there is a crime, then those who committed it can offer an apology. My nation, my country has no such issue,” Erdogan said. “I personally do not support this campaign.” The Turkish prime minis…

• Kyrgyzstan

  18 Dec 2008

  The BBC has resumed local language broadcasts in Kyrgyzstan two weeks after having its programming pulled off the air over an alleged breach of contractual obligations, the British station said Dec. 17. Authorities have drawn criticism from government opponents for the recent halting of broadcasts by the BBC and US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service. Pressure…

• Italy

  18 Dec 2008

  Italy’s paramilitary police arrested suspected Sicilian Mafia members in a nationwide dragnet to head off the formation of a new mafia board of directors for the province of Palermo and prevent the eruption of a mob war. Authorities rounded up 94 alleged members of the Sicilian Mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, for charges including extortion, mafia membership and the trafficking of w…

• Greece

  18 Dec 2008

  Protesters hung giant banners off the Acropolis on Dec. 17 calling for mass demonstrations across Europe, heaping embarrassment on a government reeling from Greece’s worst riots in decades sparked by the police shooting of a teenager. The two pink banners were unfurled over the walls of the ancient citadel that towers above central Athens and could be seen for miles around. One b…

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