BEIJINGThe fact that the Palestinian and Israeli leaders for the first time paid successive visits to China has drawn worldwide notice, Xinhua said Wednesday.The leaders did not hold direct talks in Beijing but China's hosting of the two emphasised its active involvement in Mideast affairs and ...

JERUSALEM  - Hopes of a US-sponsored push to resume stalled Middle East peace talks have been scaled back following US Secretary of State John Kerry's latest visit, to securing economic goals for the West Bank.Internal Palestinian disputes including the rumoured resignation of prime minister ...

TEL AVIV  - Top US diplomat John Kerry on Tuesday wrapped up three days of “very constructive” talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, pledging new efforts to help the West Bank economy as he sought to bring the sides back to the table.Speaking to reporters shortly before ...

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Top US diplomat John Kerry on Monday held talks in Jerusalem with Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad ahead of a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres on his second trip to the region in two weeks.Kerry, who is US President Barack Obama’s new pointman on the Middle East, ...

BEIRUT  - President Bashar al-Assad has warned that if rebel forces battling to overthrow him take power in Syria, they could destabilize the Middle East for decades.The Syrian president, locked in a two-year conflict that he says has been fuelled by his regional foes, also criticized ...

CAIRO - Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi Monday described the Middle East Quartet as ineffective and said he expected Arabs to approach the United Nations to pressure Israel into withdrawing from Palestinian lands. The UN Security Council says “let’s have more committees... to follow up ...

WASHINGTON – The Middle East Quarter, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, denounced Israel for building settlements on occupied Palestinian territories and called on donors to meet aid pledges to the Palestinians as they sought to revive deadlocked ...

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian leaders said on Saturday U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had invited more conflict in the Middle East by calling the Palestinians an "invented" people who want to destroy Israel. Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described ...

Obama's speech on the Middle East is extraordinary for its comprehensive dishonesty involving egregious deceit, lying by commission and lying by omission. Obama's ignoring of the US-imposed Muslim Genocide (about 12 million indigenous deaths in Palestine, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan) is far worse ...

Among the most prevalent Western stereotypes about Muslim countries are those concerning Muslim women: doe-eyed, veiled, and submissive, exotically silent, gauzy inhabitants of imagined harems, closeted behind rigid gender roles. So where were these women in Tunisia and Egypt? In both countries, ...

Citing uprisings across the Middle East where people lack adequate social protection, top UN officials Saturday called for a new era of social justice that offers basic services, decently paid jobs, and safeguards for the poor, vulnerable and marginalized. Social justice is more than an ethical ...

About ten days ago I had a particularly interesting discussion about Israel and its relationship to US policy in the Middle East and to the events swirling there now, in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. My interlocutor is one of the most astute commentators, particularly on US policy, in the ...

With protests sweeping the Islamic world, Pakistanis wonder if mass despair and religious ideology could lead to similar scenes in their country, according to a dispatch published in The New York Times Friday. Although Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has dismissed such a possibility, the ...

IQBAL JASSAT If Karima Brown is correct in her evaluation of President Jacob Zumas canny ability to gain ascendancy despite teetering on the brink, would it be an unreasonable expectation to have him propel South Africa to take a more hands-on approach regarding apartheid Israel? I raise this ...

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleimans recent visit to occupied Palestine and his meetings with several leaders of the Zionist regime of Israel marks another chapter in Cairos efforts to force proximity between the Palestinians and Israel. This is while Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahus ...

DUBAI (AFP) - The number of millionaires in the Middle East rose 7.1 percent to some 400,000 last year, returning to levels last seen in 2007 before the global economic meltdown, a report said Wednesday. The annual World Wealth Report said the combined wealth of the Middle East tycoons stands at ...

UNITED NATIONS (APP) - Pakistan told the UN General Assembly Wednesday that Israels impunity and defiance of international community was inflicting a mortal blow to the Arab-Israeli peace process, and urged Tel Aviv to take steps for resolving the dispute. The incessant culture of impunity shown ...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev began a visit to Egypt on Tuesday to sign a strategic cooperation pact with Cairo as Moscow seeks to boost its diplomatic clout in the Middle East. Russia's economic and trade ties and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are expected to be high on the agenda when he ...

US President Barack Obama wants "immediate" talks between the Palestinians and Israel to forge a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement, U.S. envoy George Mitchell said on Monday. "The President has told me to exert all efforts to create the circumstance when the parties can begin immediate ...

Just as President Obama arrived in the Middle East on Wednesday to deliver his long-planned appeal for mutual understanding, the Arab world heard from a competing voice: Osama bin Laden, accusing the American president via audiotape of sowing hatred. The attempt by Al Qaeda's leader to undercut ...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this week will make her first foray into Middle East diplomacy, attending a high-level conference on humanitarian assistance to Gaza and making the rounds of Israeli and Palestinian officials, at a time when a growing chorus of voices in the United States ...

WASHINGTON - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), together with the Muslim Public Affairs Council and other advocacy groups across the United States, Thursday called on President Barack Obama to adopt an even-handed policy that ensures sustainable peace in the Middle East. The call is ...

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team is choosing its words carefully in dealing with Israel's assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in Israel's deadly air assault on the militant Islamic group will further complicate Obama's challenge to achieve a ...

MADRID (AFP) - Jordan's King Abdullah II said he doubted a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal will be clinched by January 20 when President George W. Bush steps down, in an interview Saturday in Spain's El Pais daily. "For the first time I view myself as pessimistic. And I believe I am one of the ...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged Tuesday to leave "no stone unturned" in her quest for a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal by Jan 20 when President George W Bush steps down. As time draws near "for the end of this administration, I still believe that we must make ...

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas met his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres on Tuesday at Peres' official residence in Jerusalem to review developments in the peace process between the two sides. In a first for Abbas, the largely ceremonial Israeli president greeted him with a ...

AMMAN (AFP) - White House hopeful Barack Obama stepped into the maelstrom of the Middle East Tuesday, warning the next US president could not just snap his fingers and make peace, as fresh violence rocked the region. The Democratic senator's high-risk tour to prove his commander-in-chief mettle ...

Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said here Tuesday there was still a chance to reach an Israeli-Palestinian deal on the outlines of a Palestinian state, but stopped saying it could be sealed by the end of the year. "We still believe that we have a chance to reach an ...

US President George W. Bush was wrapping up a visit to Israel on Friday before heading on to the world's biggest crude producer Saudi Arabia for talks on record oil prices that have hit Western consumers hard. In Israel Bush attended celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state, and in ...