Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. and Iraqi officials opened a water treatment plant in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum on Wednesday three and a half years after they began it, a sign that the area is finally quiet enough for long-promised reconstruction work. The $65 million plant provides water for 200,000 people …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A bomb blast struck the convoy of a university dean, killing four people and wounding 10 others in Baghdad on Wednesday, police said. Ziyad al-Ani, also a member of the Islamic Party — the largest Sunni Arab faction in parliament — was unharmed by the explosion which …

MUGHRAQA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) – It is hard to believe that the empty sea washing the shore of the battered Gaza Strip is the same Mediterranean of European pleasure yachts and bathing beaches. For 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, the westward sea is like the fourth wall of a …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli army investigation into its use of white phosphorus munitions in Gaza is focusing on an incident in which 20 shells containing the substance were fired into a populated area, a newspaper said on Wednesday. The Haaretz daily said the incident occurred in the northern Gaza …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel denied on Wednesday its armed forces used ordnance with depleted uranium during the Gaza Strip offensive, and said that could be proven by any U.N. investigation. Responding to a letter from Arab envoys, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday it would consult with member …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is preventing the Western-backed Palestinian Authority from transferring cash to the Gaza Strip to pay its workers and others hard-hit by war, Western and Palestinian officials said on Wednesday. The restrictions threatened to undercut the ability of President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank-based government to reassert a …

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt stole the diplomatic limelight for its efforts to end recent fighting in Gaza, but its failure to achieve a negotiated truce leaves a question mark over Cairo’s future as a preferred Arab mediator. U.S.-ally Egypt, an Arab regional heavyweight with a peace deal with Israel, has …

TEHRAN (FNA)- US forces continue to protect members of the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) when they are out of their headquarters, an Iraqi provincial official said Wednesday. “MKO members rarely go out of the (Ashraf) camp and American Forces protect them when they are out,” Diyala …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran believes that the presidency term of Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian self-rule government is over and that new parliamentary elections should be held in Palestine, said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here on Wednesday. “We think Mahmoud Abbas’ term in the self-rule government is over and new …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwafaq Al-Rubaie said here in Tehran on Wednesday that the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) will be expelled soon from Iraq. The Iraqi official made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here in Tehran today. Rubaie …