BAGHDAD — A month before Iraq holds elections, Washington and the government it backs in Baghdad find themselves battling for credibility, rather than being able to tout progress towards democracy and human rights. With the discovery of a torture bunker at Iraq’s interior ministry in Baghdad, and the admission that …

ISRAELI FORCES KILLED two Palestinian fighters Thursday during a West Bank arrest raid, riddling their car with bullets when it tried to run a roadblock outside the town of Jenin, the army said. The shooting, part of a recent increase in Israeli raids in Palestinian towns, threatened to inflame tensions …

TUNIS (AP) — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday denied there are Al Qaeda cells operating in Gaza or the West Bank, countering claims made by Israel’s president earlier this week. “I don’t think that there are cells of Al Qaeda in Gaza,” he told Associated Press Television News in …

KIRKUK — Northern Iraq’s oilfields are a prime target for rebels looking to disrupt the country’s economy, but now local authorities have come up with innovative ways of getting the vital liquid flowing. Oil installations and pipelines around the northern hub of Kirkuk, also an ethnically tense city riven by …

PRISONER ABUSE REPORTS are dominating the news in Iraq, but poverty is also producing shocking images — of families living on rotting garbage dumps. “We are lost people. Nobody cares about us,” said Moussa Jabr, as flies swarmed around his young children’s faces near rotting food, slimy plastic bags and …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq is investigating allegations of abuse after more than 160 prisoners were found locked in an interior ministry bunker in Baghdad, many of them beaten and malnourished and some apparently tortured. The detainees were discovered on Sunday night during a raid by US troops who were searching …

TRIPOLI (Reuters) — Libya’s Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed to Jan. 31 its ruling in the final appeal of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus. “The court delays the hearing to January 31 to give further time for …

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran’s top nuclear negotiator issued a blunt warning to the UN atomic watchdog on Tuesday, saying more pressure on the Tehran over its controversial nuclear activities would have “consequences.” The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is to meet from November 24, with Iran running the risk of …

TEL AVIV (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s son Omri pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of providing false testimony and falsifying documents at the opening of his trial before a Tel Aviv court. The trial follows a police investigation into allegations of illegal financing of Sharon’s successful 1999 campaign …

CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptians were voting Tuesday in runoffs for the first phase of parliamentary polls, which the opposition Muslim Brothers charged were rife with fraud by President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party. Of the 164 first-phase seats, most of the 133 still undecided contests were pitting candidates from the ruling …