Recently added articles from APS Diplomat Recorder:
AFGHANISTAN - June 1 - Taliban Kidnaps 200 Pakistani Students.
Jun 06, 2009 ... Pakistani authorities are negotiating for the release of about 200 students and staff from a military-run college who were abducted by Taliban militants as they travelled home for a holiday. The kidnapping is the largest hostage-taking of its kind in Pakistan's history. It came as the ...
IRAQ - June 6 - Former Iraqi Minister Is Arrested.
Jun 06, 2009 ... Iraq's former trade minister Abdel Falah al-Sudani, who is at the center of a growing corruption scandal that led to his resignation from office last week, was detained on June 6 after a flight he was taking to Dubai was ordered back to Baghdad, government officials said. The former Iraqi ...
ARABS ISRAEL RLATIONS - May 28 - Israel Insists On Some Construction In West Bank Settlements.
May 30, 2009 ... Israel insist that it wants to reach an understanding with the US on construction in West Bank settlements, despite a blunt call by the Obama administration to completely freeze all work. A government spokesman, Mark Regev, had said a day earlier that the final status of the existing ...
ARAB US RELATIONS - May 28 - Obama Urges Israel, Palestine To Progress With Peace Talks.
May 30, 2009 ... President Barack Obama is challenging Israelis and Palestinians to be fair brokers in the quest for Midle East peace. The plan for peace faces new trouble, but Obama says he "will do everything I can". "We can't continue with the drift, with the increased fear and resentment on both sides, ...
AFGHANISTAN - May 29 - Taliban To Stop Fighting In Mingora.
May 30, 2009 ... Firebrand Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah has asked insurgents to stop battling Pakistani troops in the capital of northwest Swat Valley. Pakistani security forces have been pounding Taliban positions in three northwest districts since late last month, and on May 30 moved into Mingora, ...
IRAQ - May 26 - US Says Roadside Bomb In Iraq Kills 3 Americans.
May 30, 2009 ... Three Americans, including a State Department employee, are killed by a roadside bomb that struck a convoy west of Baghdad. The blast killed a US soldier, a State Department official and a civilian contractor working for the Defense Department as their convoy headed through Fallujah to a ...
IRAN - May 24 - Ahmadi-Nejad Attacks Presence Of Foreign Troops In The Region.
May 30, 2009 ... Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad attacks the presence of foreign forces in the region at a summit with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts aimed at tackling terrorism and other security problems. The three neighbours' first such meeting, which ended with pledges of cooperation, but ...
IRAN - May 25 - Supporters Welcomed Mir Hussein Moussavi.
May 30, 2009 ... The strongest challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad attracted an unusually large and exuberant crowd of supporters on May 25 during a campaign speech in this northwest city near the candidate's birthplace, with only a few weeks before national elections that the incumbent stands a ...
ISRAEL - May 24 - Netanyahu Defies US, Plans To Expand West Bank Settlements.
May 30, 2009 ... PM Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel will continue to build homes in existing Occupied West Bank settlements, defying US calls to halt settlement growth. Netanyahu told the weekly meeting of his Cabinet that he would not allow any new settlements to be created, but said existing ...
ISREAL - May 25 - Israel Ties 2 Nations To Iran's Uranium.
May 30, 2009 ... Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained The AP. The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the ...
ISRAEL - May 26 - Draft Bill By Israel To Ban Nakba Is Attacked.
May 30, 2009 ... Israel's rightwing government has become embroiled in fresh controversy, over a draft law that would ban the country's Arab minority from commemorating the mass exodus of Palestinians from their homes and villages during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The draft bill would make it a criminal ...
JORDAN - May 27 - Amman Protests Israeli Idea Depicting Jordan Home For Palestinians.
May 30, 2009 ... The Jordanian government lodges a strongly-worded protest with Israel over a discussion at the Israeli Knesset of a proposal envisaging the Hashemite Kingdom as a homeland for Palestinians. FM Nasser Judeh summoned the Israeli ambassador in Amman Yaakov Rosen and handed him a protest that ...
LEBANON - May 26 - Hizbullah Tries To Secure IMF Funds.
May 30, 2009 ... Lebanon's Hizbullah has held talks with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union as it seeks to secure continued financial support for Lebanon if the alliance it leads was to win next month's parliamentary elections. The discussions between the Shi'ite militant group and ...
PALESTINE - May 25 -Hamas Court Sentences 3 Fatah Men To Death.
May 30, 2009 ... A Hamas military court sentences three former Fatah security men to death by firing squad for the 2007 killing of two journalists at a pro-Hamas newspaper. The killings took place in May 2007 during factional fighting between the rival Fatah and Hamas factions. The three were members of ...
PALESTINE - May 27 - Occupiers Can Change Nationality, Says Qorei.(Ahmad Qorei)(Brief article)
May 30, 2009 ... Ahmad Qorei, the head of Palestinian negotiating team with Israel, said that Jewish occupiers could live under Palestinian law and can become Palestinian citizens. "(Former US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice told me she understood our position about Ariel but that Ma'aleh Adumim (an ...
PALESTINE - May 28 - Most Palestinians Want Unity Govt.
May 30, 2009 ... Most Palestinians support efforts to forge a unity government as the way to heal an internal rift that has hurt the chances of achieving a peace deal with Israel, an opinion poll published yesterday showed. A survey by Birzeit University, based near the West Bank city of Ramallah, found ...
PALESTINE - May 28 - Israeli Troops Kill Hamas Senior Commander In West Bank Raid.
May 30, 2009 ... The Hamas militant group says one of its senior commanders was killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Hebron after a 14-year manhunt. The Israeli military says they surrounded the militant's house May 28 and called on him to surrender, but he instead opened fire at soldiers who ...
ARAB AFFAIRS - May 17 - Moussa Says Israel Nuclear Programme 'Real Danger'.(Arab League Leader Amr Moussa)(Brief article)
May 23, 2009 ... Arab League chief AMoussa says Israel's alleged nuclear programme is "the real danger" in the Middle East. "The real danger as far as nuclear military programmes are concerned is posed by Israel and not Iran", Moussa said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan. "We don't see Iran as the ...
ARAB AFFAIRS - May 17 - Israel Feels Syrian Gesture Will Help Clear Air Between Enemies.
May 23, 2009 ... Israel's president urges Syria to open direct peace talks, saying any gesture by the Damascus government would help clear the air between the two arch enemies. President Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose office is largely ceremonial, also told reporters in Jordan that Israeli ...
ARAB AFFAIRS - May 18 - Obama Fails To Coax Netanyahu On Two-State Plan.
May 23, 2009 ... Barack Obama offers Benjamin Netanyahu a trademark dose of warmth and conciliation while politely distancing himself from many of the Israeli premier's hardline positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Obama did not succeed in persuading Netanyahu to sign up to a two-state solution ....