Tehran, July 01: Following the conclusion of a probe into the complaints into the 10th presidential elections in Iran, the Interior Ministry has ordered all election headquarters to end their activities.
“Any activities by the election headquarters in provinces, cities and districts will no longer have a legal basis,” warned the ministry.
Gaza, July 01: The Zionist regime army has handed out demolition orders for the destruction of Palestinian homes and structures located in Al Kahder town in the occupied West Bank.
The demolition plans are in accordance with Israel’s policy of changing the demography of Jerusalem (al-Quds) and the surrounding area in order to turn Islam’s third-holiest city into a “Jews only” region.
Washington, July 01: A top British diplomat says that all foreign troops are losing in Afghanistan because their leaders do not know how to handle the war.
“We’re losing,” Paddy Ashdown, the former British representative for Bosnia, said on Tuesday.
He also added the US- and NATO-led coalition faced defeat unless operational changes were made.
“We’re on our way to losing and our young men are dying out there because politicians won’t get their act together,” according to Ashdown.
Gaza, July 01: In another act of piracy outside its territorial waters, the Zionist regime’s navy seized a foreign vessel carrying humanitarian assistance for Gaza and forcibly diverted it and all onboard to Israel on Tuesday.
The “Spirit of Humanity” was carrying 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire and former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
The crew was detained by the Israeli military, who said they would “be handed over to the proper authorities.”
Baghda, July 01: Not a single American soldier was in sight. Gone, too, were the American helicopters whose buzz has for years defined Baghdad’s background track.
Left alone to protect the capital Tuesday were thousands of Iraqi troops and police manning checkpoints, with army tanks deployed at potential trouble spots and convoys of pickup trucks with machine guns roaming the streets.
Jeddah, July 01: A workshop on precautionary health measures during Haj and Umrah recommended that the old, the infirm, pregnant women and children not perform Haj and Umrah this year in view of the global swine flu pandemic.
Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah said at a press conference following a workshop in Jeddah yesterday that the World Health Organization (WHO) experts who participated in the conference were satisfied with the precautionary measures taken by the Kingdom to prevent the spread of the virus among pilgrims during the Haj season.
Sana’a (Yemen), June 30: Eyewitnesses have spotted bodies and an oil slick in waters near the Comoros Islands following the crash of a Yemen Airways flight with 153 people on board in the India Ocean early Tuesday, Yemeni officials said Tuesday.
‘Some bodies were seen in the area of the crash,’ said Muhammed Abdul-Qadber, chairman of the Yemeni National Civil Aviation Association. ‘There is no further information available about the survivors.’
Jerusalem, June 30: Israel killed 87 civilians, including at least eight children, during its offensive against Gaza militants last winter, with missiles fired from remote pilotless vehicles (RPVs), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report Tuesday.
The report, titled “Precisely Wrong: Gaza civilians killed by Israeli drone-launched missiles”, details six specific incidents which resulted in 29 civilian deaths.
Kabul, June 30: More than two dozen Taliban and three police officers were killed in a clash in northern Afghanistan and a suicide bombing and US-led coalition airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.
Officials in the Baghlan province said a clash that lasted several hours late Monday in the Baghlan-e-Markazi district inflicted heavy casualties on the Taliban.
The police started an operation to clear the Kokchinar area of militants and a clash between the two sides started as soon as the police entered the area, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Saeedkhili said.
Jerusalem, June 30: Israel killed 87 civilians, including at least eight children, during its offensive against Gaza militants last winter, with missiles fired from remote pilotless vehicles (RPVs), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report Tuesday.
The report, titled “Precisely Wrong: Gaza civilians killed by Israeli drone-launched missiles”, details six specific incidents which resulted in 29 civilian deaths.
Israel, June 30: The postwar humanitarian crisis in Gaza takes a turn for the worse with the Israeli Navy intercepting a relief ship headed toward the coastal strip.
A group of 21 activists sailing to Gaza said Tuesday that Israeli forces had threatened to gun down their boat unless they changed direction.
“There is a patrol boat around us and we were told that if we did not turn back they would open fire,” Reuters quoted Irish activist Derek Graham as saying.
“We are continuing our course to Gaza,” he added.
Dubai, June 30: The planned merger between Emaar Properties and three units of Dubai Holding is likely to unleash a wave of consolidations in a property sector beset by excess supply, shriveling demand and an abundance of developers, UAE property analysts say. Mergers and buyouts could help real estate companies streamline their operations and trim payrolls and thus reduce their costs during the downturn, analysts said. “Consolidation is inevitable, whether for big or small companies,” said Charles Neil, Chief Executive Officer of Landmark Advisory, a property consultancy.
Dubai, June 30: economy may have bottomed out, but any recovery will probably be slow in coming. That’s the sobering message from investment bank Morgan Stanley, which announced its latest economic forecast for the UAE on Monday. In a research report, the bank revised downward its growth estimate for the fifth largest oil-exporting country.
New Delhi, June 30 : “Minister Twitter” – that is how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister of Foreign Trade Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi greeted Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on a Dubai stopover last week.
“In Dubai my old friend Sheikha Lubna, UAE foreign trade minister, hosted a friendly lunch at which she greeted me as ‘Minister Twitter’!” he tweeted June 24.
The title was apt as Tharoor collected over 10,000 followers on his account (@shashitharoor) – the micro blog social networking tool, which is the current internet flavour.
Istanbul, June 30 : Not many Turkish citizens can afford to go on a shopping spree nowadays, as they have to watch each penny they spend. But money is still not an issue for visitors from the oil-rich Gulf nations, as increased spending by Arab tourists shows.
Many tourists from oil-rich countries are on a spending spree in Turkey and morale has lifted around the country’s shopping malls, as Middle Eastern and Central Asian visitors flock en masse to the compounds.
Tehran, June 30: Iran confirmed hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and said a row over his June 12 re-election was over, leaving opponents who cried foul with few options.
Iran’s top legislative body, the Guardian Council, said a partial recount on Monday had disproved complaints of irregularities by pro-reform opponents, who said the count was inadequate and that only annulling the election would do.
Jeddha, June 30: Saudi Arabia yesterday welcomed the election of Nabih Berri as speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and Saad Hariri as prime minister and said the moves would strengthen the country’s security and stability.
The Council of Ministers, chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, said Saudi Arabia would stand by Lebanon in order to bolster its stability and sovereignty.
Jeddha, June 30 : Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah yesterday met with experts from WHO and other international agencies and discussed precautionary measures to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, such as swine flu, among pilgrims.
The experts were in the Kingdom to attend a workshop on precautionary health measures during Haj and Umrah seasons, which was organized on the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
Baghdad, June 30: More than six years after US forces captured Baghdad, American combat troops will withdraw from all Iraqi cities and towns by tonight, handing over full control to the 600,000-strong Iraqi army and police and marking a crucial step in Iraq’s return to independence.
Baghdad, June 30: Four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat on the eve of the withdrawal of American troops from Baghdad and cities, the U.S. military said, as Iraqi forces on Tuesday assumed control for security in urban areas.
The U.S. military said the four soldiers served with the Multi-National Division-Baghdad but did not provide further details pending notification of their families. It said they died as a “result of combat related injuries.”
Tehran, June 30: Hours after the Guardian Council confirmed the results of the June 12 poll; Lebanese President Michel Suleiman congratulated Iran’s president on his re-election.
Iran’s electoral watchdog late Monday said the recount of 10 percent of the ballot boxes had shown no irregularities.
The recount was done after defeated presidential candidates, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei rejected the result of the election as “fraudulent”.
Washington, June 30: As part of its security accord with the Baghdad government, the US military will release the Iranian diplomats it took hostage in Iraq two years ago.
Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, said the diplomats would be released under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) — which requires the US military to deliver more than 1500 prisoners, including the non-Iraqi nationals, to the Baghdad government.
Baghdad, June 30: Iraqi forces assumed formal control of Baghdad and other cities Tuesday after American troops handed over security in urban areas in a defining step toward ending the US combat role in the country.
A countdown clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed for US combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside cities.
Tehran, June 30: Iranian police were out in force across the capital Teheran on Monday as the authorities upheld the official results of this month’s fiercely-disputed presidential election over opposition protests.
As Iranian authorities continued to hold four locally recruited British embassy staff, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warned that the Group of Eight major powers would consider sanctions against Teheran at a summit next week.
Kandahar, June 30: President Hamid Karzai accused Afghan guards working for US coalition forces of killing a provincial police chief and at least four other security officers during a gunbattle outside a government office.
In a harshly worded statement, Karzai demanded that coalition forces hand over the private security guards involved in the violence Monday. But the governor of Kandahar later said 41 guards connected to the incident had been disarmed and arrested by Afghan authorities.