News Archive - 20 November 2012

>* Rocket and air strikes go on as truce talk goes on* Deaths in Gaza top 130, two more dead take Israeli toll to fiveBy Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan WilliamsGAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes shook the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rockets struck across the border as U.

>WASHINGTON Nov 20 (Reuters) - U.S. officials voiced concern on Tuesday that Bahrain's failure to implement key reforms outlined in an independent 2011 report is making political dialogue more difficult and widening fissures in society in ways that would benefit Iran.Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is...

>* New strategy for diplomacy needed* Window of opportunity seen since U.S. electionBy Justyna PawlakBRUSSELS, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Officials from six world powers meet in Brussels on Wednesday to plan for a possible new round of talks with Iran, the latest effort to resolve a decade-long stand-off over...

>* Heaviest fighting in Damascus for months* NATO agrees to deploy missile defence on Turkish border* Britain recognises opposition coalitionBy Khaled Yacoub OweisAMMAN, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Syrian government troops backed by tanks battled to oust rebel forces from an opposition stronghold in a Damascus suburb on Tuesday in the...

>* U.N. nuclear chief sees "quite constant" enrichment pace* Six world powers to discuss strategy towards Iran in Brussels* New meeting may take place before end-year - Western officialBy Alexandria Sage and Fredrik DahlPARIS/VIENNA, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Iran is enriching uranium at a constant pace and international sanctions...

>LONDON (Reuters) - The Swedish firm Ericsson is working with Iran's largest mobile telecom operator to expand its network and has promised to support another Iranian mobile carrier until 2021, according to interviews and an internal company document. The involvement of Ericsson, the world's largest mobile network equipment maker, comes...

>Israel began air strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, with the declared goal of deterring Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.Iran says the Israeli strikes are "organized terrorism".A senior Iranian lawmaker nonetheless denied on...

>* U.S. Secretary of State Clinton flying to Israel* Rocket and air strikes go on* Deaths top 100, but figures show fighting has easedBy Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan LubellGAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The U.N. chief called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and...

>CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia sent the first group of asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea's remote Manus island on Wednesday, adding a second Pacific nation to its toughened refugee policy designed to stop a steady flow of refugee boats. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen also announced new rules for asylum seekers...

>* Resumes Iran crude imports, buys 5.78 mln bbls in Oct* Jan-Oct Iran crude imports at 44.55 mln bbls, down 40 pct y/y (Adds details)By Meeyoung ChoSEOUL, Nov 21 (Reuters) - South Korea imported 81.2 million barrels of crude oil in October, down 2 percent from a...

DUBAI, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Here are factors that may affectMiddle East stock markets on Wednesday. Reuters has not verifiedthe press reports and does not vouch for their accuracy. ...

One side in this conflict has shown a willingness to coexist. The other has done the exact opposite.

Former Director General of Al-Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, will deliver his assessment of the Middle East's progress since last year's Arab Spring at the University of Sydney this Thursday 22 November in his talk 'Journalism and Political Transition in the Arab World'.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has effectively conceded that Labor’s Pacific Solution Mark II has been overwhelmed, announcing that asylum seekers are arriving in such numbers that they will be allowed to live in the Australian community.

Hamas’ decision to launch a rocket offensive against Israel did a favor for Iran, the country that has supplied the terror group with cash and weapons for a decade: It diverted international attention away from the release of a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency about the Iranian...

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi will be undertaking a state visit to Islamabad Friday, Xinhua reported.

Suggested options include downgrading relations with Washington.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are going through a tense period because of Pakistan’s inability or unwillingness to shut down sanctuaries for Islamic terrorists.

Ed Husain says in the movement towards peace, yesterday's terrorists can become today's politicians (see Sinn Fein). Getting Hamas to abandon its ways is the end of negotiations, not the beginning

While US President Barack Obama builds his legacy in Myanmar, his trip sheds new light on the Southeast Asia country's military relationship with its traditional partner, North Korea. His three-count .....

Sen. Kelly Ayotte promised the United States will stand against

In 2006, Hezbollah rained fire on Israel. But now, the Islamic militia that controls Lebanon's government is refraining from helping Hamas in Gaza. Here are the reasons.

Following the disclosure by CNET of a secret proposal to transfer Internet governance to the U.N., the Russian Federation has revised its plan, toning down the language but not the thrust of the document. [Read more]

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 has dominated the competition on its opening weekend at the Australian box office. The fourth and final movie in the vampire series has taken in $12,490,775, making it the third highest grossing opening of the year behind The Dark Knight Rises and...

Iran is enriching uranium at a constant pace and international sanctions aimed at making Tehran suspend the activity are having no visible impact, the UN nuclear watchdog chief said in unusually blunt remarks yesterday.

The federal government has begun transferring asylum seekers to Manus Island.

Three ayatollahs placed a bounty on his head. But in a Salon exclusive, the Iranian rock star says he's unafraid

>AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian government troops backed by tanks battled to oust rebel forces from an opposition stronghold in a Damascus suburb on Tuesday in the heaviest fighting in the capital for months. In the country's north, rebel fighters stormed an air defense base that President Bashar al-Assad's military had...

By September 12th 2005 Israel completed its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. By that date every last Israeli settler, farm, building, synagogue and even cemetery plot was uprooted, sometimes forcibly and brought back to within the pre-1967 Israeli borders. Even all military and security installations were dismantled and everything handed...

JERUSALEM, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Deadly rocket fire intensified Tuesday in Gaza and southern Israel as diplomats accelerated efforts to reach a truce, officials said.

“The world I’m living in, which is the security world, is becoming more and more complicated,” Eugene Kaspersky ominously informed us. One would imagine: His Russian-based antivirus company, Kaspersky Labs, essentially announced the new age of cyberwar with the 2010 suggestion that Stuxnet must’ve been built with nation-state support. The...

Press Background Call on the One-Year Anniversary of the Release of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry Report Special Briefing Senior Administration Official Washington, DC November 20, 2012 MODERATOR: Thank you, [Operator]. And thanks to everyone for joining us this afternoon, just a couple of days out from Thanksgiving. We did...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that she will travel to the Middle East to help broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

OPERATOR: I would now like to turn the conference over to Toni Johnson. TONI JOHNSON: Hello, everyone. This is -- welcome to this Council on Foreign Relations media conference call. I'm Toni Johnson. I'm deputy editor for CFR.org.

Former U.S. Senator Warren Rudman, a moderate New Hampshire Republican known for a budget deal that helped slash government deficits in the 1990s, died on Monday at age 82, state officials said.

Reuters/Dubai Iran accused Saudi Arabia yesterday of conducting exploration activities in prohibited border areas, hitting back after Riyadh complained of Iranian encroachments on its oil and gas fields in the Gulf.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore pledged Canada’s support for Israel to more than 2,000 people packed into a Toronto synagogue Monday night.

The ridiculous "Red Dawn" is the supreme example of Hollywood's Cold War nostalgia, when the Russkies offered up an easy, de facto villain.

The history books may speak highly of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Middle East peace won't be one of the reasons.

One of the most important developments in the effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear capability was the statement by President Obama last spring that a nuclear Iran would be an unacceptable danger to the entire world. In doing so, the president was removing the focus on Israel...

With the election in the rearview mirror Iran is on the road ahead. The online news and intelligence site DEBKAfile reports the Obama Administration aims to begin nuclear talks with Iran as soon as next month. But the U.S. must change tactics. The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,...

Nauruan police intend to pursue wilful damage and riot charges against two asylum seekers who returned to Iran before facing court over a disturbance at the island's processing centre in September.

A memorable quote from the presidential debates came from President Obama regarding the military: “… we have fewer ships than we had in 1916. Well Governor, we also have also fewer horses and bayonets. Because the nature of the military has changed ...

The New York Times has a very good editorial on Hamas that is flawed by an illogical assertion.…

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Various Malaysian indigenous and foreign defense projects will reach $1.63 billion in 2012.

Jerusalem, Cairo and Gaza were all waiting for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arrive Tuesday night, Nov. 20, for tying up the ends of a Gaza ceasefire accord. Until then, Israel held back from its approval and the Palestinians were hurling as many deadly missiles as they could.

And away we go. Travelers are packing up their vehicles and heading out. Some 39 million Americans a

Financial markets are once again having to focus on a number of events around the globe that could further unsettle investors already worried about the fiscal cliff in the U.S. Stocks in Europe initially fell following Moody's downgrade of France's debt to one notch below the top AAA rating,...

War propaganda arrived on social media last week. Following a week of escalating violence and killings, Israel Defence Forces launched Operation Pillar of Cloud Nov. 14 in the Gaza Strip, assassinating the second-in-command of the Palestinian military organization Hamas.

PARIS (Reuters) - A botched election that hoisted Jean-Francois Cope to the head of France's main conservative party has left it bitterly divided and without a clear presidential candidate for 2017, opening a window for a comeback by ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy. Related Stories Bahrain says arrests cell behind fake bomb...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) called on Spain’s Hispasat and its CEO, Carlos Espinós Gómez, to cease its unreasonable justifications for its business in Iran and immediately stop broadcasting Iranian regime programming. In a November 9 letter to Gómez, UANI CEO, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, called on...

Oil markets have been tetchy of late, seeing sharp upticks on the back of the Israel-Palestine conflict. But oil bulls are watching the wrong war. Forget Arab-Israeli antics, it’s the continuing deterioration in Syria and the prospect of regional quagmire, that poses far greater threats to Middle East oil supplies.

Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has seized Linear Alkyl Benzene worth Rs 33 crore at Mundra port after a city-based trader allegedly misdeclared its country of origin, officials said.

PARIS (Reuters) - Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz will return home on Saturday after recovering in Paris from what he says was an accidental shooting last month. Related Stories Bahrain says arrests cell behind fake bomb attacks West concerned about fuel move at Iran nuclear power plant Argentina's Fernandez...

A rocket fired from Gaza has struck near Jerusalem as said the Israeli 'aggression' would end on Tuesday.

With the Muslim Brothers in charge, religious and secular factions that were united against Mubarak are fighting each other. Michael Petrou reports from Cairo.

TEL AVIV — Israel has struck the Islamic Jihad leadership in the Gaza Strip. Officials said an Israeli air strike has killed or injured at least four senior Jihad operatives in Gaza City. They said at least one of them, identified as a senior commander, was killed in a missile...

>VIENNA (Reuters) - Western officials voiced concern on Tuesday about what they described as an unexpected unloading of fuel at Iran's first nuclear energy plant and said Tehran, which has dismissed it as a normal step, must clarify the issue. The U.N. nuclear agency said in a confidential report...

EU leaders are set to meet at the European Council summit in Brussels on November 22 to hash out a multinannual financial framework , which will determine the EU's joint budget for 2014-2020.

Since the onset of the Greek sovereign debt crisis in late 2009, the problems governing the seventeen-member eurozone have laid bare the structural inadequacies of a single monetary plan that must work with seventeen national fiscal policies.

UN chief calls for an immediate ceasefire as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to the region

WARSAW - Poland has seemingly defied the odds in the face of an ever-consuming debt crisis roiling the continent.

We extensively documented that the wars in the Middle East and North Africa are largely about oil and gas .  (Update: Iran has just started building its gas pipeline to Syria .) As Professor Michel Chossudovsky noted in 2009, gas may be a central reason for the war over Gaza...

The advice comes during Doha Talks session entitled Transmedia: Storytelling in the Digital Age. read more

(Update with comments from Rudman's law firm) LITTLETON, N.H., Nov 20 (Reuters) - Former U.S. SenatorWarren Rudman, a moderate New Hampshire Republican known for abudget deal that helped slash government deficits in the 1990s,died on Monday at age 82, state officials said. Rudman, who had been undergoing...

>* Coup generals appear via video link from hospital* Turks haunted by memories of 1980 coupBy Ozge OzbilginANKARA, Nov 20 (Reuters) - A retired Turkish general who seized power in 1980, sending thousands to jail and to the gallows, faced a court on Tuesday by video link from hospital, looking...

>CAIRO (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal looked like a man at home in Cairo this week as he used the Egyptian capital to declare terms for a ceasefire with Israel, his confidence reflecting the historic changes shaping an Arab world more supportive of his cause. In Cairo for talks...

>By Ian BremerNov 20 (Reuters) - This month, a curious thing happened in the annals of diplomacy. A country offered up a peace plan to put an end to a seemingly endless civil war in Syria. This country was not one of the usual foreign policy suspects - it was...

>* Tensions over Gulf boundaries, Saudi Shi'ite unrest, SyriaDUBAI Nov 20 (Reuters) - Iran accused Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of conducting exploration activities in prohibited border areas, hitting back at its major rival for regional influence after Riyadh complained of Iranian encroachments on its oil and gas fields in the...

U.S. is trying to buy some time to head off escalated violence in the Gaza Strip ...

ABM Resources NL (ASX:ABU) are pleased to provide the Managing Director's Presentation to the Annual General Meeting of shareholders which is being held today at 1:15pm at BDO Audit (WA) Pty Ltd, 38 ...

Israel's President Shimon Peres has accused Iran of encouraging the Palestinians to continue rocket attacks on Israel, saying "they are out of their mind."

The longstanding conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas reignited last week after Israel launched airstrikes against what it called terrorist targets in Gaza. Israel explained that the offensive, which it calls "Operation Pillar of Defense," was necessitated by increasing rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled territory. Among those killed...

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has stood firm on defending Palestinian interests in the Gaza Strip while not jeopardizing a peace treaty with Israel. CAIRO — The Gaza conflict has pressured Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on many fronts: Each rocket Hamas fired into Israel has been a test of Morsi's loyalty.

Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Tuesday.

Egypt has stepped up negotiations on a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on Monday. Hamas' top leader and two senior Israeli envoys were in Cairo, and met separately with Egyptian officials, including President Mohammed Morsi. One of Morsi's aides said a truce deal could...

Fearing the Gaza crisis could spread across the Middle East, EU foreign and defense ministers have jointly called for an end to the violence between Israel and Hamas. However, they found less common ground on Syria.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says Israel and its supporters have plotted “seditions” in the region to weaken the Islamic resistance front.

Zenaida Schmehl was born in Russia on Jan. 4, 1924, and peacefully passed into the hands of her loving Lord Jesus Christ on Oct. 27, 2012.

Breaking Dawn - Part 2 has dominated the competition on its opening weekend at the Australian box office.

President Obama visited Myanmar, also known as Burma, on Monday. In doing so, he became the first sitting U.S. president in history to visit the country. He was greeted by cheering crowds and promised the Burmese people that the U.S. would stand by them as Myanmar moved towards...