News Archive - 23 February 2014

Damascus (AFP) - Syria said Sunday it is ready to cooperate with a rare UN Security Council resolution to allow humanitarian access, so long as it respects "state sovereignty."

The progress of nuclear talks between Iran and the six major world powers has provoked the ire of Israel, with the Zionist regime intensifying efforts to derail the negotiations.

The Barack Obama administration’s insistence that Iran discuss its ballistic missile programme in the negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear agreement brings its position into line with that of Israel and senators who introduced legislation drafted by the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC aimed at torpedoing the negotiations. But the history of...

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian prosecutor on Sunday accused the ousted Islamist president of passing state secrets to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the first such explicit detail in an ongoing espionage trial.

UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) commissioner-general Filippo Grandi meeting with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad in the capital Damascus.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A day before German chancellor Angela Merkel and nearly her entire Cabinet arrive in Israel, her foreign minister published an op-ed in an Israeli newspaper Sunday encouraging Israel to take the "difficult but necessary decisions" to allow U.S.-led peace efforts to succeed.

By Andrew Torchia and Michelle Moghtader DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's non-oil exports are starting to feel the benefits of easing international tensions under new President Hassan Rouhani, ...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Kamran Shirdel's films have been censored, banned and celebrated for documenting hidden parts of Iranian society — the plight of Tehran's prostitutes, the desperation of female prisoners, and the reality behind false heroes.

>* Iran is major backer of Assad* U.S. views Iranian involvement with concernBy Jonathan Saul and Parisa HafeziLONDON/ANKARA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - As Syria's war nears the start of its fourth year, Iran has stepped up support on the ground for President Bashar al-Assad, providing elite teams to gather...

>DUBAI (Reuters) - The ink was barely dry on President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi's plan to stabilize chaotic Yemen before the objections started pouring in. Leader of a nation seemingly on the brink of breakdown for years, Hadi had hoped he could appease rival political groups by creating a federal...

>INTERNATIONAL/REGIONAL* GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks rise, dollar mixed after recent U.S. data* Oil falls as warmer U.S. weather curbs demand* Gold posts third straight weekly gain on U.S. economic worries* U.N. Security Council unanimously approves Syria aid access resolution* Suicide bomber kills three in Lebanon* Testing detente, U.

>"Aseman" (Sky) newspaper, a weekly magazine turned newspaper aligned with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, had quoted a political science professor describing eye-for-an-eye punishment as "inhumane.""The newspaper was banned for spreading lies and insulting Islam," an official from Tehran's Prosecutor's office told the official IRNA news agency.Numerous articles by...