Meast [2]

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Saturday that a compromise over Jerusalem would lead to uncontrollable violence in the Middle East, and said no Arab or Muslim can relinquish rights to east Jerusalem and its sanctities.

Turkey's coast guard searched on Sunday for 17 missing illegal immigrants presumed drowned after their boat capsized during an ill-fated smuggling attempt to reach Greece.

A Saudi man convicted of kidnapping and raping two girls was beheaded Sunday, the Interior Ministry said.

Israel's foreign minister on Sunday toned down his threat to quit Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government, saying that he would leave by midweek only if Barak does not make an

The Security Council urged Iraq to cooperate with a U.N. envoy who has been barred from visiting the country to discuss the return of property seized after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the fate of hundreds of missing people.

At least 10 people have died this week in floods in northeastern Iran, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Nine months after EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed, investigators are close to compiling DNA profiles for all 217 victims to help provide more tangible evidence for families forced to mourn without burying their relatives.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak will go to Paris on Friday to discuss the Palestinian and Syrian tracks of Middle East peacemaking with President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, presidential sources said.

Egyptian authorities have seized over 1.5 tons of ivory smuggled from Sudan, one of the largest seizures ever in the region, the Ministry of Agriculture said Tuesday.

Responding to criticism from international human rights groups, a prosecutor said Tuesday that an Egyptian-American academic jailed since June has not been formally charged and the investigation would end soon.

Egyptian mediators believe that, practically speaking, Jerusalem cannot be divided -- so are suggesting a five- to 10-year trial period during which the sovereignty question would be deferred and Israelis and Palestinians would live in the holy city, pray in it and police it together.

Egyptian pilots said Monday the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) should turn its inquiry into the 1999 EgyptAir plane crash over to a third party unless it releases key evidence.

A Turkish boat with 31 illegal immigrants traveling to Greece capsized early Saturday off the Greek Island of Kos, authorities said. At least eight drowned and 18 were missing.

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 70-year-old Palestinian before dawn Wednesday after the man opened fire from the roof of his home, apparently believing the soldiers were burglars.

Dozens of radical Jews marched around Jerusalem's walled Old City Thursday, exchanging curses with Muslim worshipers and trying to enter a mosque compound that has been the scene of riots in the past.

Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors, a former U.N. arms inspector said Thursday at the end of a six-day tour in which he did not visit suspected Iraqi weapons sites.

Abulfaz Elchibey, Azerbaijan's first elected president after the breakup of the Soviet Union, died Tuesday in Turkey of prostate cancer and a lung infection. He was 62.

In this Jewish settlement, residents run home guard drills, fearful they may one day be overrun by Palestinians.

Germany's intelligence agency Friday confirmed a report that it had discovered the location of a secret Iraqi missile factory near Baghdad, supporting allegations that Saddam Hussein has continued to build up his arsenal.

A Gulf Air Airbus jet carrying 143 passengers and crew crashed into the sea off Bahrain on Wednesday. At least 70 bodies and no survivors had been found by early Thursday.

A Gulf Air Airbus A320 on a scheduled flight from Manama, Bahrain, to Cairo, Egypt, crashed into the Persian Gulf off the coast of Bahrain on Wednesday, according to Bahrainian Information Ministry officials.

A Gulf Air Airbus A320 on a scheduled flight from Manama, Bahrain, to Cairo, Egypt, crashed into the Persian Gulf off the coast of Bahrain on Wednesday, according to Bahrainian Information Ministry officials.

Saudi forces exchanged gunfire Wednesday with unknown assailants at a compound housing American and other military personnel and their families in southern Saudi Arabia.

The leader of a militant Islamic group has denied Israel's claim that he has ties to Osama bin Laden and accused Israeli authorities of spreading lies.

The militant Hamas movement wants Yasser Arafat to disclose details of his negotiations with Israel, especially on the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem, a Hamas spokesman said Sunday.

Thousands of Islamic Hamas militants demonstrated in the West Bank Friday, urging Palestinian negotiators not to compromise over their goal of gaining Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Hezbollah guerrillas on Monday prevented a U.N. patrol from investigating a Lebanese complaint that Israeli troops have encroached on the international border in southern Lebanon, a U.N. officer said.

Lebanon's Hezbollah party is seeking to translate its battlefield victory against Israel into triumph in the second round of parliamentary polls next Sunday.

Israel's founding fathers didn't lift a finger to help religious Jews in Eastern Europe escape the Holocaust, a prominent ultra-Orthodox politician said Monday, triggering a bitter debate -- the second in a week -- about assigning blame in the Nazi genocide.

Hussein Abdel Nasser, the brother of Egypt's late ruler whose advocacy of pan-Arabism made him a hero to many, has died following a long struggle with lung cancer. He was 62.

A strong quake shook western Turkey on Wednesday, hitting an area devastated by a massive quake last year. Nine people were injured, apparently when they jumped out of buildings in panic, private NTV television reported.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami reaffirmed his commitment to democracy Tuesday and dismissed charges by conservatives that reformers were soft on religious and revolutionary values.

Iran's hardline Press Court opened a new case against a convicted publisher on Tuesday, one day after a top judiciary official suggested the crackdown on the pro-reform press could be winding down.

Iran's mainstream reformers scrambled on Wednesday to head off rising anger on university campuses, following five days of Islamic vigilante violence against the student movement.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday abruptly ended a bid by parliament to ease restrictions on the press -- one of the pro-reform majority's central campaign promises.

A woman has been appointed a district governor for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Saturday.

Thousands of hard-liners gathered outside the Iranian parliament Tuesday to shout insults at a reformist lawmaker who had dared to challenge an order from the country's supreme leader.

Iranian officials have summoned the film director husband of pop star Googoosh to court over a film they say violates the Islamic dress code, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Iranian lawmakers approved a draft bill Sunday that would ban police from entering universities without permission, a central issue since security forces and Islamic vigilantes stormed a dormitory last year and beat up students.

An Iranian lawyer was jailed after one of his clients criticized the country's religious establishment in an interview with an American radio station.

President Mohammad Khatami says he regrets the closure of more than two dozen publications by his hard-line rivals and that he is sometimes powerless to enforce the constitution.

A three-judge appeals court reviewing the jail terms of 10 Iranian Jews convicted of spying for Israel is divided on whether all of the charges had actually constituted crimes, a senior judicial official said in comments reported Monday.

Reformists lawmakers in Iran confronted a vigilante group Wednesday and ousted a hard-line legislator, showing new resolve in their power struggle with conservatives.

A lawmaker said Thursday the Iranian parliament was seeking to pass a bill that would ban girls under 14 and boys under 16 from getting married without court permission, as reformists continue their campaign for social change despite a serious setback this week.

In a daring move after an order from Iran's supreme leader to drop a debate on press freedoms, reformist lawmakers presented a bill Tuesday that aims to block the hard-line judiciary from closing reformist newspapers.

Iranian authorities impounded a tanker Sunday that was suspected of smuggling Iraqi oil, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.