Meast

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

During the intifada more than a decade ago, they threw stones. Now they have guns.

Ehud Barak has been complaining for some weeks now that Israel no longer has a partner for peace. And while that may be part of the blame game for the violent clashes in Palestinian territories that have continued despite Tuesday's cease-fire agreement, it may contain a more profound truth: Yasser Arafat's claim to leadership over the Palestinians has never looked more shaky. Doubts are growing th...

Peace right now may be more dangerous than war to Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. At least that's what they're signaling by their actions, as the Middle East braced for new violence Friday following a night of Israeli air strikes on Palestinian targets and calls by Palestinian militants for a

Peace right now may be more dangerous than war to Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. And so while they might have agreed to attend a peace summit in Egypt on Monday, both men will attend under sufferance and do their best to signal their constituencies back home that they're acting tough. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced Saturday that he'd convinced Arafat to attend a meeting in the Egyptian...

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

Maybe U.S. diplomacy never had a prayer of succeeding in the first place. Maybe the Israelis and the Palestinians just weren't ready for peace yet; their hard-liners still had too much hate and killing left in them. Even then, it's clear now that President Clinton's game plan for getting Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to sign a final peace treaty contained serious flaws.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami suffered a parliamentary defeat on Tuesday when lawmakers normally loyal to his program of reforms rejected a ministerial candidate as allegedly incompetent.

Iran said on Sunday it had held

In moves mostly designed for domestic consumption, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat are burning the almost completely collapsed bridges that lead back to the peace process. Israeli helicopters launched new rocket attacks on Palestinian Authority buildings in the West Bank and Gaza overnight, making good on warnings by the Israeli defense minister that Israel plans to ratchet up its level of force in d...

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

Yasser Arafat may be having a hard time keeping Palestinian militants in line with his latest cease-fire agreement, but Ehud Barak could find his own plans to tamp down the violence being second-guessed by Israeli settlers. With Israel's deadline for an end to the violence due to expire Friday amid the noontime Muslim prayers that have often touched off fresh waves of rage, the tenuous cease-fire ...

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

A lynching in a dusty West Bank town may have not only dashed the fragile hopes for ending the current violence in the Palestinian territories; it may also symbolize Yasser Arafat's increasing inability to rein in his own people. After two Israeli soldiers in the custody of the Palestinian police were beaten to death by a mob in Ramallah, Thursday, Israel ratcheted up the ante by firing rockets th...

A lynching in a dusty West Bank town may have not only dashed the fragile hopes for ending the current violence in the Palestinian territories; it may also symbolize Yasser Arafat's increasing inability to rein in his own people. After two Israeli soldiers in the custody of the Palestinian police were beaten to death by a mob in Ramallah, Thursday, Israel ratcheted up the ante by firing rockets th...

The price of failure at Sharm el-Sheikh would have been escalation of the Mideast crisis, which may be why Israeli and Palestinian leaders came under overwhelming pressure to announce a cease-fire. But they couldn't bring themselves to actually sign anything, and the verbal agreement was not between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak, but rather between each man and President Clinton. Not only that, its...

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

In bloody clashes across the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday that left nine Palestinians dead, Israeli troops battled protesters with tanks and helicopter gunships.

Twenty-five people, including a family of twelve, were killed in the past three days during a surge of violence in Algeria, where an Islamic insurgency continues to claim new lives on an almost daily basis, news reports said Saturday.

Once, the Israelis on Haanafa street and the Palestinians on St. Nicholas street shared suburban pleasures: Evening breezes that drew them to their balconies. The thump-thump of kids kicking a soccer ball in the street below.

The bombing of a U.S. warship at the southern Yemeni port of Aden has dealt a fresh blow to tourism in the poor Arab state, still trying to recover from the effects of kidnappings and killings of Western visitors.

AIDS activists from around the globe called on rich nations Monday to cancel the debt of poor countries ravaged by AIDS and substantially increase aid directed at fighting the virus and improving health care.

Algeria and Iran have restored diplomatic ties and named ambassadors after a seven-year dispute over issues related to Islamic fundamentalism, Algeria's official APS news agency said on Friday.

An American soldier who was in Kuwait for routine training has died of a gunshot wound, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday without further explanation.

mideast

<i>Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak spoke with TIME senior writer Lisa Beyer by phone about the situation in the Middle East. He spoke from his home in Kochav Yair, north of Tel Aviv, Saturday evening local time. </i>

Secretary-General Kofi Annan complained Wednesday about a significant increase in the amount of goods destined for Iraq through the U.N. aid program that have been blocked from arriving -- largely because of the United States.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan cut short his visit to Lebanon on Thursday and flew back to Israel to try to contain Arab-Israeli violence following the killing of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Palestinians and Israelis on Thursday to show restraint after the killings of two Israeli soldiers, saying that further escalations could destabilise the Middle East.

Arab foreign ministers said Thursday they want peace with Israel, but need to review if the current negotiations process is the best way to achieve it.

Troubled by 10 anti-Jewish attacks in New York that are being investigated as a possible spillover of Middle East violence, Arab and Jewish community leaders united on Wednesday in an appeal for calm.

In this story: Israel may consider 'time out' Arafat calls for permanent peace E.U. and U.N. react

With Arab leaders preparing to meet this weekend over the Mideast peace process, their foreign ministers insist they want peace with Israel but need to reassess how to get there after weeks of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Angry as they are with Israeli handling of unrest in Palestinian areas, Arab leaders preparing to meet Saturday for the first time in four years appeared unlikely to abandon the peace process as many of their citizens demand.

The head of the Arab League on Thursday said fresh attacks by Israeli helicopter gunships on Palestinian targets were extremely dangerous, adding that the escalating violence was destroying any hopes for peace.

In this story: Israeli-Palestinian clashes continue Israeli official: Assad's comments 'extreme' Libya absent, Iraq present

Arab foreign ministers prepared on Thursday for an emergency summit expected to condemn Israel for bloody clashes with Palestinians and warn the Jewish state that future progress toward peace will depend on its behavior.

Arabs and Muslims lined up by the dozen Wednesday to denounce Israel in the Security Council, accusing it of launching the weeklong spasm of violence between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians to undermine the peace process.

The Arab League urged the U.N. Security Council on Sunday to investigate Israel's conduct in the Palestinian-Israeli clashes and bring transgressors to justice.

Angry as they are with Israeli handling of unrest in Palestinian areas, Arab leaders preparing to meet Saturday for the first time in four years appeared unlikely to abandon the peace process as many of their citizens demand.

Angry as they are with Israeli handling of unrest in Palestinian areas, Arab leaders preparing to meet Saturday for the first time in four years appeared unlikely to abandon the peace process as many of their citizens demand.