Middle East
Iraq's parliament passed on Sunday a long-delayed law in a crucial step to setting up nationwide elections, and the head of the electoral commission said he did not expect any major delays in the vote planned for January.
U.S. officials are reviewing which Guantanamo Bay detainees could face trial in American courts and the first indications could come next week, the U.S. attorney general said Sunday.
A senior Iranian lawmaker warned Russia that its delay in delivering an anti-aircraft missile defense system to Tehran could harm relations between the two countries, state television reported Sunday.
U.S. Homeland Security officials are working with groups around United States to head off any possible anti-Muslim backlash following the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas, the agency's chief said Sunday.
China's premier on Sunday pledged $10 billion in new low interest loans to African nations over three years, offering the beleaguered continent sorely needed cash while dismissing criticism that Beijing's motives in Africa are far from altruistic.
Saudi Arabian forces have taken control of a mountain straddling the border with Yemen and cleared it of Shiite rebels, in five days of fighting that saw three soldiers killed and 15 wounded, the assistant defense minister said on Sunday.
Israel's president on Saturday called on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to rescind his decision to stand down, invoking the memory of Yitzhak Rabin at a public commemoration for the assassinated Israeli premier.
The Saudi health minister said Saturday that the kingdom will not bar anyone considered high-risk for swine flu from performing the hajj pilgrimage this year, though he urged countries where pilgrims set out from to take precautions.
Iranian authorities have released three journalists who were among more than 100 people arrested during pro-government and opposition street demonstrations this week, the country's official news agency reported.
Lebanon's Syrian-backed factions finally agreed on a unity government proposed by their pro-Western rivals on Saturday, ending a four-month deadlock in the deeply divided country.
The Palestinian uncle of Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan says his nephew loved America and wanted to serve his country.
Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected on Saturday any possibility of Tehran shipping uranium abroad for further enrichment, intensifying pressures on the government to reject the U.N.-backed plan altogether.
By saying he wants to step down as president, Mahmoud Abbas has highlighted a deep Palestinian despair rooted in decades of failed peace initiatives and fruitless violence.
An international human rights group said Friday it has documented three cases of sexual assault against detainees arrested during Iran's postelection turmoil, including one that was supported by an official report but not investigated further.
Egyptian authorities have prevented a leading political dissident from traveling to the U.S., saying Friday that the conditions of his early release from prison do not permit him to travel abroad.
A cousin of the man suspected of shooting fellow soldiers at a Texas military base says he had little contact with his Palestinian relatives in the West Bank but had told family there that he suffered discrimination in the U.S. Army because he is a Muslim.
