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WASHINGTON — For allies who speak often of their unbreakable bonds and constant communication, this has been a season of static between Jerusalem and Washington. The latest eruption was over the announcement this week that the United States would work with a new Palestinian government that emerged from reconciliation talks with Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials have condemned the Obama administration in […]

Acknowledging that Syria will miss the June 30 deadline for eliminating its chemical weapons, the top United Nations official overseeing the arsenal’s eradication said Wednesday it was “very, very critical” for Syria to export the final shipment, which is packed and ready to go but is trapped in an area contested by insurgents in the civil war. The official, Sigrid Kaag, said she would be traveling to […]

ABU DHABI // The influence of Arabic architecture on European buildings should not be underestimated, experts from Spain said at a talk in the capital. As part of the first event in a series of collaborations with Universidad Europea de Madrid, Alhosn University gathered some of Spain’s foremost architects from both universities to discuss how Middle Eastern and Spanish architecture have learnt from each other. Dr Miguel […]

Initial public offers of equity in Gulf Arab countries are set to boom, helped by lighter regulation and legal reforms as governments seek to diversify their oil-dependent economies, according to one of the region’s top IPO lawyers. An exemption from Dubai IPO rules granted by regulators to real estate giant Emaar Properties, which will permit an offer worth up to $2.45 billion, is a sign of the […]

US President Barack Obama has condemned what he called Russia’s “dark tactics” and “bullying” in Ukraine, prompting President Vladimir Putin to hit back at American “aggression,” as diplomatic wrangling between the two countries escalated. Obama met Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko in the Polish capital of Warsaw on Wednesday, and promised years of US support, then blasted Russia and vowed to protect former Soviet states and domains in NATO, […]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Robert S. Ford, who was United States ambassador to Syria when the country’s uprising began in 2011 and went on to carry out American policy from abroad on the ensuing civil war, has revealed that he gave up his post in February because he could “no longer defend the policy in public.” Mr. Ford made the remarks on Tuesday night on PBS NewsHour. A […]

In the small number of other countries that have legalised assisted suicide, there have been mistakes Photo: PA As a psychiatrist I have spent my working life helping people to find a reason for living and to make sense of disability – not a reason to hasten their death. So imagine my concern to find yet another attempt to legalise what is euphemistically called ‘assisted dying’ planned for […]

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UAE Central Bank data Lending to construction in the United Arab Emirates is booming again, underlining a rapid return in confidence despite the heavy toll bad real estate loans took on local banks during the global financial crisis. Banks had extended almost 181 billion dirhams ($49 billion) of credit to the construction sector last year, according to recently released central bank figures, up from AED129 billion in […]

The most recent flare-up in the long-running fight between the Yemeni Army and Shiite insurgents in the country’s north has killed hundreds of people in the past three weeks, local officials said Tuesday. The clashes, in Amran Province, began when the rebels sought to claim new territory closer to the capital, said Ahmad al-Bakry, the province’s deputy governor. He said more than 500 people had been killed, […]

Saudi Arabia revised sharply upward the number of cases of the new MERS virus within its borders and said it had been fatal in more than 40 percent of the cases. After a review of medical records, the country’s total number of cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome since the virus was isolated in 2012 is now 688, up from 575; the death toll is 282, not […]

WASHINGTON — Did the search for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl cost the lives of American soldiers? Since last weekend’s prisoner exchange in which Afghan insurgents turned over Sergeant Bergdahl after five years of captivity, a number of the men who served with him have called him a deserter. Some have gone further, blaming him for the deaths of six to eight soldiers. That second claim is hardening into […]

WASHINGTON — The relatives of three United States citizens killed in American drone strikes without trial, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric, have decided not to appeal a federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit they filed against Obama administration officials. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages against several top national security officials for the deaths from two drone strikes in Yemen in 2011; the victims also included […]

DUBAI // The founder of a website offering relationship and sex advice for married Muslim couples says he is trying to change attitudes across the region. Karaz.me was launched in Palestine three months ago and has already attracted much attention, but its chief executive, Ashraf Al Kiswani, insists all of its products and services adhere to religious standards. Now he is hoping to attract customers in the […]

ABU DHABI // If Daniel Bekai has his way, robots will be common features in homes of the future. Daniel, 16, wants to live in a world where humans command robots to perform the mundane tasks that an artificially intelligent machine would be better at anyway. “Suppose you’re in your house and you want some yogurt, you can build a robot that gets yogurt from your fridge […]

Voters at a polling station in the Maidan district of Damascus were regaled by Damascene sword dancers and Assad chants. Syria went to the polls Tuesday, despite a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. Pro-government voters stuffed ballot boxes and held rallies outside polling stations as Syrians in regime-held areas of the country cast ballots in an election widely seen as a bid […]

Global airline executives might have gathered in Qatar for their annual general meeting this week to bemoan their lack of profitability, but the event itself was certainly not short of a dime or two. The title sponsor and host of the IATA AGM was Qatar Airways – and the Gulf state’s flag carrier wasted no time in using the annual mix of conference, talking shop and lavish […]

PARIS — The three young Frenchmen were arrested as they tried to make their way to Syria to wage jihad. They had not harmed anyone in France or made plans to do so, according to the evidence at their trial in January, but in France these days, seeking to fight in Syria is enough to bring a charge of plotting terrorism — and in this case sentences […]

Inside a nondescript office building in central London, a roomful of men and women sit at computer screens and talk over Skype with people in faraway places. Sharp-edged Cantonese fills the air, and a flat-screen TV emits a continuous din. It’s the chanting, singing Midlands crowd at Birmingham, England’s Villa Park Stadium: Liverpool at Aston Villa. The match has just kicked off. The name of the company, […]

CAIRO — Mohamed Morsi did not enjoy being ridiculed on television as president. With the election of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the laughter has stopped. Bassem Youssef, a comedian whose satire of the politically powerful became emblematic of freedom in post-revolutionary Egypt, said Monday that he was ending his popular weekly television show, citing unspecified political pressure and threats. “We consider the shutting down of the show a […]

A heavy dust storm roared into Iran’s capital on Monday, blacking out the sun in a swirling cloud and tearing down trees in a squall that reportedly killed at least four people and injured 30. The storm struck Tehran with winds of up to 68 miles per hour, state television reported. The television report said the storm killed five people. Iran’s official IRNA news agency said it […]

ABU DHABI // Yas Marina Circuit is looking to stage major international charity events after staff visited New York to gain ideas from a major run there. Officials from the track visited the Big Apple last month to attend the city’s UAE Healthy Kidney 10K road run and learn about staging the best in community fitness programmes. The annual Healthy Kidney event, a tribute to the founding […]

Qatar’s sizzling growth would slow if it lost the right to host the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, but the tiny country is so rich that the impact on its economy and financial markets would be much smaller than the blow to its reputation. The Qatari stock market sank 1.1 percent on Monday, underperforming the region, after a British newspaper published what it said was evidence of […]

WASHINGTON — As Syrians go to the polls this week amid civil war, the presidential victor is all but assured: Bashar al-Assad. So why bother holding an election at all? Analysts say Assad has more to gain than votes. He is trying to display political solidarity to the world and to ignore the apolitical transition that the West has called for. Watch related video report by VOA’s […]

Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Fatah and Hamas have unveiled a government of national consensus that will pave the way for elections for a new Palestinian president and parliament. The government of 17 politically-independent members, agreed on Monday, is already being put to the test, as Israel announced it would not negotiate any peace deal with it. The announcement came after the passing of a five-week deadline that […]

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