Middle East News

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood may seek to modify, but will not destroy, Egypt's 33-year-old peace treaty with Israel, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Saturday. Carter, 87, was speaking after initial vote tallies put the Brotherhood's candidate ahead in the first round of Egypt's presidential election, …

Bahrain will stop broadcasting its channels on satellite operator Arabsat to protest an Iran-led "hostile" media campaign, the state news agency BNA reported on Saturday.

A Saudi diplomat kidnapped nearly a month ago in Yemen's south has appealed to King Abdullah to meet Al-Qaeda demands to secure his release, according to a video posted on jihadist Internet forums.

Hundreds of Kuwaitis including several MPs rallied outside the Syrian embassy on Saturday to condemn a reported massacre in the Syrian town of Houla and to demand the arming of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

A group of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims kidnapped in Syria and said by Lebanese authorities to have reached Turkey are not in the country after all, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Saturday.

Iran on Saturday downplayed a report by the UN atomic watchdog that uranium traces have been detected of a higher grade than any found before, as media voiced doubts about the next round of talks on Tehran's nuclear programme.

Former US President Jimmy Carter, who is leading a delegation monitoring Egypt's first post-revolt presidential election, said on Saturday the process was "encouraging" despite unprecedented constraints.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli settler shot and wounded a Palestinian man on Saturday in a clash that began when a group of settlers set fire to fields belonging to a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, officials said. Residents said about 25 settlers, some of them carrying guns, set fire to wheat fields …

A Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in clashes with Jewish settlers from the hardline Yitzhar settlement in the northern West Bank, witnesses and an AFP journalist said.

The Free Syrian Army said on Saturday it could no longer commit to the ceasefire brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan unless there was an immediate solution to regime violence.

Syrian regime forces on Saturday pounded rebel positions in central Homs province, with 18 people killed in violence across the country, including 13 civilians, a monitoring group reported.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear weapons if refined much further, a U.S. security institute said. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think-tank which tracks …

Attacks north of Baghdad on Saturday killed four people, including three soldiers who died in a bombing, security and medical officials said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has played down a United Nations report that said Iranian nuclear scientists had enriched uranium to a higher-than-expected level, state media reported on Saturday. On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that samples taken in February showed particles with enrichment levels of …

PARIS (Reuters) - France called for immediate implementation of Kofi Annan's peace plan for Syria on Saturday and said it would summon a meeting of the Friends of Syria group after activists said 90 people were killed in Syrian shelling. Condemning the violence on Friday as a "massacre", French Foreign Minister Laurent …

A team of UN observers deployed in Syria to monitor a shaky truce arrived on Saturday in the town of Houla, site of a "massacre" by regime forces in which at least 90 people died, monitors said.

KABUL (Reuters) - When the Afghan government unveiled plans for a road linking his small village to larger centres elsewhere, Rahmanullah was so enthusiastic he offered a section of his farm for the route, thinking it would help move his produce to larger markets. He even signed up for the construction gang, earning $6 …

Thirty-three people, including six soldiers, were killed in Saturday clashes between Al-Qaeda and the army in southern Yemen as troops advanced towards the Abyan provincial capital Zinjibar, military and local sources said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The death toll has risen to at least 90 from Syrian shelling on the town of Houla on Friday, an opposition group said on Saturday. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents continued to flee the town, in central Homs province, in fear that artillery fire would resume. There was no …

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's parliament approved on Saturday a strategic pact between Kabul and Washington, clearing the way for a U.S. presence in the country for at least a decade after most foreign combat troops leave in 2014. "This was done for the interest of Afghanistan," said Daoud Kalakani, an MP from Kabul. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaves next week on an eight-day trip to Scandinavia, the Caucasus and Turkey that will cover security issues such as Iran and Syria as well as the environment and health. The State Department said Clinton begins her May 31-June 7 trip with visits to Denmark, …

Analysts have played down the UN atomic agency's discovery of higher-grade uranium traces in Iran, saying it was likely due to a technical glitch rather than a covert attempt to enrich to arms grade.

VIENNA (Reuters) - United Nations nuclear inspectors have found uranium particles refined to a higher-than-expected level at an underground site where Iran has installed more than 50 percent more enrichment centrifuges, a U.N. watchdog report said on Friday. It said Tehran had told the U.N. agency that the presence of traces …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iran and world powers agreed to meet again next month to try to ease the long standoff over its nuclear work despite achieving scant progress at talks in Baghdad towards resolving the main sticking points of their dispute. At its heart is Iran's insistence on right to enrich uranium and that economic …

A US drone attack has killed at least four militants in a northwestern Pakistani tribal district bordering Afghanistan, according to security officials.

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Lebanon said on Friday that a group of Lebanese Shi'ites kidnapped in Syria had been freed and were safe in Turkey, but produced no sign of the hostages at the centre of a kidnap drama heightening tensions over the conflict in neighbouring Syria. The twist in a hostage drama that has inflamed political …

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons is en route to Syria and due to arrive at a Syrian port this weekend, Al Arabiya television said in a report that Western diplomats in New York described on Friday as credible. Syria is one of Russia's top weapons customers. The United States and European …

GENEVA (Reuters) - International peace mediator Kofi Annan will visit Syria "soon," his spokesman told Reuters on Friday, in what would be the former U.N. Secretary-General's first visit since he presented his peace plan to Syria's government in early March. Ahmad Fawzi declined to give details or specify the date, citing …