Al-Qaeda's leader is calling for the Yemeni people to rise up against the country's new president, portraying him as the stooge of the unpopular former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the United States.
A confidential U.N. report revealed Iran is exporting arms to the Syrian government in violation of a ban on weapons sales, the same day President Bashar al-Assad blamed the violence in his country on the work of foreign-backed fighters.
As events continue to unfold in Syria, the future of this Arab nation remains unknown.
An Iranian rapper is facing death threats and has a $100,000 bounty on his head for a song that some say insults an Islamic Shiite imam.
U.N. observers who were stranded overnight in a Syrian town after their convoy struck an explosive device have made it safely to the city of Hama, the United Nations said Wednesday.
A notorious prison in Baghdad's Green Zone is still open despite the Iraqi government having said more than a year ago it was closed, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
A suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army base in western Mosul on Tuesday, killing seven Iraqi soldiers and wounding 20 people, an official said.
IN FOCUS: Social media in the Middle East Facebook is launching its long-awaited Initial Public Offering this week. With nearly a billion users the social networking site is hoping investors will dig deep to buy a stake in the company that has become a global phenomenon. Recently, the role of social media has increased sharply in the Middle East and, as MME found out, is becoming a crucial part of doing business. FACETIME: Fadi Ghandour, CEO & founder, Aramex Aramex is a global logistics company with its roots in the Middle East. With a revenue of more than $700 million and a presence in more than 60 countries, the company is competing with the likes of Fedex, DHL and UPS. MME sat down with the CEO and Founder Fadi Ghandour to talk about the new areas of growth, his retirement and how social media has affected his business. Marketplace Middle East airs weekly at the following times (all GMT):
Two suspected U.S. drone strikes killed seven al Qaeda militants and eight civilians in the southern part of Yemen on Tuesday, three Yemeni security officials said.
A four-vehicle U.N. convoy was struck by a blast from an explosive device Tuesday in Syria, the United Nations said.
A Bahraini doctor arrested and allegedly brutalized for treating an injured protester said he and other medical workers were targeted because of what they saw.
All the Palestinians in Israeli custody who were on a hunger strike have agreed to resume eating following an agreement struck between Israeli and Palestinian authorities, Palestinian Minister of Detainees and ex-Detainees Issa Qaraqe said Tuesday.
A U.N.-backed peace plan that included a cease-fire deal was to take effect April 12 in Syria. Since then, violence has continued: Car bombings, reports of snipers and more than 1,000 killed -- some of them executed and tortured to death, according to opposition activists.
European Union foreign ministers on Monday imposed new sanctions on the Syrian regime, urging it to adopt a U.N.-backed peace plan that so far has failed to stop the mounting carnage.
An Iranian delegation met with officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, on Monday as diplomatic wrangling continues over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.
Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council arrived in Saudi Arabia Monday for a meeting to discuss transforming their six nations into a union similar to the European Union.
It's been a month since the "cease-fire" was due to come into effect in Syria as the first step in a U.N.-backed peace plan, with a team of U.N. monitors on the ground to observe the progress.
Government troops in southern Yemen on Sunday attacked al Qaeda hideouts, killing two dozen suspected militants in the latest push to clear the area of the terror organization, local security officials said.
Gunfire and mortar shells pierced the pre-dawn sky in cities around Syria early Monday, the latest in the months-long violence that has even begun spilling into neighboring countries.
The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council will hold a meeting Monday in Saudi Arabia to discuss transforming their six nations into a union, similar to the European Union.
Negotiations to end a mass hunger strike by up to 2,000 Palestinians detained by Israel are making progress and a resolution may be only days away, Palestinian officials said Saturday.
Ahead of upcoming nuclear talks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad downplayed the threat Israel poses to Iran, comparing it to an annoying bug.
A pair of U.S. drone strikes killed 11 suspected al Qaeda militants Saturday in Yemen's Mareb province, part of a continuing air campaign targeting the terror organization, security officials said.
A Syrian activist devoted to de-mining the border between Syria and Turkey was among six injured Saturday by a landmine placed on a trail that criss-crosses the two countries.
Two Turkish journalists were released from a Syrian jail and flew Saturday to Istanbul via Tehran, as part of what appears to be a prisoner swap between Turkey and Iran through intermediaries in Syria.
A video purportedly released by a shadowy, Syrian-based terrorist group claimed responsibility Saturday for dual suicide bombings that killed dozens and wounded hundreds in the country's capital this week.
An Iraqi court has cleared a Lebanese militant once held by U.S. forces in the deaths of five U.S. soldiers, saying there wasn't enough evidence against him, an official with Iraq's judicial council told CNN.
After five years of trying, an international group of authors have achieved their aim of taking their Palestine Festival of Literature to Gaza for the first time.
A powerful explosion rocked Aleppo, Syria's most populous city, late Friday, killing a guard at an office of President Bashar al-Assad's ruling Baath Party, opposition groups reported.
New details are emerging about the agent sent by Saudi counterterrorism agents into Yemen to track a plot by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner.
IN FOCUS -- Egypt's economic woes and the ripple effect With less than three weeks before presidential elections, Egypt remains entrenched in chaos. A spate of recent violence has left the country politically unstable and the continuing power struggle is making a bad economy worse. MME takes a look at the growing economic woes facing Egypt.
A U.S. drone strike killed eight militants in southern Yemen on Thursday morning, the latest hit in an intensified U.S. air camaign against al Qaeda and its affiliates in the area, security officials said.
The two leading candidates to become Egypt's next president after Hosni Mubarak squared off for hours Thursday and into Friday in the nation's first such televised debate, just two weeks ahead of the country's election.
U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is weighing an invitation to meet with President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a senior U.N. source said Thursday, the same day that a deadly blast in Damascus drew widespread condemnation and finger-pointing in the volatile nation.
The Israeli parliament approved Wednesday by a vote of 71-23 a coalition agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and the opposition Kadima party of Shaul Mofaz.
The infiltration of a Middle Eastern terror network by a mole who helped foil a plot to blow up a U.S.-bound plane was a "phenomenal," "brilliant" and "powerful" success, experts said Wednesday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned a bomb blast Wednesday near a convoy of U.N. observers that was entering the southern Syrian city of Daraa.
The agent who penetrated al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and returned from Yemen with the group's new "airline bomb" was always under Saudi control and was not a double-agent, two sources briefed by Saudi counterterrorism officials have told CNN.
A tall and beguiling blonde sits alone at the bar of a luxury Middle Eastern hotel. Looking across the lobby she seductively eyes a mustached Arab man. Emboldened by her enticing glances he approaches the bar and they begin chatting.
A U.N. nuclear inspector from South Korea was killed Tuesday in a car accident in Iran, state-run media reported.
Interpol on Tuesday issued a "red notice" for Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is suspected of guiding and financing terrorist attacks in the country.
A man who volunteered as a suicide bomber for a terrorist group intent on blowing up a U.S.-bound plane was working instead as an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing American and foreign officials.
Special envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that international observers are the last hope for success of a peace plan in Syria. Otherwise, he warned, Syria is sure to plunge into full-scale civil war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party have agreed to form a unity government with the rival centrist political faction Kadima in a move that will put off elections until late next year and create one of the largest coalition governments in Israeli history.
U.S. and other intelligence agencies recently broke up a plot to bomb an airliner and have seized an explosive device that is similar to ones previously used by al Qaeda, officials said Monday.
Israel's high court rejected Monday an appeal requesting the release of two Palestinian prisoners who are in the 70th day of a hunger strike, an attorney representing them said.
Two Turkish journalists who were feared dead after being missing for nearly two months in Syria appeared in a video released by a Turkish charity organization negotiating for their release.
Syrians went to polls across the country Monday as more than 7,000 candidates vied for 250 seats in parliament amid continued international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.
The lawyer representing two Palestinian prisoners entering the 70th day of a hunger strike said his clients were nearing death and accused an Israeli high court of procrastination in delivering a ruling that could save their lives.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sunday for early elections.
A prominent Bahraini human rights activist has been arrested upon his return to the Persian Gulf kingdom from Lebanon, the government and an activist group said Sunday.
Syrians are expected to go to the polls Monday to vote in parliamentary elections that are being held amid ongoing violence and increasing international pressure on the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Egypt returned to Cairo on Saturday after tensions briefly spurred the kingdom to pull its envoys and shutter its missions, Saudi state media reported.
In his first public speech since being inaugurated as president of Yemen, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi promised a strong fight against al Qaeda and political reconciliation at home.
Egypt imposed an overnight curfew in Cairo's central Abbasiya district on Saturday after deadly clashes between protesters and security forces consumed the area the day before.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alienated from the country's supreme leader, suffered setbacks in the country's parliamentary runoff elections Saturday in what could be a sign of things to come in the Islamic republic.
Syrian state TV aired Saturday what it said was a confession by citizen journalist Ali Mahmoud Othman, who activists say was arrested in March after he helped foreign journalists escape from the besieged city of Homs.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said millions of dollars from the "extreme right wing" in the United States helped oust him from government and derailed a peace plan with the Palestinians.
An explosion at a car wash near Syria's largest city of Aleppo killed at least five people Saturday, opposition activists said.
Saudi Arabia is re-establishing its diplomatic presence in Egypt after tensions briefly spurred the kingdom to pull its envoys and shutter its missions, Egyptian and Saudi state news agencies said Friday.
Syrian government snipers and other forces stalked opponents in homes and neighborhoods Friday in a campaign of gunfire, shelling and arrests amid mass protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, an opposition group said.
A prominent Iranian literary translator imprisoned since January on unknown charges has suspended his hunger strike after 28 days, a source close to the family said Thursday.
A U.S. drone hit an al Qaeda training site in southern Yemen, killing 13 suspected militants, three security officials said.
Syrian security forces unleashed a deadly push on a prominent university to clamp down Thursday on student dissent, the opposition said.
Israeli military investigatorshave ordered an end to a probe into the deaths of 21 members of a Palestinian family during the 2009 military offensive on Gaza, saying there was "no war crime committed."
FACETIME: Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, Egyptian Minister of Tourism
Bahiya Al-Hamad is a 19-year-old college student and air-rifle shooter who is about to make history for her country.
A six-point peace plan for Syria negotiated by U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan is not being upheld, an international rights group said Wednesday.
Israeli forces and Palestinian militants exchanged fire Tuesday in Gaza, according to officials from both groups.
Palestinians clashed with the Israeli military Tuesday amid protests over a controversial Israeli detention policy ahead of a related court hearing.
Former Israeli foreign minister and opposition leader Tzipi Livni submitted her resignation from the Knesset Tuesday.
In the latest diplomatic attempt to stop the relentless killing in Syria, a group of U.N. monitors are on the ground to observe a "cease-fire" that appears to be violated daily.
Both the Syrian government and opposition forces are violating a cease-fire, and the regime continues to deploy heavy weapons in cities, the chief U.N. peacekeeper said Tuesday.
If international efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program fail, any military action against Tehran should be led not by Israel, but by the United States, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said this week.
A court in Bahrain has quashed the life sentence of a prominent activist who has been on a hunger strike, sending his case to the Supreme Court, along with 20 others, the country's official news agency reported Monday.
The growing presence of U.N. monitors already has helped the situation in Syria, opposition activists said, though it hasn't completely stopped the bloodshed that has been a fact of life in the Middle Eastern nation for more than 13 months.
Police in Bahrain regularly resort to beating anti-government protesters, despite officials' pledges to stop such practices, a human rights group said Sunday.
Faced with a choice that could tear apart his coalition government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering holding early elections this fall, his spokesman, Mark Regev, said Sunday.
U.N. observers continued their mission Monday in Syria to chronicle what is happening in the beleaguered nation, though even the team's leader admitted its efforts are futile unless all factions commit to full candor and peace.
Israel's former security chief is slamming the country's prime minister and defense minister for their handling of Iran, saying neither one inspires confidence.
The embattled Syrian regime said it faced challenges from land and sea on Saturday as security forces beat back infiltrators, Lebanese soldiers seized smuggled arms and more clashes flared -- another series of blows to a teetering U.N.-backed peace plan.
The Israeli government asked the country's high court Friday for a delay in the scheduled demolition of an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost.
A suicide bombing in a Damascus neighborhood killed nine people Friday -- most of them government forces -- and further unraveled an already tenuous ceasefire, Syrian state media reported.
Four people died and another 11 were wounded in a pair of apparently coordinated bomb blasts Thursday in Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Jordan's prime minister resigned Thursday, the Jordanian Royal Court and state-run Petra news agency said.
A group representing 1,650 Palestinian prisoners who are on a hunger strike in protest of the conditions of their detention urged Israel Thursday to start urgent talks on the treatment of prisoners.
For 13 months, violence has raged in Syria between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and the opposition in a lopsided battle that has seen thousands killed amid a number of international attempts to broker a peace deal.
A Syrian opposition group says it has documented hundreds of deaths since the U.N. peace plan monitors began their work last week.
Israel's top general said Iran is led by "very rational people" and doesn't appear poised to build a nuclear bomb that would threaten his nation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has suggested that time is running out for Western sanctions on Iran to have a meaningful effect on Tehran's nuclear program.
A small group of observers resumed the United Nations' mission to monitor a truce in Syria that was tenuous from the start and showed signs Wednesday of unraveling as opposition activists again reported widespread violence.
The fourth-most wanted al Qaeda leader in Yemen was killed Tuesday in an airstrike in the northeastern province of Mareb, the Yemeni government announced.
A top commander of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed last weekend in Yemen, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington announced Tuesday.
This month "Inside the Middle East" travels to the tiny state of Qatar, where vast oil and gas reserves have transformed a once-impoverished strip of desert into the richest country in the world -- all in the span of just half a century.
The Israeli government said Tuesday that it has decided to legalize the status of three settlement posts that were built in the West Bank during the 1990's.
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