DUBAI: Days before Iran's just-completed parliamentary elections, the country's supreme leader gave what amounted to a pep rally on the Islamic Republic's nuclear views.
Atomic technology is a pillar of "national dignity," boasted Ayatollah Ali (...)
DUBAI: During a sermon last week at Bahrain's Grand Mosque, the pro-government prayer leader offered sweeping praise for one of the Arab Spring's counter-revolutions: Gulf rulers bonding together against dissent with powerful Saudi Arabia as their (...)
TEHRAN: There's a Persian saying used to describe an under-the-radar political effort: "Driving at night with the lights off." Allies of embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be doing just that as they campaign in Iran's hinterlands in hopes (...)
DUBAI: About 18 months before the Egyptian uprising that would doom Hosni Mubarak, a US diplomatic cable was sent from Cairo. It described Mubarak as the likely president-for-life and said his regime's ability to intimidate critics and rig elections (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — With Iran angrily defiant about a U.N. report accusing it of developing nuclear weapons, Western powers and allies face complicated questions on how to further tighten pressure on the oil giant without shaking the (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Among the many alliances of convenience in the Middle East, one is so unusual that the partners can barely hint about it publicly: Israel and the Gulf Arab states linked by shared fears over Iran's nuclear (...)
TEHRAN: In the ongoing political skirmishes among Iran's leadership, it was the equivalent of bringing out the heavy ammunition: The country's most powerful figure warning that the post of elected president could someday be scrapped.
Although no (...)
SANAA, Yemen — The heavy black beard spoke of Islamic piety, the fashionable wire-rim glasses of Western style.
Anwar al-Awlaki, American-born, a gifted Muslim preacher and savvy Internet operator, became a powerful al-Qaida tool for recruiting (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Two weeks after Egypt's uprising swept aside Hosni Mubarak, the presidents of Iran and Syria stood side by side in Damascus in a blunt message to the Arab Spring: The Syrian regime can count on its allies in (...)
CAIRO — There was a time when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his annual trip to the United Nations for two big objectives: Basking in the attention of America's media hub and personally delivering the views of the Islamic Republic to (...)
CAIRO (AP) — Among the protest banners in Cairo's Tahrir Square was a hand-drawn map of the Arab Spring with black target symbols covering each country hit by anti-government uprisings since the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt were ousted earlier this (...)
DUBAI: On a cold March morning last year, an Iranian diplomat was flown home nearly 15 months after being kidnapped by gunmen in an ambush on the Pakistani side of the Khyber Pass.
Iran hailed the release as a victory for its intelligence agents, (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Saudi woman defiantly drove through the nation's capital while others brazenly cruised by police patrols in the first forays of a campaign that hopes to ignite a road rebellion against the male-only driving rules (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP): Bahrain's king set a fast-track timetable to end martial law-style rule Sunday in a bid to display confidence that authorities have smothered a pro-reform uprising even as rights groups denounced the hard-line (...)
DUBAI: In life, Osama bin Laden was burned into the Muslim consciousness in countless ways: the lion of holy warriors, the untouchable nemesis of the West, the evil zealot who soiled their faith with blood and intolerance.
In death, however, the (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: A powerful U.S.-based labor organization is urging Washington to suspend a free trade pact with Bahrain in response to the Gulf nation's crackdown that includes purging union leaders accused of supporting pro-reform (...)
MANAMA: Bahrain's embattled Shia-led opposition held on to all of its parliament seats in weekend elections, according to official results announced Sunday, but fell short of the majority it hoped to win as a show of strength against the island (...)
DUBAI: Iran's president will likely swagger into New York next week in much the same style as past visits for the annual UN General Assembly: ready to take his jabs at America on its home turf.
But any outward confidence on the big US stage (...)
DUBAI: On the streets of lower Manhattan, there's no mistaking how the passions flow: One side saying it's their patriotic duty to block a planned Islamic center and the other insisting America cannot curtail freedoms as revenge for the Sept. 11 (...)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Dubai police directly accused Israel s Mossad spy agency of orchestrating the hit squad slaying of a Hamas commander as the number of suspects rose Thursday to 18.
Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim was quoted as saying he (...)
DUBAI: When work began in 2004 to build the world s tallest tower, Dubai s confidence also was sky high with a host of mega-projects on the drawing board or rising from the sands.
That swagger seems positively old school these days. It s been (...)