May 24, 2013

Middle East

  • Syrian state media: Rebels attack prison in north - May 24 2013 01:42

    AP10ThingsToSee - In this image from amateur video obtained by a group called Ugarit News, a rebel runs from an explosion, Sunday, May 19, 2013 in Qusair, Syria. An intense battle drove rebels from large parts of Qusair, part of a withering government offensive aimed at securing a strategic land corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast. (AP Photo)BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's state media say rebels have fired mortar shells at the central prison in an embattled northern city, killing and wounding several inmates.


  • Turkey passes bill restricting alcohol sales, ads - May 24 2013 00:23
    ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's parliament has passed legislation to ban all advertising of alcohol and tighten restrictions on sales in the mainly Muslim but secular country.
  • Israel to discuss military draft reform proposal - May 23 2013 12:38

    An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks past a sign depicting the Dome of the Rock Mosque, in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)JERUSALEM (AP) — An official Israeli committee on Thursday handed the government its proposal for ending a contentious system that grants Jewish ultra-Orthodox seminary students automatic exemptions from military service, setting the stage for what could become the first major conflict in the new Israeli coalition government.


  • Clashes in Lebanon feed fear of Syria spillover - May 23 2013 12:18

    In this image from amateur video obtained by a group which calls itself Ugarit News, shows rebel fighters celebrating after purportedly capturing an army base in Nairab, northwestern Syria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. The video is consistent with independent AP reporting. Rebel fighters captured an army base late Wednesday, a rare victory after a series of battlefield setbacks, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group said. The group said scores of pro-regime troops and more than a dozen rebels were killed in the battle for the base, near the northwestern town of Nairab. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.


  • Israel says Iran unaffected by world pressure - May 23 2013 10:53

    Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague, left, listens to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a joint news conference before their meeting in Jerusalem, Thursday, May 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Ronen Zvulun, Pool)JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister says a new report by the U.N. atomic agency shows that international pressure is having no effect on halting Iran's suspect nuclear program.


  • AP PHOTOS: Egypt's languishing Islamic antiquities - May 23 2013 10:48

    In this photo taken Sunday, May 12, 2013, Egyptians walk by the medieval fortress wall in the historic Fatimid Cairo, Egypt. Cairo, the Arab world's most populated city, is often referred to as an open-air museum of Islamic antiquities and the city of 1,000 minarets. But its rich history and contributions to Islamic art has languished. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)CAIRO (AP) — Cairo, the Arab world's most populated city, is often referred to as an open-air museum of Islamic antiquities and the city of 1,000 minarets.


  • Iran's Rafsanjani blasts clerics, says report - May 23 2013 10:31

    In this picture taken on Saturday, May 11, 2013, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani waves to media as he registers his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, while his daughter Fatemeh, right, looks on, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, Iran. A hardline news website says Iran's election overseers have rejected a pair of powerful and divisive figures from running in next month's presidential election. Tasnimnews.com say Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who still wields enormous influence, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close confident of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been barred by the Guardian Council. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Banned from upcoming elections, Iran's former president has leveled harsh criticism at the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers, saying they are doing a poor job running the country, an Iranian pro-reform website reported late on Wednesday.


  • US, Israel raise hopes for Mideast peace restart - May 23 2013 10:11

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Thursday, May 23, 2013. The United States and Israel are raising hopes for a restart of the Middle East peace process after more than four years of hardly any talks. (AP Photo/Jim Young, Pool)JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's two-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.


  • Gunmen kill 7 Iraqi soldiers in central Iraq - May 23 2013 08:53
    BAGHDAD (AP) — Gunmen killed at least seven soldiers in central Iraq on Thursday, officials said, in the latest episode of violence to hit the country in a particularly bloody month.
  • AP Interview: Syria conflict uproots Palestinians - May 23 2013 07:52

    FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2012 file photo, Mahmoud, a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of Syria, rests in a field hospital after he was found with three gunshot wounds in the town of Anadan on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Mahmoud, who would give only one name, described being the only survivor of a massacre in which he and 10 other men were blindfolded, beaten and sprayed with bullets. Syria's fighting has uprooted more than half of the country's 530,000 Palestinians — descendants of refugees from a Mideast conflict half a century ago — and their situation is becoming increasingly desperate, the head of a U.N. aid agency said Thursday, May 23, 2013. The Palestinians in Syria are particularly vulnerable because of their refugee status, Filippo Grandi, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, told The Associated Press in an interview. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's fighting has uprooted more than half of the country's 530,000 Palestinians — descendants of refugees from a Mideast conflict half a century ago — and their situation is becoming increasingly desperate, the head of a U.N. aid agency said Thursday.


  • Report: Rafsanjani blasts Iran's rulers - May 23 2013 06:07
    TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has blasted the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers, declaring it impossible for them to do a worse job running the country, an Iranian pro-reform website reported Wednesday.
  • 5 dead in Lebanon clash of Assad foes, backers - May 23 2013 06:07

    A Sunni gunman fires his machine gun during clashes that erupted between pro and anti-Syrian regime gunmen, in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Thursday, May. 23, 2013. Opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad traded heavy machine gun fire and mortar shells in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, leaving five people dead in what was described as some of the heaviest fighting there in years, officials said Thursday. (AP Photo)BEIRUT (AP) — Opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad traded heavy machine gun fire and mortar shells in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, leaving five people dead in what was described as some of the heaviest fighting there in years, officials said Thursday.


  • Iran denies its drone entered Bahrain's airspace - May 23 2013 06:04
    TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian semi-official news agency reports the country is denying that an unmanned drone violated the airspace of Bahrain, the strategic Gulf kingdom that hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
  • Gunmen kill 4 Iraqi soldiers north of Baghdad - May 23 2013 04:40
    BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi officials say gunmen have shot dead four soldiers at an army checkpoint north of Baghdad.
  • Syria opposition welcomes support for Assad ouster - May 23 2013 00:32
    BEIRUT (AP) — A spokesman says Syria's main opposition bloc welcomes renewed calls by its foreign supporters that Syrian President Bashar Assad give up power at the start of any political transition aimed at ending the country's civil war.