The Palestinians are ready for statehood, according to a report to be presented to major aid donor countries in Brussels this week by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. He will present facts and figures to show how his Palestinian Authority has used hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign assistance over the past two years to create justice, education, energy, health, water, security and housing services. “I believe that our governing institutions have now reached a high s...

A group of Palestinian activists on April 9 erected nine street signs in Jerusalem’s Jabel Mukabber neighbourhood, assigning the anonymous thoroughfares road names in Arabic and English. One was named Farouk Street, a popular nickname for Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, the Muslim general who conquered Jerusalem in 637 C.E. Erected by a Palestinian NGO called Jerusalem Horizons, the street signs were a small but symbolic move in the contest over the character of a city venerated b...

Libyan rebels, backed forcefully by European leaders, on April 11 rejected a cease-fire proposal by African mediators because it did not insist that Muammar Qaddafi relinquish power. A day after an announcement that the Libyan leader had accepted the truce, a doctor in rebel-held Misrata said Qaddafi’s forces battered that western city and its Mediterranean port with artillery fire that killed six people.

“He is the biggest lie in the history of Libya,&rdq...

Yemen’s president on April 11 rejected a proposal by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that he step down before the end of his term in 2013, the latest blow to efforts to work out a peaceful transfer of power in the restive country. With Yemen sinking more and more into turmoil, the GCC called on Saleh a day earlier to step down as part of a deal with the protest movement demanding his ouster after 32 years. The GCC did not specify a time frame for a transfer of power ...

Bahrain has released 86 people arrested during anti-regime protests that rocked the Gulf state for nearly a month. The opposition said that around 400 people were arrested during protests that erupted in the kingdom on Feb. 14. The government has said that 24 people were killed during the protests, four of them policemen, while three other activists have died in custody.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that Bahrain’s leading human rights activist will ...

Iran will need more enriched uranium to fuel the “four or five” new research reactors it is planning on building, the country’s nuclear chief said on April 11. Fereidoun Abbasi told the semi-official ISNA news agency that Iran is planning to build the new research reactors “in the next few years” to produce medical radioisotopes for patients. To fuel these reactors, Iran needs to continue enriching uranium to 20 per cent. Abbasi, a 52-year-old professor of nuclea...

Saudi Arabia on April 11 announced its plan to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with China. The Cabinet said it has authorised Hashim Yamani, president of the King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, to hold talks with Chinese officials to reach a deal for peaceful use of atomic energy. The new move comes after the Kingdom signed its first ever nuclear treaty with France in February. Yamani, who signed that agreement, said it would pave the way for the Kingdom...