UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano and top aides will travel to Tehran on May 19 for talks with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, a few days before the Islamic state and world powers meet in Baghdad to discuss the broader nuclear dispute. News of the rare visit came as Western diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran were making headway toward a framework deal on how to tackle concerns about the Islamic Republic’s atomic activity.

The IAEA wa...

US plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is “fully available,” the US ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes. The United States, Britain, France, Russi...

Thousands of Palestinians on May 15 attended demonstrations to commemorate what they refer to as the “Al-Nakba” or Catastrophe. It marks the day after the anniversary of Israel’s independence in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes or were displaced. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said they would never forget “the beginning of our continued hardship.”

Demonstrators poured onto the streets in several towns and cities acros...

Iran has hanged a man it said was an agent for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad whom it convicted of killing one of its nuclear scientists in 2010, reports said citing Iranian state media reported on May 15. Tehran has accused Israel and the United States of assassinating four Iranian scientists since 2010 in order to sabotage its nuclear programme which the West suspects is hiding Iran’s attempt to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Twenty-four year old Majid Jamali Fashi ...

Prominent Palestinian writer Salameh Kaileh on May 16 said the Syrian authorities deported him this week to Jordan after three weeks of detention and torture over his anti-regime writings. “Syrian intelligence raided my house and arrested me on April 23. I was suddenly deported to Jordan on Monday after a three-week detention and torture,” Kaileh reportedly said. “They gave me no reason for their decision, but I know it was because I have written articles against the regime ...

Syrian forces fired on protesters who took to the streets of Aleppo on May 17, wounding several people at the biggest rally seen in Syria’s second city since a revolt erupted last year, a watchdog said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said demonstrators also suffered gunshot wounds in Douma, a key protest hub near Damascus, but did not provide any casualty figures. “Thousands of people demonstrated in various districts (of Aleppo) despite the repression,” said Rami A...

A recent report says the food items exported by Israeli to Azerbaijan contain ingredients which may lead to infertility in male consumers. An Azeri physician speaking on condition of anonymity told the Azeri daily Gundelik, that such food items as cooking oil, rice, sugar and tea which are imported from Israel can cause infertility in men. He added that the problem has been confirmed by doctors testing the foods at Baku’s medical university.

The report citing news agenc...

France’s President Francois Hollande used his White House debut on May 17 to restate his intention to get French combat troops home from Afghanistan this year – breaking with NATO’s 2014 schedule. Hollande met President Barack Obama for the first time since taking office three days ago, ahead of a testing weekend of international summits, with G8 leaders at Camp David and NATO chiefs at a 61-nation gathering in Chicago. “I recalled to President Obama that I had made a ...