Hussein Ibrahim, Chairman of the International Forum of Islamist Parliamentarians (IFIP), on July 21 denounced continued arbitrary arrests by Israeli security forces of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, of whom dozens were kidnapped from within the Palestinian territories, and thrown into prisons and detention centres in Israel, before the eyes and ears of the whole world. He pointed that such provocative practices are detrimental to international peace and security, especially ...

Dr. Amr Darrag, Secretary-General of the Constituent Assembly (CA) entrusted with authoring Egypt’s new Constitution, said that shortly five Special Committees will submit proposed initial texts for drafting national charter articles in accordance with relevant rules. He added that he expected the authoring process to be completed in late August 2012. Dr. Darrag pointed out that the Egyptian constitution-drafting committee will form a technical support committee, consisting of 25 expert...

Western-led sanctions and diplomatic pressure will not force Iran to halt its nuclear programme, Iran’s Supreme Leader said on July 25. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, voiced confidence that the Islamic Republic can beat the latest punitive measures aimed at blocking the country’s vital oil and banking industries over the disputed programme. “They (the West) explicitly say they need to increase pressures, tighten sanctions to force...

Darfur rebels wounded in the latest fighting with Sudanese troops have gone to South Sudan for treatment, the army said on July 24, as Khartoum pushes Juba to end alleged backing for rebels. The army and insurgents gave conflicting accounts of Monday’s fighting, which came while Sudanese negotiators at fragile peace talks in Addis Ababa turned down South Sudan’s proposal for settling oil fees and other critical issues by a United Nations-imposed deadline of August 2. Khartoum said...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Syrian opposition was close to victory, and warned that Ankara was ready to respond to any “hostile” action by the Damascus regime. “We think that the Syrian people are closer than ever to victory,” Erdogan said at a dinner on July 23, according to the Anatolia news agency.

“This bloody regime in Syria is bound to leave sooner or later. What’s more, the ruthless killings committed in panic in rece...

The battle for Syria’s second city of Aleppo took to an intensifying turn as helicopter gunships strafed several neighbourhoods of the city causing deaths and injuries, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on July 25. Amid the conflagration in Syria the United Nations pulled out half of its troubled observer mission in the country. UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said he had stressed to Syrian officials in morning talks that without a significant reduction in violence, the r...

President Mohamed Morsi has asked Hisham Kandil, interim Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, to form a new government. Kandil was a senior bureaucrat in the ministry until he was appointed minister in July last year after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. He obtained a doctorate in irrigation from the University of North Carolina in the United States in 1993, according to the water ministry’s Facebook page.

A spokesman for President Morsi described Kandil as an “independe...