Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown has issued a parliamentary statement to deny that his government was reversing its policy towards Hamas and Hezbollah following his earlier comments in the House of Lords. During a parliamentary debate on the Middle East Lord Malloch-Brown said that a political negotiation with the largest Palestinian party was ‘vital’. He also said that “many of the same arguments apply to Hezbollah” in Lebanon. But in his parliamentary state...

The mad rush to design financial products that could attract the huge funds available with the oil-rich-Arabs is on the rise. In continuation of that trend Standard & Poor’s, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, the provider of financial market intelligence, including independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data, launched three new compliant indices claimed to be Shari’ah compliant. The three indices launched are S&P Global Infrast...

Unnamed officials said the offer was unauthorised and could make it much more difficult to prosecute the guards employed by the Blackwater firm. If confirmed, the revelation may put further strain on US-Iraq relations. The Iraqi government was furious at the 16 September deaths, and demanded the guards be handed over to face t...