On Saturday northern and southern Sudanese leaders started formal negotiations on how they would form a confederation or a common market in case of southerners chose to declare independence in an upcoming referendum.
In six months citizens of the country's oil-producing south vote on whether to stay part of the country or split away as an independent state - a plebiscite promised in a 2005 accord that put an end decades of north-south civil war.
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According to a new report from the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs, Israel's separation barrier makes it extremely difficult for Palestinians living in the West Bank to obtain proper health care. The report says that thousands of Palestinians have limited access to East Jerusalem hospitals because of the wall. Ambulances are routinely delayed at barrier checkpoints, and Palestinian vehicles are ban to pass through checkpoints, forcing ... Read more »

The head of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (Unifil) has publicly appealed for co-operation from the local community after recent clashes between angry locals and UN troops. In an open letter to the southern Lebanese residents, Major-General Asarta Cuevas called for calm after villagers seized weapons from Unifil soldiers and wounded a patrol leader last week. "As you all know, some recent incidents have cast a shadow on the positive environme... Read more »

Iraqi capital has been hit by series of attacks targeted Shiite pilgrims. 28 people were murdered and 81 wounded in Adhamiyah, a Sunni district across the Tigris river from Kadhimiyah. Many of the victims were passing through Adhamiyah en route to the mausoleum of Musa Kadhim, the seventh of 12 revered imams in Shiite Islam. Eleven more pilgrims were killed and 63 injured by bombs in three other blocks of Baghdad, police said. Tens of thousands of Shiite wo... Read more »

Thousands of people in Beirut has paid tribute to Lebanon's most eminent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. A huge crowd has followed the funeral procession in Beirut's southern suburbs. Lebanon declared a day of national mourning. The seminaries at the Iraqi city of Najaf, where the ayatollah was born and studied, declared three-day mourning. The militant Shia movement Hezbollah, with which the Fadlallah’s name was strongly associated... Read more »

79-year-old lawyer Haitham Maleh has been sentenced by a Syrian military court for three years in a jail on charges of "weakening national morale". "This is tragic. Haitham Maleh is an old and ill man," Alarabiya.net quotes one of the lawyers as saying. In the 1980s Haitham Maleh spent six years as a political prisoner without right to leave Syria. The lawyer was awarded the Dutch Geuzen Medal in 2006, named after resistance movement against the Nazis. Nume... Read more »

US Vice-President Joe Biden has arrived in Iraq for negotiations with Iraqi leaders over the formation of a new government. He was met at the Baghdad airport by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and top US officials. Mr Biden's visit comes four months after Iraq's national election, in which there were no clear winner. According to a White House statement, US Vice-President will hold discussions with Iraqi lawmakers and mark the Independence Day on the ... Read more »

Paris signed a cooperation agreement with Morocco to assist the north African country in building a nuclear power plant. The accord was signed during a visit to France of Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi. "It is not a commercial deal to build a nuclear reactor" but rather a "framework accord that will help Morocco prepare its entry into the field of nuclear energy," Middle-east-online.com quotes French Prime Minister Francois Fillon as saying. Contrar... Read more »

The head of the oppositional party Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo has won presidential elections in the breakaway region of Somaliland, northwest of Somalia. The leader of the Tulmiye (Unity) party got 49.59 per cent of all votes cast, while the party of Dahir Rayale Kahin, the incumbent president got just 33.23 per cent. According to Aljazeera.net, “there's a lot of jubilation on the streets today as the country is also celebrating 50 years of independence from Ita... Read more »

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said No Palestinian state would be founded by 2012. He made such a statement after meeting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. The reasons for that are difficulties in U.S.-mediated peace negotiations and divisions among the Palestinians. "I'm an optimistic person, and I don't see any chance of a Palestinian state arising before 2012," Alarabiya.net quotes Mr Lieberman as saying. "One can dream, and imagine, but the... Read more »