Middle East | featured news

Having created one surprise in pushing for an early general election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now delivered an even greater bomb-shell. The plan for early elections has been abandoned. Instead a new broadly-based governing coalition has been called into existence with the opposition centre-right Kadima party of Shaul Mofaz joining the government.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Pakistan on Tuesday to do more to stamp out homegrown terrorism, in comments likely to please the Indian government but annoy Pakistani leaders.

Syria is finding it increasingly hard to buy grain on international markets because sanctions have blocked its access to trade finance, while growing numbers of its citizens are struggling to obtain food after more than a year of conflict.

Syrians voted in a parliamentary election on Monday touted by authorities as a milestone of political reform but dismissed by the opposition as a facade while people are killed every day in an anti-government uprising.

The Taliban is stronger now than before President Barack Obama ordered a surge of troops to Afghanistan, two senior U.S. lawmakers said on Sunday, contradicting the administration's assessment of the insurgency.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will use a two-day visit to India this week to urge further reductions in Indian imports of Iranian oil.

Most Americans want US troops out of Afghanistan and oppose a significant long-term commitment to support that nation's economy and security, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suffered a major setback after his supporters fared badly in Iranian parliamentary elections.

President Barack Obama marked the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with a speedy trip to Afghanistan, signing a strategic pact with Kabul on Wednesday and delivering an election-year message to Americans that the war is winding down.

Former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, whose body was found floating Sunday in the Danube river, died from drowning, Austrian police said.