Middle East, President | featured news

The Philippine foreign secretary says he is recommending to President Benigno Aquino III to pull out all Filipino U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights following the abduction of four by Syrian rebels.

When many struggling families in this eastern Iranian city take stock of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's legacy, it's not about the oratory full of bluster and menace or his tussles with Iran's ruling clerics that are known to much of the world. What matters more here are the dusty rows of government-subsidized, two-story apartment buildings on the outskirts of the once-neglected outpost — testament to an effective populist outreach that has won the president millions of loyal backers in the provinces.

President Bashar al-Assad is likely to run for re-election next year and win, with Syria remaining in military and political deadlock until then, said the deputy leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.

It wasn't exactly a break-up moment between Iran and ally Bashar Assad. But Tehran's whiplash diplomacy over the weekend suggested its embrace of the Syrian president could be cooling....

President Barack Obama declared Syria's main opposition group the sole "legitimate representative" of its country's people Tuesday, deeming the move "a big step" in the international diplomatic efforts to end Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled regime.

President Bashar al-Assad was quoted on Thursday saying the price of an invasion by foreign powers would be “more than the world can afford.”

Libyan President Mohammed Magarief said on Sunday that about 50 people have been arrested in connection with the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last week, which he said was planned by foreigners linked to al Qaeda.

Syria's ambassador to Iraq defected on Wednesday in protest over President Bashar al-Assad's violent suppression of a 16-month uprising as the U.N. Security Council remained deadlocked over the next steps in the crisis.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the latest EU sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil are "the strongest" measures yet imposed on the country.

A conference called by special envoy Kofi Annan to end the Syria crisis appeared on the brink of failure as it opened Saturday, with the U.S. and Russia still divided over a role for President Bashar Assad in a transition government....