Middle East, Prime Minister | featured news

Secretary of State John F. Kerry scolded Turkey’s leader Friday for likening Zionism to a “crime against humanity. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comment worsened his country’s rift with Israel and further complicated the U.S. relationship with Turkey, a key Muslim ally straddling the Middle East and Europe.

Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the prime minister on Tuesday on corruption allegations, ratcheting up pressure on a government that is also facing street protests led by a cleric who has a history of ties to the army.

Congress elected a human rights lawyer as interim prime minister on Sunday, a week after his predecessor was sacked for failing to present a Cabinet line-up that political factions could agree on.

Libya’s prime minister-elect failed a confidence vote by an overwhelming margin on Sunday, removing him from office and throwing the country into yet more political uncertainty as time ticks on an investigation into attacks that killed four Americans last month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a firm ultimatum to Iran is the only peaceful way to stop the regime in Tehran from getting atomic weapons, increasing pressure on President Obama weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his case on Iran directly to U.S. voters Sunday, telling the American public in televised interviews that the White House must be willing to draw a “red line” on Tehran’s nuclear program, comparing Tehran’s nuclear program to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and reminding Americans of the devastating repercussions of failed intelligence.

Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab has defected to the opposition seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, a spokesman for Hijab said on Monday, marking one of the highest profile desertions from the Damascus government.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday threatened a military response if Syrian forces approached the Turkish border, hardening the tone over Turkey’s downed warplane.

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.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki told Kurdish leaders there would be “problems” if they do not turn over a vice president who has been accused of assassinations.