Iraq

A car bomb and a roadside bomb blew up in a crowded parking lot outside a government building north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens more, officials said.

Aiming to convince senators of the viability of the Barack Obama administration's Afghanistan policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday cited South Korea as a successful "investment" case. "You look at the decades of our investment in South Korea," she said, facing a barrage of questions in a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee aimed at clarifying Washington's policy and progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Obama has ordered 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan in the next 14 months with 10,000 to be withdrawn by the end of this year. The timetable settled on by the president after a vigorous internal review was faster than sought by some top military commanders but much slower than demanded by many domestic political critics.

Dozens of militants, many of them suspected al Qaeda members, have today escaped a Yemeni prison located in the south-eastern province of Hadramout, by using a tunnel they dug over the past months in what appeared to be a brazen, coordinated jailbreak, according to reports.

The number of forcibly displaced people around the world has reached a 15-year high, according to the UN high commission for refugees (UNHCR), with the vast majority languishing in poor countries ill-equipped to cater to their needs.

"We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes, as it constitutes one of one of the most serious threat to international peace and security", this UN resolution was adopted in 2005 and set international background in which the Sri Lankan civil war was fought.

Syrian troops trying to quash three months of protests are committing "alleged breaches of the most fundamental rights", while 1,100 unarmed civilians have been killed in the crackdown says a UN report.

On Tuesday, armed men stormed the provincial council in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, killing at least eight people in the latest assault on government buildings in Sunni parts of Iraq.

Al Quaeda's second in command yesterday issued a eulogy for Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan on May 2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is tipped to become the terrorist organisation's next leader, had already been perceived by western powers to be Al Qaeda's real operational head for a long time.

Nato defence ministers are today meeting in Brussels to review the results of two months of air strikes in Libya, just as the alliance steps up its campaign.

As the people and the state are locked in a stand-off it seems that nothing can stop Syria from further spiralling into violence thanks to President al-Assad decideding to cling on to power no matter what the cost. While the protests first surfaced in the provinces, they have now spread to the big cities, making it harder for pro-Assad supporters to pretend that the protestors are just a bunch of pro-Islamists and violent thugs.

The National Transitional Council in Libya is slowly trying to establish itself as the legitimate successor to Gaddafi. The West has helped the rebel movement by widely promoting it and calling for countries throughout the world to officially back the new regime. However while the U.S , the U.K, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Canada have officially recognised the political organisation as the new legitimate representative body of the Libyan people, countries in Africa and in the Middle East ...

Bernard Henri Levy announced that he delivered a message on Thursday from Libyan rebel leaders to Israel's Prime Minister, saying they would seek diplomatic ties with the country if they came to power.

Following the failure of the African Union Road Map proposal presented by South African leader Jacob Zuma to broker a ceasefire between Gaddafi and the rebels, NATO powers are upping their intervention in Libya in a bid to break the deadlock, which has seen the Libyan leader hold on to power defiantly despite weeks of air strikes and a rebel uprising.

After UN Resolution 1973 was passed, coalition leaders promised "better days ahead for Libya" and pledged to "continue to act to help protect the Libyan people from the brutality of Gaddafi's regime" as well as to " support and stand by them as they seek to take control of their own destiny."

Obama's speech was of broad scope, with the US leader tackling different issues in different countries while using this as an opportunity to give the US response to the Middle East uprisings and regime changes. He pledged international economic support for countries undergoing democratic change, notably Egypt and Tunisia and warned Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to lead transition in his country, or to "get out of the way".

Barack Obama’s widely anticipated speech will see him try to rehabilitate the image of the US in the Middle East by repositioning the country as a solid supporter of newly-emerging Arab democracies. His speech comes amid criticism that the US has been too slow to support the uprisings, and has adopted contradictory approaches in its dealings with different countries.

In comparison to other regions in the world, the Middle East attracts a relatively large part of US foreign policy time and has often presented it with its most enduring challenges. In the last decades, protecting the US interests within the region has become a complicated tasks as America has had to deal with the rise of Iran as a regional and influential power in the region and its illegal nuclear activities, the toppling of Saddam Hussein and his regime, invade Afghanistan, try to fight...

US President Barack Obama yesterday introduced sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad and six of his deputies as the regime continued to impose oppressive measures against its own people. The announcement came a day before President Obama is due to make a major policy speech on the recent developments in the Middle East and northern Africa. The sanctions are largely symbolic as Assad has few assets in the US and is unlikely ever to visit the country but come as a reinforcement of pre-ex...

A UK parliament report has questioned whether Osama bin Laden’s death was legal under international law. IBTimes summarises the report here…

The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor has today announced he is seeking the arrest of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and two others for crimes against humanity.

Since Scottish independence from the United Kingdom became a real political possibility following the election of a majority Scottish Nationalist Party government to the Scottish Parliament, critics ranging from MPs to generals have shot down SNP plans for an independent Scotland to "share" Britain's armed forces.

What do Sayeeda Warsi, Susan Kramer and Oona King all have in common? All three are from different political parties, but yet they share these characteristics - they are all women, they are all from ethnic/religious minorities and they are all failed politicians - so naturally it makes sense that they should all three be baronesses as well.

The killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Special Forces came as something of a surprise to the world and many questions have been raised about the circumstances of his death, but there is little doubt that after this life will be different for both the Obama administration and for Pakistan.

Makwaia wa Kuhenga writing for Tanzania's leading English language newspaper, The Citizen, on Sunday 17 April 2011, tells us he witnessed the Libyan troops of Colonel Qaddafi being mowed down, scores of them being buried and the rest rounded up and returned home. This was during a little known war in October 1978, now almost forgotten in the West, when Colonel Qaddafi gave military support to General Idi Amin of Uganda on his invasion and annexation of the Kagera salient in Tanzania.

Looking at the Sun and Daily Star newspapers on Thursday, 31 March 2011, one could be forgiven for being totally unaware of any conflict taking place in Libya. For any news on the current war, the Sun managed an article on page 13. The Daily star was bereft of any comment on the topic.

The civil war in Libya, the length and result of which is of course unknown, has shown the USA and the European powers to be sufferers of what Winston Churchill once described as a "disease of the will".

The chaos and violence currently ravaging Libya has raised questions about the conduct of Britain and especially its former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, towards a regime that now stands accused of killing 400 of its own citizens.

The Chair of the Conservative Party, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, is to speak out today against prejudice against Muslims, which she claims is the last acceptable form of bigotry in Britain.

Shares in BP were up on the FTSE 100 in afternoon trading after the energy giant said that the Rumaila Operating Organisation had managed to increase production at the super-giant field in Southern Iraq by 10 per cent above the initial production rate agreed in December 2009.