International Politics of the Middle East

Three people arrested after Iran's disputed presidential election have been sentenced to death, the Iranian ISNA news agency said.

Bashiri Rad, giving only the initials of the convicts, said that "MZ and AP were convicted for ties with the Kingdom Assembly of Iran and NA for ties with the Monafeghin (exiled opposition group commonly known as People's Mujahideen).

Prosecutors said the accused admitted to spying but human rights groups say torture is used to obtain so-called confessions.

A Hamas delegation is meeting Egyptian officials in Cairo to try to set a new date for the signing of a Palestinian unity deal

Egypt had earlier announced that Hamas and Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would travel to Cairo to sign the long-delayed reconciliation deal on October 25-26.

The postponement was requested because of the decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA) delegation at the UN Human Rights Council to drop its backing for an immediate vote on a report on the Gaza war, the Hamas source said.

The delay has brought Abbas under immense criticism, particularly from the Palestinian group Hamas.

The October 2 postponement in endorsing the UN-sponsored report, listing Israeli and Hamas war crimes during Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip last winter, has angered a majority of Palestinians.

Abbas said that Hamas's criticism of the postponement was aimed at bolstering its own position.

Syria’s ally, Hizbollah, managed to force the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France to rethink their strategies for the new Middle East in summer 2006. First France, the US and their “moderate” Arab allies realized they might have to lower their expectations… the unsuccessful use of American and Israeli power (”shock and awe” style) in Iraq and Lebanon led to nothing more than an almost total disrespect for such arrogant use of force by the people in the region… Ask anyone today what he thinks of an Israel or American military conflict with Iran and he will answer you: “They would be crazy to attack Iran”

King Abdullah decided at the Kuwait summit that it is time for him to make a decision … So he opted to make peace with the young Syrian president, while a visibly surprised Hosni Mubarak was instead prepared to escalate his confrontation with Assad.

Syria and Turkey have just signed a high-level cooperation agreement in different fields

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are in their 80s, durable U.S. allies whose governments have crushed political dissent at home while playing leading roles across the Middle East. But these days, talk of succession reverberates as Washington, as well as Riyadh and Cairo, plans to navigate an era without two of the region's dominant personalities.

Their overall strategies, which complement U.S. interests, are not expected to be significantly altered by their successors, especially since new leaders will almost certainly come from the ranks of the ruling regimes.

The oppressed of Egypt and the young of Saudi Arabia are angry and restless. They listened to Obama's June speech in Cairo, and many were disappointed by the lack of criticism of their nations' regimes, which often ignore American principles of democracy. It is these sentiments -- expressed by laborers striking in the Egyptian textile city of El Mahalla el Kubra and by bloggers and filmmakers in Riyadh -- that new leaders will have to calm. "Predicting what will happen in Saudi Arabia is very difficult," said Mohammad Fahad Qahtani, a reformer and assistant economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies. "You live in an oil bonanza. The country is flush with money, but you have unemployment and 30% of the people living in poverty. Only 22% of families own their own homes."It's a gloomy picture. The regime is losing its credibility."

"The credibility and foundations of international human rights and humanitarian law as well as of the UN as a whole is at stake," he said.

Israel's impunity

But Gabriela Shalev, Israel's ambassador to the Security Council, did not refer at all to the Goldstone report during the meeting on Wednesday, but dismissed its findings before the debate even began.

Fatah, the political party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has accused President Barack Obama of caving in to Israeli pressure and said the hopes Palestinians had for Obama’s administration have “evaporated.”

They have fled the war in nearby Saada province, where the nation's army, after five years of sporadic warfare in the region, has launched what it calls a final offensive against a Shiite Muslim rebel group called Houthis.

A poor but strategic country on the Gulf of Aden, Yemen is increasingly unstable. Washington is concerned about the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh being embroiled in conflicts that include a separatist insurgency in the south and growing numbers of Al Qaeda fighters using the nation as a base to launch attacks across the Middle East.

The plight of the displaced has become a political issue within Yemen, with the government and the Houthis accusing each other of using civilians as shields and obstructing access to aid groups.

Iran has promised a swift and crushing response to a suicide attack in the country's Sistan-Baluchestan province that killed at least 35 people, including 11 Revolutionary Guards commanders.

a Sunni group called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility for the attack.

"We consider the recent terrorist attack to be the result of US action. This is the sign of America's animosity against our country," Ali Larijani, Iran's parliamentary speaker, said.

If the Chinese are right when they say that women hold up half the sky, we may be in for trouble in the UAE.

serious gender imbalance in this country, thanks largely to the armies of imported construction workers needed to help build the nation’s skylines.

Solid numbers are hard to come by, but according to most population estimates there are roughly three men in the UAE for every woman

Iran and three world powers have been handed a draft agreement aimed at reducing international concerns over Tehran's nuclear programme.

International Atomic Energy Agency, which proposed the plan after talks in Vienna, wants an answer by Friday.

plan is believed to involve Iran exporting uranium to be enriched in France and Russia.

Israel's prime minister has instructed his government to draw up plans for a "world wide campaign" to lobby for changes in the international laws of war.

Israeli government contends international law needs to be amended in order to fight global terrorism.

The statement was backed by Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, who said a change in the international laws of war was "in the interest of anyone fighting terrorism".