BERLIN, June 07, 2013 (AFP) German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday urged the Turkish government to renounce violence against protesters, after deadly unrest in the country. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “already told his people that he understands that there are certain problems in the country,” she told reporters after talks with Tunisian leader Ali Larayedh. “I am counting on the fact tha ...

by Selim SAHEB ETTABA JERUSALEM, June 05, 2013 (AFP) Palestinian officials marked 46 years since the start of the 1967 war with Israel on Wednesday by insisting any peace talks must be based on the lines that existed before the Jewish state's occupation. Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erakat visited three villages in the West Bank whose populations fled the Israeli invasion during the Six-Day War a ...

BERLIN, June 05, 2013 (AFP) Germany criticized as "unacceptable" Wednesday an Egyptian court's sentencing of two staff members of a German non-governmental organization and said the ruling was a "strain" on bilateral relations. Government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said the sentences that followed 2011 raids on the offices of foreign civil society groups, including Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation, we ...

RABAT, June 03, 2013 (AFP) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Rabat on Monday at the start of a tour of the Maghreb region, an AFP photographer reported, as unprecedented anti-government protests swept Turkey. Erdogan, who is accompanied by several ministers and a large delegation of businessmen, landed at Rabat airport at around 14:00 GMT. The Turkish premier is due to hold talks with h ...

 by Beatrice Khadige ALGIERS, May 19, 2013 (AFP) Algeria censored two newspapers for reporting that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has fallen into a coma three weeks after being hospitalised in Paris, raising speculation on Sunday about his well-being. The newspapers, reflecting growing concern in Algeria about Bouteflika's health, said the 76-year-old would return home in a comatose state after his health ...

 WASHINGTON, May 13, 2013 (AFP) The United States has moved military forces closer to Libya since the Benghazi attack so they will be ready to respond to threats against diplomatic personnel, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. "We are prepared to respond if necessary, if conditions deteriorate or if we were called upon," spokesman George Little told reporters. "Obviously we have moved assets and personnel," ...

TRIPOLI, May 11, 2013 (AFP) Libyan militiamen besieging the foreign and justice ministries in Tripoli have now withdrawn and handed control of the compounds back to the authorities, Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said on Saturday. "Those who were at the two ministries have handed over the two ministries to a committee formed by the government and the General National Congress and have now departed," Mar ...

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2013 (AFP) The White House on Tuesday accused Republicans of politicizing the attack on the US diplomatic post in Benghazi last year, as a high profile hearing into the episode went ahead in Congress. Career diplomats told a House of Representatives committee that the US mission in Libya failed to meet crucial safety standards, possibly contributing the deaths of four Americans on Septemb ...

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2013 (AFP) A career diplomat told Congress on Wednesday that the US mission in Benghazi in Libya had failed to meet crucial security standards, a deficiency that may have contributed to American deaths last year. Eric Nordstrom, the regional security officer at the US Embassy in Tripoli in the months before the Benghazi attack, also said senior State Department officials were aware of sec ...

TRIPOLI, May 08, 2013 (AFP) Libyan militiamen withdrew their machine gun mounted pick-up trucks from outside two ministries on Wednesday, but pressed their protests for more concessions from the government, an AFP journalist reported. They had surrounded the foreign ministry on April 28 and the justice ministry two days later to demand a law barring former officials from the ousted regime of Moamer Kadhafi ...

WASHINGTON, May 03, 2013  (AFP) Alleged Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators he and his brother had originally planned to commit suicide attacks during Fourth of July celebration, reports said. The ethnic Chechen brothers had considered striking during Boston's large city celebrations to mark the Fourth of July but aborted the plan after building their pressure-cooker bombs quicker than ex ...

PARIS, April 28, 2013 (AFP) Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was in a Paris hospital on Sunday after suffering a mini-stroke, raising media doubts about his ability to govern less than a year before a presidential election. The 76-year-old, who has been in power since 1999, suffered a “transient ischaemia” on Saturday. This is a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain often called a “mini-stro ...