Middle East News

More than 70 people were killed in a series of car bombings and suicide attacks targeting Shi'ite Muslims across Iraq on Monday, police and medics said, extending the worst sectarian violence since U.S. troops withdrew in December 2011.

Qatar's emir, who has thrown his state's riches behind Arab uprisings, said on Monday that the emergence of 'people power' had put Arabs in direct confrontation with Israel and made a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more pressing.

Labor protests are uncommon across the Gulf Arab states, which depend on workers mostly from South Asia for vital construction jobs.

Three Brazilian tourists were killed when two hot air balloons collided in Turkey on Monday, the semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported, citing local officials.

Syrian troops pushed into a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border on Sunday, fighting house-to-house and bombing from the air as President Bashar Assad tried to strengthen his grip on a strategic strip of land running from the capital to the Mediterranean coast.

Peggy Cidor, a leading member of the Women of the Wall organization, stands in the hallway of her building in Jerusalem, Monday, May 20, 2013.

A string of car bombs and shootings killed at least 57 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, escalating fears of a return to widespread sectarian bloodletting in the country.

Iraqi officials say five car bombs have gone off in Shiite neighbourhoods of Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 75.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect on Sunday of further Israeli strikes inside Syria, pledging to act to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and other militant groups.

Violence surged in the strategically important Syrian town of Qusayr on Sunday. Activists said the offensive marked some of the most intense fighting they've seen in the fiercely contested area near the Lebanese border.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's senior coalition partner says that reaching a final peace agreement with the Palestinians is unrealistic at the current time and the sides should instead pursue an interim arrangement.

An Ashkelon man stabbed his younger brother to death following an argument between the two men in the southern city on Sunday, Lachish subdistrict police reported.

Host Rachel Martin talks with Ramez Maluf, professor of journalism at Lebanese American University in Beirut, about different views in Arab media on the Syrian conflict.

The number of Syrian civilians who have fled their country to escape the civil war has passed 1.5 million, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.

Yemeni army soldiers ride a tank as they search for militant supporters of the al-Qaeda in the southern Yemen town of Loder, in Abyan province, on April 25, 2012.

At least 15 people were killed Saturday in Baghdad and Anbar provinces, police said, in what appeared to be a continuation of sectarian violence.

George Sabra speaks during a meeting on the situation in Syria, in Ankara, Turkey, on March 21.

Protesters in a Turkish border town hit by a twin car-bombing a week ago clashed with police Saturday, as they voiced anger over the government's response to the attack.

Cyprus on Friday got rid of limits on money transfers and withdrawals for international clients of another eight foreign banks doing business in the debt-laden country.

The head of Iran's constitutional watchdog says it may disqualify candidates in June presidential elections who seek full relations with the United States.