Cleric:"Muslims should visit Jerusalem"

A senior Palestinian Muslim cleric on Wednesday urged Muslims to travel to Jerusalem, breaking a taboo against visiting the holy city because it would be considered as normalizing relations with Israel.

After Iran vote recount,Mousavi calls new government "illegitimate"

After Iran’s Guardian Council acquiesced to popular demands and conducted a recount of the contested June 12 vote which left incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power, announcing Tuesday that the election case was closed, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has become the spearhead of the popular movement that disputed the vote, called the new government “illegitimate” in a posting on his Website Wednesday afternoon.

6 Mousavi supporters reportedly hanged

As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Iran shuts newspaper challenging Ahmadinejad

The crackdown on the opposition in Iran continued on Wednesday, with authorities banning a newspaper allied to presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi after he denounced Iran’s government as “illegitimate” because of claims of voting fraud in last month’s election, a reformist political group said…

Ahmadinejad pulls out of African summit

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled a last-minute call to attend an African Union summit in Libya on Wednesday amid a stir among African delegates, who complained the contentious Iranian leader would divert the conference’s attention from the continent’s pressing problems…

IDF Navy intercepts Gaza-bound ship

An IDF Navy unit took over a ship that was en route to breaking the naval closure on the Gaza Strip, the IDF said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

PICTURE LEFT:International activists cover boxes of medical supplies to protect them from the rain aboard a boat before setting sail for Gaza from the Cypriot port of Larnaca, Monday.Photo: AP

Kazakhstan:"We won’t give Iran any nuke material"

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev promised on Tuesday that “no nuclear material will reach Iran from our territory.”
Kazakhstan is believed to possess as much as 15 percent of the world supply of uranium….

Azerbaijan seeks closer ties to Israel despite Iran’s pressure

The desire of two key Muslim states to strengthen cooperation with the Jewish state has won out against a campaign of pressure from Israel’s enemies in the Islamic world.
In a state visit to Azerbaijan over the weekend, members of President Shimon Peres’s delegation learned of concerted efforts by the Iranian regime to torpedo the event…

Iranians walk out on Peres in Astana at Kazakhstan Interfaith Conference…

Carrying out their threat, the Iranian representatives staged a walkout during President Shimon Peres’s keynote address at the Congress of World and Traditional Religions in Astana, Kazakhstan on Wednesday morning, refusing to return as long as the Israeli leader spoke.

Egypt wants S-400 to counter Iran

In a sign of mounting concern about Teheran’s missile capability, the Egyptian military recently expressed interest in purchasing the Russian-made, advanced S-300 and S-400 air defense systems….