As Iraqis queue forlornly for food and water, or swelter in homes and hospitals without electricity, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s coalition government is collapsing around him. The latest boycott brought to 17 the number of members of the Shi’ite-led coalition to have walked out, tendered their resignations or withdrawn from Cabinet meetings.
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/ 6 November 2006
Thousands of gay Israelis are to rally in Jerusalem on Friday, defying the risk of violence from religious hard-liners outraged by what they brand an abomination to the sanctity of the Holy City. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have staged nightly violent protests, aiming to force the cancellation of an already twice-delayed event.
At least three people were killed and about 75 more injured on Monday when a train collided with a truck stuck on the line at a rail junction near the Israeli coastal city of Netanya. Four carriages, including the driver’s cabin, were forced off the rails by the impact of the collision.
Israel’s 12th Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has courted early disapproval for a weak coalition few believe can redraw the borders of the Jewish state. A veteran nationalist, who like his coma-stricken predecessor Ariel Sharon, underwent a sea change in his views in late career, Olmert has vowed to guide the nation on the path to peace.
Egyptian forces on Tuesday arrested 10 suspects over the triple bombings that ripped through the Red Sea tourist resort of Dahab and killed 18 people, including foreigners. State media said preliminary investigations pointed to links between the attacks in Dahab and two previous strikes in the Sinai peninsula over the past 18 months.
Nine people were killed and dozens wounded in Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv on Monday when a Palestinian bomber blew himself up in the deadliest suicide attack of the last 20 months. The blast took place hours before the swearing in of the new Israeli Parliament and prompted a pledge by prime minister designate Ehud Olmert that its perpetrators would not go unpunished.
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/ 15 December 2005
Iraqis voted on Thursday in a landmark poll to choose a four-year government that many hope will restore security to a nation wracked by violence and sectarian feuding since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Despite blanket security, one man was killed in a grenade attack in the northern city of Mosul.
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/ 26 October 2005
Five Israelis were killed and dozens more wounded on Wednesday when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy marketplace, the first deadly attack inside the Jewish state since July. Responsibility for the attack in the town of Hadera was claimed by the Islamic Jihad movement.
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/ 26 September 2005
Nine-year-old Salama died instantly, his head blown off and his body torn to shreds when a massive explosion ripped through a Hamas military parade, killing at least 15 people. The Islamist faction blamed Israel and fired off dozens of rockets, unleashing a catalogue of Israeli air strikes and three sleepless, frightening nights for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Troops hacked their way into a barricaded synagogue in the heart of biblical Israel on Tuesday as they evacuated defiant settlers from the northern West Bank after the historic pull-out of Jews from the Gaza Strip. Security forces also cleared several dozen religious students who had taken refuge inside a seminary.