The State Department is sticking with a strict no-new-settlements policy toward Israel, its spokesman said Thursday, but he held out the possibility that Israelis and Palestinians might eventually take a different path. "The position that the secretary has stated remains our position," spokesman P.J. Crowley said at his daily briefing. "And we continue to discuss with Israel and with the other parties what they have to do on the settlement issue." But he added that, in the end, Israel and ...

After smiling broadly for the TV cameras and complimenting one another, U.S. President Barack Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak provided little food for thought about what really transpired between them in an Oval Office meeting Tuesday. (CNN) -- After smiling broadly for the TV cameras and complimenting one another, U.S. President Barack Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak provided little food for thought about what really transpired between them in an Oval Office meeting Tuesday. Historically, the ...

Israeli troops are accused in a newspaper article of harvesting organs from dead Palestinians, and Israel wants Sweden's government to condemn the Swedish paper that published it. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish Foreign Ministry's hands-off position to the country's neutrality during World War II. "It's a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews," Lieberman told Sweden's ambassador to Israel on Thursday evening. "This is reminiscent of Sweden's ...

The last thing the CIA needs right now is another scandal, let alone two. Allegations that the CIA chief in Algiers drugged and raped two women is going to hurt badly. The accusations that Harold Nicholson, a former CIA operative in federal prison convicted of spying for the KGB, continued his work from behind bars isn't nearly as serious, but it won't exactly help the agency's reputation. Nicholson, who allegedly enlisted his Nathaniel son to collect his ...

Israel makes no secret that it sees Iran is its biggest threat but the scale of the threat is less clear cut. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not missed an opportunity to name Iran as the number one threat, and like his predecessors he has said Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. Tests are ongoing for Israel's arrow missile system, designed to intercept incoming rockets -- although Israel does not openly say which direction they'd come from. Last week, ...

Hundreds of gay men have been tortured and killed in Iraq in recent months, some by the nation's security forces, Human Rights Watch said Monday. Interviews with doctors indicate hundreds of men had been killed, but the exact number was unclear because of the stigma associated with homosexuality in Iraq, the New York-based watchdog group said in its report. "Iraq's leaders are supposed to defend all Iraqis, not abandon them to armed agents of hate," said Scott Long, director of ...

To the long list of things that everyone else loves but that Muslims are supposed to hate — democracy, dogs, women with uncovered hair — we can now add yoga. A council of muftis in Malaysia issued a fatwa over the weekend banning yoga for Muslims, claiming that the sweaty 'Oms' and other Hindu elements of a standard 60-minute yoga class could "destroy the faith of a Muslim." For a moment, this news had me selfishly worried. I've been ...

At first, no one seemed to notice the young man who walked into the hotel lobby at around 7:45 that Friday morning. He wore a baseball cap, a backpack and dragged a wheeled suitcase behind him. He casually checked his watch as he calmly walked toward a hotel restaurant filled with Western business executives. A hotel security camera caught what happened next. In a matter of moments, the lobby was engulfed in billowing white smoke and flying debris. Another suspected ...

There are two big schools of thought about what the U.S. should do next in Iraq, and both schools are almost certainly wrong. The first, represented by many congressional Democrats, argues that it is past the time for America to leave. The best thing that could happen now is for the U.S. to pull out as quickly as possible, force the Iraqis to take control of their destinies and compel the oil-rich gulf states in the neighborhood to get ...

A friend of three American hikers arrested in Iran said he believes they had no knowledge they were nearing the Iranian border while hiking in Iraq, and made "a simple and regrettable mistake." Shon Meckfessel was with the three on a hiking trip to Iraqi Kurdistan, but had stayed behind at their hotel on July 31, the day the three went missing, because he had a cold. He issued a statement to media outlets on Thursday and confirmed its authenticity ...