News and Politics

Thousands of Shiite followers of the firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad on Friday to protest a security accord that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011. The crowds swarmed into central Baghdad's Firdoos Square, where a statue of executed President Saddam Hussein was torn down.

The Islamist government of the Gaza Strip said Palestinian resistance groups were willing to lay down their arms and go back to a five-month-old truce - if the Jewish state did likewise. The head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, Ismail Haniyya, said all Palestinian factions in Gaza were prepared to respect the truce if Israel kept to its side of the bargain.

Lebanon was represented at the Arab-Swedish Arbitration Conference which was held on November 17-22 at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. Magistrates, lawyers and law professors from Arab countries and Sweden participated. Law Professor Abdel-Hamid al-Ahdab represented Lebanon.

The text of the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed by US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari Monday closes the door to a further US military presence beyond 2011 even more tightly than the previous draft and locks in a swift end to Iraqi dependence on the US military that appears to be irreversible.

US officials on Thursday told scores of firms offering security services in Iraq that their personnel will lose immunity from prosecution under a new US-Iraq security pact due to take effect in January. The officials told reporters that they briefed delegates from 172 security contractors employing nearly 175,000 Americans.

Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit launched proceedings on Friday to revoke the citizenship of Palestinian-Israeli former MP Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel last year amid claims he had spied for Lebanon's Hizbullah movement, a ministry spokesman said. The move came less than three months after the Israeli High Court rejected a previous bid to strip Bishara of both his nationality.

Israel beefed up security on Friday as 25,000 Jewish pilgrims were expected in the Occupied West Bank city of Hebron amid fears of violence as a group of colonists defied an Israeli eviction order. Dozens of police and troops took up positions outside the house where about 100 settlers and their supporters have vowed to resist any attempt to enforce the High Court order.