Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

Amid a push by the West toward imposing new sanctions on Iran, Brazil and Germany express conflicting stances on slapping US-proposed embargoes on the country over its nuclear enrichment program.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle clashed on the issue of fresh sanctions against Iran during their talks in Brasilia on Wednesday.

Three American citizens being held in Iran on charges of illegal entry have phoned their families for the first time since they were taken into custody.

According to a report by "Free the Hikers" a support group based in New York, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal have called their families from their detention center in Tehran.

Qatar's premier says Arab states will give an appropriate response to Israel's decision to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

"There will be a meeting today (Wednesday) between the representatives of Arab states and [Arab League chief] Amr Mussa," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told reporters in Doha.

US Vice President Joe Biden says a plan by Israel to build 1,600 homes on the occupied Palestinian land in an East Jerusalem (al-Quds) settlement undermines the efforts to kick-start the Middle East peace process.

"Our administration is fully committed to the Palestinian people and to achieving a Palestinian state which is viable and contiguous," he told journalists after talks with acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Iran's president says the US must explain what its troops are doing in Afghanistan, as catching terrorists only requires intelligence work not military deployments.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comment in a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Wednesday morning.

Top Sunni Muslim cleric and grand imam of al-Azhar and Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi has passed away while on a visit in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh.

The 81-year-old Tantawi, the head of Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning, suffered a heart attack early Wednesday while boarding a plane in the Saudi capital.

Lebanon's rival political factions agree on a national defense strategy in a new round of talks hosted by President Michel Sleiman.

Nearly 20 party leaders and parliamentarians met at the presidential palace to hold the reconciliation talks established as part of a ceasefire deal that put to rest the 2008 clashes waged by some Sunni groups against the Hezbollah resistance movement.

Israel takes dozens of Palestinian fighters in the West Bank off its wanted list, in an apparent effort to reward the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) for its crackdown on its rival Hamas.

The Tel Aviv regime will no longer pursue some 77 West Bank-based Palestinian activists, mostly from Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyres Brigades, The Jerusalem Post quoted Palestinian sources as saying on Tuesday.

The Iranian lawmakers have rejected government's plan to save about 40 billion dollars by cutting energy subsidies.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the parliament session on Tuesday to ask the MPs to give a yes vote to the plan, aimed at reducing government expenditure.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has left Tehran for Kabul leading a high-ranking delegation on his first official visit to Afghanistan since the re-election of Hamid Karzai as president.

The Iranian president was received in the Afghan capital by Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim. He is reportedly on his way to be officially welcomed by President Karzai in the presidential palace.