Those who think that the election of Barack Obama will save the nation from its many foreign-policy/civil-liberties woes got smashed and dashed with a cold dose of reality. Flip-flopping in the finest political tradition, Obama voted in favor of President Bush’s wiretap/immunity bill, after promising to filibuster it before he secured the Democratic Party nomination.
Lebanon has announced a new 30-member national unity government, seven weeks after an agreement brokered by Qatar brought the country back from the brink of civil war.
Israeli police have begun questioning Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, for a third time over allegations that he received thousands of dollars in illegal donations from an American businessman.
A photograph of a recent Iranian missile test was apparently doctored to show a fourth missile firing from a desert testing range, analysts and photographic experts have said.
Karl Rove, the former White House advisor and the man considered the key figure behind George Bush's election successes, has defied a subpoena to testify before the US congress.
The US senate has voted to confirm that General David Petraeus, the senior US general in Iraq, will soon oversee all US military operations in the Middle East.
Britain's ministry of defence is to compensate the family of an Iraqi man who died after being tortured in the custody of British army soldiers serving in Iraq.
French energy giant Total has said it will not make further investments in Iran because the political risk is too high, Christophe de Margerie, the company's chief executive, has told the Financial Times.
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