World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post

Iranian presidential candidates announced; Rafsanjani disqualified

Jason Rezaian — Thu, 23 May 2013 05:52:00 GMT

TEHRAN — A former president supported by Iran’s moderates and considered a founding member of the Islamic republic was disqualified Tuesday from running in the coming election, generating surprise and tension.

Read full article >>

Young Lebanese fighters leaving Syria for battle closer to home

Loveday Morris — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:53:09 GMT

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — While the Syrian opposition urges more men to assist embattled rebels in the fight for the key town of Qusair, dozens of young Lebanese fighters are leaving Syria to join a battle closer to home

Read full article >>

Deadly London attack could be act of terror, Prime Minister Cameron says

Anthony Faiola — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:55:00 GMT

LONDON — Two assailants hacked a man to death on a busy southeast London street Wednesday afternoon before delivering a rant about Islam to bystanders, leading Prime Minister David Cameron to cut short a diplomatic trip to Paris to deal with what he described as a likely terrorist attack.

Read full article >>

Kerry promises wider U.S. support for Syrian rebels if peace talks remain elusive

Anne Gearan — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:19:00 GMT

AMMAN, Jordan — The United States and its partners will widen support for the Syrian rebels, potentially by sending more weapons or taking other measures short of sending American forces, if diplomacy fails to end a civil war that has killed “upwards of 100,000” people, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday.

Read full article >>

Boruch Spiegel, survivor of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, dies at 93

Vanessa Gera — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:10:48 GMT

Boruch Spiegel, one of the last remaining survivors of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising by poorly armed Jewish insurgents against the Nazi German force that occupied Poland, died May 9 in Montreal. He was 93.

Read full article >>

An audacious plan at the Western Wall

William Booth — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:49:00 GMT

JERUSALEM — In a city where three major faiths guard their holy places with quarrelsome zeal and moving a single stone can have deep religious and geopolitical implications, a new proposal to double the area for Jewish prayer along the iconic Western Wall represents dramatic change for a place that does not easily embrace it.

Read full article >>

U.S. acknowledges killing of four U.S. citizens in counterterrorism operations

Karen DeYoung — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:17:00 GMT

The Obama administration Wednesday for the first time acknowledged killing four U.S. citizens in “counterterrorism operations” abroad.

The deaths of three of the Americans — Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Awlaki, and Samir Khan, all of whom were killed in drone strikes in Yemen in 2011 — had been previously reported. The death of the fourth, Jude Kennan Mohammad, a Florida native apparently killed in Pakistan, had not been.

Read full article >>

Iran presidential campaign begins without two big names

Jason Rezaian — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:58:00 GMT

TEHRAN — Iran’s conservatives, who on Tuesday saw the two main moderate threats to their dominance barred from running in next month’s presidential election, face a new challenge: persuading shocked and skeptical Iranians to turn out to vote.

Read full article >>

Stockholm riots raise questions about immigration policy

Richard Milne — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:58:21 GMT

The sight of burning cars in a dozen suburbs of Stockholm on Tuesday night has shocked Sweden and shaken its image of tolerance and equality. But the rioting is also raising a simple, devastating question: Is Sweden facing its own Paris or London moment when it is forced to confront long-simmering questions about the integration of immigrants?

Read full article >>

British politician compares London machete attack to U.K. policy in Syria

Max Fisher — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:55:14 GMT

This sickening atrocity in London is exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) May 22, 2013

A member of the U.K. parliament named George Galloway responded to the bizarre machete attack in London, which some reports say killed a British soldier, with a quip on Twitter about U.K. foreign policy. "This sickening atrocity in London is exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria," he wrote, provoking immediate controversy.

Read full article >>

Chilling video of London attacker explaining machete attack on reported soldier

Max Fisher — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:47:07 GMT

It's not clear how or why two men attacked a man believed to be a British soldier in the London neighborhood of Woolwich, but U.K. officials are already investigating it as a possible act of terrorism.

Read full article >>

Iran paves over suspected nuclear-related testing site despite U.N. protests

Joby Warrick — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:10:46 GMT

Iran has begun paving over a former military site where its scientists are suspected to have conducted nuclear-weapons-related experiments, according to a new U.N. report, a move that could doom efforts to reconstruct a critical part of Iran’s nuclear history.

Read full article >>

'If Imam Khomeini were alive and he registered [for president], he would be disqualified'

Max Fisher — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:20:24 GMT

An Iranian legislator named Ali Motahari wrote an open letter this week to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei protesting the decision to bar former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running in the upcoming election. The letter, published on several Iranian outlets before being noted and translated by Al Monitor's Arash Karami, called the disqualification "unjustified" and warned that it would be "damaging to the upcoming elections."

Read full article >>

Staunch anti-American Saeed Jalili an early favorite in Iran's presidential race

Max Fisher — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:17:34 GMT

Now that Iranian authorities have disqualified former president Hasmei Rafsanjani from the coming presidential race, one of the candidates who appears to be emerging as an early favorite is Saeed Jalili, the country's lead nuclear negotiator. Inflexible, ideological and a close ally of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he is far from a shoe-in but appears, at the moment, to be a potential front-runner.

Read full article >>

What our foreign correspondents are reading

Anup Kaphle — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:11:21 GMT

Believe it or not, summer is here. If you're a voracious reader like some of us, you're most likely in need of a new (or a good, old) book to read. As we did last year, we asked our foreign correspondents to recommend a book they've read recently.

Read full article >>

Video: A rare glimpse inside Tibet at a time of unwelcome change

Max Fisher — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:30:22 GMT

(Editor's note: Some images in the video may be disturbing to viewers.)

Western reporters have had scant access to the Chinese province of Tibet since 2008, when a series of protests and riots calling for greater autonomy coincided with the Beijing Olympics. China, wanting to tamp down the protests and avoid more international criticism, shut down most foreign access to Tibet. The rise of self-immolations by Tibetans has not made Beijing any more eager to open up the province, which is being flooded by Chinese migrants from the ethnic Han majority.

Read full article >>

Kim Jong Un’s special envoy visits China

Chico Harlan — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:46:00 GMT

TOKYO — A key North Korean military official arrived in Beijing on Wednesday as a “special envoy” of leader Kim Jong Un, state-run media reported. The trip comes amid new signs of strain between the traditional allies.

Read full article >>

Border violence prevents Syrian refugees from reaching Jordan

Taylor Luck — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:52:00 GMT

AMMAN, Jordan — An upswing in violence across southern Syria has prevented thousands of refugees from crossing into Jordan, according to U.N. officials, who are warning of an impending humanitarian crisis along the Jordanian-Syrian border.

Read full article >>

Rafsanjani's disqualification follows tumultuous relationship with Iran's supreme leader

Max Fisher — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:32:27 GMT

In the spring of 1992, the still-young Islamic Republic of Iran's latest legislative elections were getting off to an ominous start. The Guardian Council, an official body closely aligned with the supreme leader that can disqualify political candidates at will, had blocked a large number of politicians from the so-called "radical" camp. The radicals still in office, according to Kenneth Pollack's revealing history of U.S.-Iran ties, "The Persian Puzzle," were hamstringing the government to block a president they saw as betraying the country's founding principles.

Read full article >>

World Digest: May 21, 2013

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:55:20 GMT

Allies of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili — a former prime minister and a provincial governor — were charged Tuesday with embezzlement and abuse of office in the latest sign of a power struggle between the country’s top two officials.

Read full article >>

Petraeus’s role in drafting Benghazi talking points raises questions

Scott Wilson, Karen DeYoung — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:24:00 GMT

The controversy over the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attack last year began at a meeting over coffee on Capitol Hill three days after the assault.

It was at this informal session with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the ranking Democrat asked David H. Petraeus, who was CIA director at the time, to ensure that committee members did not inadvertently disclose classified information when talking to the news media about the attack.

Read full article >>

Soldiers re-occupy Mexico’s Hot Land

Nick Miroff — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:46:00 GMT

MEXICO CITY — Villagers in Mexico’s troubled western state of Michoacan lined the highways this week to cheer the arrival of soldiers sent by President Enrique Peña Nieto to reoccupy their towns. But the scenes have underscored the seeming intractability of the country’s security problems.

Read full article >>

Iranian soldiers fighting for Assad in Syria, says State Department official

Anne Gearan — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:10:00 GMT

MUSCAT, Oman — Iran has sent soldiers to Syria to fight alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

Read full article >>

Israel warns Syria to halt attacks after exchange of fire in the Golan Heights

William Booth, Loveday Morris — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:29:00 GMT

JERUSALEM —In blunt language marking a turn away from diplomatic caution, Israel warned the Syrian government Tuesday that it “would suffer the consequences” if it continued to press attacks, hours after Syrian and Israeli troops exchanged fire along the cease-fire line in the occupied Golan Heights.

Read full article >>

Riot police return to Tehran's streets

Max Fisher — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:38:07 GMT

After Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election, protesters and riot police filled Tehran, shutting it down for days in a series of demonstrations some called the "green revolution." This time around, with another presidential vote scheduled for June, the Iranian authorities appear to be taking a more proactive approach.

Read full article >>