Nasrallah vows revenge

Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned on Thursday that his group will indeed avenge the death of Imad Mughniyeh, despite reports on Wednesday that Israel thwarted a major a Hizbullah-backed terror attack in Europe recently.

“The reaction to Mughniyeh’s assassination, which will aim to teach the murderers a lesson, is a necessary thing,” Nasrallah said.

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Redefine terror in Middle East – Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey’s prime minister had a message Thursday for US President Barack Obama: Redefine terror and terrorism in the Middle East and use it as the basis for a new American policy.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country has played a key role in trying to mediate among Israel and Syria and the Palestinians, said Obama’s new Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, will be in Turkey for talks Sunday.

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Tehran can cooperate if U.S. changes policies – Iran

Real change in Washington’s policy in the Middle East would enable Iran to have a “co-operative” attitude towards the US, Iran’s foreign minister says.

Manouchehr Mottaki was speaking at a session at the World Economic Forum.

A day earlier, Iran’s president, responding to an overture by the new US president, said the US should apologise for its past “crimes” against Iran.

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Iraq ends licence for Blackwater

Iraq will not renew the licence of US security firm Blackwater, which was involved in an 2007 incident in which at least 14 civilians were killed.

An interior ministry spokesman said the US embassy had been told it will have to use another security company.

Five former Blackwater guards have gone on trial in the United States over the killings in Baghdad.

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UN appeal $613m for Gaza

The UN has launched an appeal for $613m to help people affected by Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

“These needs are massive and multi-faceted,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He added that funds would be used to “help overcome at least some measures of this hardship”.

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African Union wants Mbeki to head Darfur panel

The African Union has asked former South African leader Thabo Mbeki to head a panel on how to reconcile the need for accountability in Darfur with opposition to calls for Sudan’s president to be prosecuted.

Jean Ping, the chairman of the AU Commission, made the announcement on Thursday at a meeting of the continent’s foreign ministers ahead of a Feb. 1-3 AU summit in Ethiopia.

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Election could be turning point in Iraq

The Iraqi provincial elections on Saturday look set to mark a significant milestone in the country’s tortuous recovery from the years of turmoil and disintegration that followed the US-led invasion in 2003.

If they pass off without significant disruption, the Sunni-based insurgency, which wrought so much havoc for most of those years, will have suffered another major setback.

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EU need time on Guantanamo

The European Union will need time to solve the difficult issue of whether to help President Barack Obama shut the Guantanamo jail by taking in inmates, the bloc’s anti-terrorism chief said on Thursday.

“President Obama said he will need a year to close Guantanamo, it shows how difficult it is,” EU anti-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove told reporters.

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U.S. says open Gaza border to Israel

U.S. envoy George Mitchell said on Thursday that opening the Gaza Strip to commercial goods would help to choke off the smuggling that Israel fears could replenish Hamas’s weapons stocks.

But he said the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas must help to supervise the crossings, a demand that has been a major sticking point in Egyptian-brokered negotiations with the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers for a long-term ceasefire.

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U.S heading for exit in Iraq

The prognosis for Iraq looks bad and is getting worse. If the trend does not improve soon, the United States may have no choice but to cut its losses and get out. Recently, many have looked to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to engineer a change in strategy that might arrest this decline, and the ISG’s report does indeed contain some useful ideas and worthwhile recommendations. But on the whole, it offers the political groundwork for a complete withdrawal more than it offers a sustainable solution to the conflict.

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