Free Republic

HER dusty file was one of hundreds of thousands of documents stacked in a house in a wealthy neighbourhood of Baghdad. Asma Rasheed married a pilot, lived comfortably in the presidential compound of Saddam Hussein and directed a microbiology programme that was not supposed to exist. Rasheed’s light blue folder has emerged from a huge archive seized by forces loyal to Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which opposed Saddam. The archive — a dark who’s who of Iraq — reveals the tiniest details of blandishments and humiliations by a paranoid regime that shared the Nazis’ obsession...

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said Thursday that Israel "had failed to respect" January’s ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, APA reports, citing Al Arabiya. “As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately Israel did not abide by this agreement,” said the ruler of Qatar, a key mediator of the deal. Putin on Thursday told Sheikh Tamim that it was important for Moscow to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict and the future of Syria during the Qatari ruler’s visit to Moscow.