Musharraf freed from house arrest

Pakistan has freed former president Pervez Musharraf from his months-long house arrest, days after he received bail in a case related to the death of a radical cleric, a prison official said Thursday. Prison officials were withdrawn on Wednesday night from Musharraf’s home on the outskirts of Islamabad, where he has been held under arrest since April, prison official Wajad Ali said. Musharraf is now free to move around Pakistan, Ali said.

Syrian army pushes back after rebels take arms depot

Forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad fought rebels in a small town 100 km north of Damascus on Thursday after video footage showed the opposition captured a huge weapons cache. The looting of hundreds of weapons in the town of Mahin will aid rebels who are based there, halfway between the capital and Homs, two cities where the opposition has tried to take territory during the civil war.

Calls for Arafat ‘killing’ probe after Swiss poison report

Palestinian officials demanded a global probe into the ‘killing’ of Yasser Arafat on Thursday, a day after it emerged that Swiss forensic tests showed he probably died from polonium poisoning.
With the scientific analysis purportedly showing how the Palestinian leader had died mysteriously, a senior figure in the Palestine Liberation Organisation called for an international inquiry to determine who was behind it.
‘The (test) results proved Arafat was poisoned by polonium, and this substance is owned by states, not people, meaning that the crime was committed by a state,’ said Wasel Abu Yusef of the PLO’s executive committee.

Kerry warns of violence if peace talks fail

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, warned Thursday of a return to violence if faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians ultimately fail. He also rejected suggestions that he scale back his ambition to salvage the talks and forge a final settlement and interim agreement.
Kerry has been shuffling this week between Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan in a frantic bid to get the peace negotiations back on track amid rising public anger among Palestinians over Israeli settlement activity and among Israelis over the release of Palestinian prisoners.