JERUSALEM — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was indicted Thursday on new corruption charges for allegedly seeking bribes in a wide-ranging real estate scandal that dwarfs the other cases in which he’s accused. According to the indictment, millions of dollars illegally changed hands to promote a series of real estate projects, including a controversial housing development in Jerusalem that required a radical change in zoning laws and earned the developers tax breaks and other benefits. Read full article > >

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Ex-Israeli leader Olmert indicted on new corruption charges in Jerusalem real estate scandal

When White House officials first heard an informant’s report last spring of an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, they found it implausible . They asked the same question we all have been puzzling over since the indictment Tuesday of the alleged plotters: If the Iranians planned such a sensitive operation, why would they delegate the job to Mansour Arbabsiar, an Iranian American former used-car dealer, and a hit team drawn from a Mexican drug cartel? To say it sounded like a spy novel is unfair to the genre. The wacky plot was closer to that of an Elmore Leonard “caper” novel, along the lines of “Get Shorty.” Read full article > >

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Those Keystone Iranians

BEIRUT — A special court charged with investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri released a long-awaited indictment Wednesday naming four members of the Shiite group Hezbollah as the perpetrators. Many of the details contained in the indictment had been leaked to the press during the past year, and it will come as no surprise to Lebanese that the U.N.-mandated Special Tribunal for Lebanon has identified the Hezbollah members as the chief suspects. The document nonetheless adds official weight to the many rumors circulating for months. Read full article > >

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U.N. court indicts Hezbollah members in 2005 assassination in Lebanon