The United States is set to free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to save the so-called peace talks between Palestinian Authority (PA) and Tel Aviv, reports in the Israeli news media say. With the talks on the brink of collapse, US officials have offered to release Pollard, 59, as a carrot to Israel to break the deadlock over a scheduled release of Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli... 

Israel’s former prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has died at a hospital in Tel Aviv after eight years in coma, Israeli media reported. Israeli Army Radio said the former premier died on Saturday at the age of 85. On January 4, 2006, Sharon suffered a stroke and went into a coma, from which he never recovered. He was being treated at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv. Sharon’s health condition...