Hundreds voice anger over torching of decades-old library in Lebanon
TRIPOLI — Hundreds of Lebanese took to the streets of the northern city of Tripoli on Saturday, Jan. 4, to protest the torching of a decades-old library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest.The demonstrators held up banners that read "Tripoli, peaceful town" and "This is contrary to the values of the Prophet Mohammad."Assailants set alight...
How people in Muslim countries prefer women to dress in public
January 10th, 20140 An important issue in the Muslim world is how women should dress in public. A recent survey from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research conducted in seven Muslim-majority countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey), finds that most people prefer that a woman completely cover her...Saudi plane makes emergency landing, 29 injured
MEDINA- Twenty nine people were injured when a Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) Boeing 767-300ER made an emergency landing at Medina airport in the west of the country early on Sunday, the General Authority of Civil Aviation said.It said 18 of the injured were treated at the airport while 11 were taken to hospital. A spokesman for Saudi...Saudi sentenced to jail, lashes for Twitter defamation
RIYADH - A Saudi court has sentenced a man convicted of defaming a Kuwaiti singer by accusing her on Twitter of adultery to three months in jail and 80 lashes, a news website reported, on Jan. 2.The Saudi national, apparently a fan of a rival pop star, was sentenced for "accusing (Kuwaiti singer) Shams of adultery without providing...Tribes attack Yemen oil pipeline twice
SANAA- Tribesmen in the eastern Yemen province of Hadramawt have blown up an oil pipeline for the second time in two days, disrupting an important source of revenue for the impoverished state.The attacks targeted a pipeline with a capacity of 120,000 barrels a day carrying crude from the Masila field, the most important in Yemen, local...Egyptian courts hand prison sentences to 113 Brotherhood supporters
CAIRO- Egyptian courts convicted 113 Muslim Brotherhood supporters on Thursday, Jan. 9, on charges including attacking police, rioting and weapons possession in three separate cases brought after protests against the army-backed government.The authorities have been cracking down hard on the Brotherhood since the military deposed Islamist...Suicide bomber kills 23 Iraqi army recruits
BAGHDAD- A suicide bomber killed 23 Iraqi army recruits and wounded 36 in Baghdad on Thursday, Jan. 9, officials said, in an attack on men volunteering to join the government's struggle to crush al-Qaeda-linked militants in Anbar province.The bomber had blown himself up among the recruits at the small Muthanna airfield, used by the army...Rouhani: Syria talks will fail without Iran
TEHRAN- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday, Jan. 9, a Syrian peace conference planned for later this month will fail if Tehran, Damascus's main regional ally, does not participate in it.The remarks came ahead of a meeting Monday at which Russia and the United States will discuss Tehran's possible involvement in the talks,...Breaking down Syria’s rebel groups
Syria's rebel movement has been a constantly shifting array of groups and alliances since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began nearly three years ago.Assad's security crackdown transformed Syria's largely peaceful protest movement in March 2011 into an armed insurgency in the first year of the revolt, and since then...
Dahiyeh residents blame Saudi for recent bombing
January 3rd, 20140 BEIRUT - On December 2, a car bomb detonated by a suicide bomber, exploded in Dahiyeh (southern Beirut suburb) again. On al-Arid Street of Haret Hreik, scores were killed and injured. This was not an isolated incident, but part of the same “death chain” as Bir al-Abed, Roueiss, Tripoli, and Bir Hassan. The bombing does not compare...2013: Assessing the conflict in Syria and Egypt
2013 has expectedly been a terrible year for several Arab nations. It has been terrible because the promise of greater freedoms and political reforms has been reversed, most violently in some instances, by taking a few countries down the path of anarchy and complete chaos. Syria and Egypt are two cases in point.Syria has been hit the...
Beirut car bomb kills former minister and four others, dozens injured
December 27th, 20130 BEIRUT- A strong explosion ripped through the heart of Beirut on the morning of Friday, Dec. 27. The blast targeted former Lebanese minister of finance Mohamad Chatah.The former minister died at age 62.The blast killed at least five people and injured 21. The number of casualties is expected to rise as we go to press. The explosion hit...Christmas bombings kill 34 in Iraq
BAGHDAD - At least 34 people were killed in three bombings in Christian areas of Baghdad on Wednesday, Dec. 25, including a car bomb that exploded as worshipers were leaving a Christmas service, Iraqi police and medics said.Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 10 people were killed in three attacks that targeted police and Shi'a pilgrims.The...Egypt designates Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist group
CAIRO - The Egyptian government intensified its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday, Dec. 25, formally listing the group as a terrorist organization after accusing it of carrying out a suicide bomb attack on a police station that killed 16 people.The move marked a major escalation in the army-backed government's campaign to...Egypt to try Morsi for international conspiracy with Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran
CAIRO - Egypt's public prosecutor charged former President Mohamed Morsi and 35 other top Islamists on Wednesday, Dec. 18, with conspiring with foreign groups to commit terrorist acts in Egypt, in a case that could result in their execution.Declaring it "the biggest case of conspiracy in the history of Egypt", a statement detailed a......
Yemeni parliament votes against drone attacks
SANAA - Yemen's parliament on Sunday, Dec. 15, called for a stop to drone attacks in a symbolic vote that reflected growing public anxiety about Washington's use of the unmanned aircraft to combat al-Qaeda in the impoverished country.Motions passed by the Yemeni parliament are not binding and can be struck down by the president, and are...Suicide bombers kill 36 Shi’a pilgrims in Iraq
BAGHDAD - Suicide bombings in Iraq killed at least 36 people on Thursday, Dec. 19, in attacks targeting Shi'a pilgrims ahead of a major holy day next week, police said.Two years after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, violence is at its highest level since 2006-7, when sectarian violence killed tens of thousands of people.The first major......
Amnesty International: Syria Islamists perpetrate ‘shocking abuses’
December 20th, 20130 DAMASCUS - Islamist militants are perpetrating "a shocking catalogue of abuses" in secret jails across northern Syria, including torture, flogging and killings after summary trials, Amnesty International said on Thursday, Dec. 19.It said in a report that the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS), one of the most powerful...Two former Guantanamo detainees face ‘rehab’ for militants in Saudi Arabia
RIYADH - Two Saudi detainees sent home from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay will go through the kingdom's rehabilitation program for militants, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday, Dec. 17.Muhammad Husayn Qahtani and Hamood Abdulla Hamood were repatriated to Saudi Arabia on Monday after spending 11 years in Guantanamo,...Russia blocks U.N. statement condemning Syrian attacks
NEW YORK - Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council statement on Thursday, Dec. 19, that would have condemned the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for recent missile and "barrel bomb" attacks on civilians, including children, U.N. diplomats said.The council's failure to approve the U.S.-drafted statement elicited an angry...UK, U.S. to be allowed to question Libyan ex-spy chief over Lockerbie
TRIPOLI - Libya plans to allow British and American investigators to question Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi over the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing, the Libyan justice minister has told Britain's ITV news."In order to learn the lessons of history and give rest and assurances and comfort to the families of......
Blast in Libya cemetery: Even dead aren’t safe in Benghazi
BENGHAZI - One person was killed and five wounded Sunday when a car blew up in a cemetery in Benghazi, security and medical sources said. The car exploded after the funeral of a police officer killed in a similar blast the previous day, killing one of the car's passengers, security spokesman Ibrahim al-Sharaa said.Five other people were...Suicide bomber kills 11 at funeral in Iraq
BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 20 at a Shi'a Muslim funeral in a city northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, Dec. 10, police said, as Iraqi insurgents pursue a campaign of deadly attacks. An Iraqi man carries the body of his son, who was killed by a car bomb attack, during a funeral in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south......
drone strike kills 15 civilians in Yemen by mistake
SANAA - Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday, Dec. 12. The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a...Uproar in Egyptian court halts Islamist leaders’ trial
wCAIRO - An Egyptian judge halted the trial of leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday, Dec. 10, after they shouted slogans and refused to cooperate with the court.Judge Mustafa Salama said the case of the Brotherhood's General Guide Mohamed Badie and fellow defendants, who are charged with inciting the killing of protesters,......
