Amena Khan loses her L’Oreal gig after 2014 tweet calling Israel a “child killers” unearthed
January 24th, 20180 LONDON - Just days into her role, a British Muslim model has quit a major beauty brand's campaign after right-wing media outlets published her tweets from 2014, in which she criticized Israel's war in Gaza. Amena Khan, who runs the Pearl Daisy fashion blog, became L'Oreal's only hijab-wearing model to front its haircare campaign,...
Trump administration to provide $60 million in Palestinian aid, withhold $65 million
January 16th, 20180 WASHINGTON - The United States will give a U.N. agency $60 million in aid for Palestinians but will withhold a further $65 million “for future consideration,” a U.S. official said on Tuesday. In keeping back some of the aid, Washington appeared to carry out a threat made by President Trump in a Twitter post on Jan. 2 in which he...
Lebanese foreign minister Gebran Bassil criticized over Israel comments, claims TV distorted his interview
December 28th, 20170 BEIRUT - Lebanese politicians on Thursday criticized Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil over a television interview in which he was shown saying that Lebanon did not have an ideological problem with Israel and was not against it having security. The comments, made to al-Mayadin satellite channel during a long interview on Tuesday, had...
Hamas: Palestinian unity deal is collapsing
December 24th, 20170 GAZA —Hamas’ leader in Gaza said on Thursday a reconciliation deal with President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction was collapsing, just 10 weeks after the agreement was reached. The rivals signed a deal brokered by Cairo on Oct. 12 after Hamas agreed to hand over administrative control of the Gaza Strip, including its border...
Trump tells Arab leaders he will move embassy to Jerusalem, breaking with U.S. policy
December 5th, 20170 WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM - President Donald Trump told Israeli and Arab leaders on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that breaks with decades of U.S. policy and risks fueling violence in the Middle East. Senior U.S. officials said Trump on Wednesday, Dec. 6, is expected to recognize...
Kushner: Trump still considering whether to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
December 3rd, 20170 WASHINGTON – President Trump has not yet made a decision on whether to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said on Sunday, a move that would break with decades of U.S. policy and could fuel violence in the Middle East. “He’s still looking at a lot of different facts, and...
Tom Friedman’s paean to a Saudi tyrant ignites NYT comments-storm
December 2nd, 20170 By Mike Whitney "I've never thought much of Friedman's work, but this is the work of a complete toady." Jim, New York Times comments section "What a nauseating exercise in a…-kissing!" Karim Pakravan, NYT comments section NEW YORK — Why did Tom Friedman write such a gushing tribute to the Saudi tyrant, Mohammed bin Salman?...
Hariri back in Lebanon on the eve of Independence Day
November 21st, 20170 BEIRUT - Saad al-Hariri returned to Beirut on Tuesday for the first time since he resigned as Lebanon’s prime minister in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia and plunged his country into political crisis. Hariri’s sudden resignation on Nov. 4 thrust Lebanon to the forefront of regional tussle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose...
Shady Srour sells “Holy Air”, his Nazareth-based film debuting in select American theaters
November 17th, 20170 NAZARETH—“You see them, you love them; they are human like you,” Shady Srour, writer and director of the film “Holy Air”, said about the movie’s two main characters, Adam and Lamia. “They are modern, they want to live.” Srour is a self-described minority inside a minority. He grew up an Arab living in Nazareth. He...
Lebanese president accuses Saudi Arabia of holding Hariri hostage
November 15th, 20170 BEIRUT - France said on Wednesday that Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who Lebanon’s president says is being held hostage by Saudi Arabia, will visit France with his family in coming days. Hariri travelled to Riyadh on Nov. 3 before abruptly resigning in a televised statement a day later. He has stayed in Riyadh and top...
Lebanese president won’t accept or reject Hariri’s resignation until he returns home
November 6th, 20170 BEIRUT - Lebanon’s president appealed for national unity on Monday after Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri quit in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia, plunging the coalition government and country into political crisis. After Hariri’s shock announcement, political uncertainty deepened further when Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker said it...
Lebanese PM resigns, saying his life in danger
November 4th, 20170 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Lebanon's prime minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on Saturday, citing an assassination plot against him and accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world. His resignation thrusts Lebanon back into the frontline of Saudi-Iranian regional rivalry and seems likely to exacerbate...U.S. captures second suspected Benghazi attacker
WASHINGTON ― U.S. forces have captured a militant who is believed to have played a role in a 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, U.S. officials said on Monday. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that U.S....
Lebanese army gets two light-attack aircraft from U.S.
November 3rd, 20170 HAMAT, Lebanon ― The United States delivered two A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft to Lebanon’s army on Tuesday, a sign of continued U.S. support despite Israeli accusations that the Lebanese military is controlled by Hezbollah. The planes will be used as armed observation aircraft, a security source in Lebanon said, and...
Lebanese court issues death sentence over 1982 Gemayel assassination
October 22nd, 20170 BEIRUT ― Lebanon’s top court on Friday sentenced Habib Shartouni to death for the 1982 assassination of president-elect Bashir Gemayel, an event that was a turning point in Lebanon’s 15-year civil war. Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (SSNP), admitted his part in the bombing in the 1980s and was tried......
Raqqa, ISIS’s Syrian HQ has fallen
October 17th, 20170 RAQQA, Syria ― U.S.-backed militias in Syria have declared victory over ISIS in its capital Raqqa, a milestone in the fight to roll back the theocratic “caliphate” declared in 2014. The city Sunni militant group ISIS overran Raqqa in January 2014, seizing control from rebel factions opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar...
Lebanon president: Syrian refugees should return to homeland’s calmer areas
October 16th, 20170 BEIRUT ― Lebanon can no longer handle vast numbers of Syrian refugees, its president said on Monday, urging world powers to help them return to the calmer parts of their war-torn homeland. More than six years into the Syrian war, 1.5 million refugees who fled the violence now account for a quarter of Lebanon’s population. Lebanese......
Woman’s murder prompts mass eviction of Syrians from Lebanese town
October 5th, 20170 MIZIARA, Lebanon ― Abu Khaled had lived in the Lebanese town of Miziara for almost 20 years until a woman’s suspected murder by a Syrian refugee led to his expulsion alongside several hundred other Syrians. “They gave us notice to evict at 2 a.m.,” said Abu Khaled, standing outside a bare building in a nearby village with some...
Syrian militias aim to push ISIS out of Raqqa within a month
September 29th, 20170 RAQQA ― U.S.-backed militias expect to push all ISIS fighters out of their former Syrian headquarters of Raqqa in less than a month, a Kurdish commander told Reuters on Monday. Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militias have hemmed the jihadists into a few districts in the north of the city. The Kurdish...
Baghdad piles pressure on Iraqi Kurds to reverse independence vote
September 29th, 20170 BAGHDAD/ERBIL ― Baghdad heaped pressure on Iraq’s Kurds on Wednesday, demanding they cancel their overwhelming vote for independence while parliament urged the Iraqi central government to send troops to take control of vital oil fields held by Kurdish forces. Stepping up efforts to isolate autonomous Kurdish-held northern Iraq,...
Egyptian court hands another life sentence to Muslim Brotherhood leader
September 29th, 20170 CAIRO ― An Egyptian court sentenced top Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to another life term in prison on Thursday in the latest example of a crackdown against Islamists since the army overthrew President Mohamed Mursi. The sentence relates to violence that broke out in 2013 after the army toppled Mursi in the wake of mass......
Interpol approves membership for State of Palestine over Israeli objections
September 29th, 20170 JERUSALEM ― Interpol voted on Wednesday to admit the State of Palestine as a member over Israeli objections at the international police organization’s general assembly in Beijing. The decision came despite Israeli efforts to delay a vote and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the Palestinians’ joining the...
Germany’s Merkel hangs on to power but bleeds support to surging far right
September 29th, 20170 BERLIN ― German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a fourth term in office on Sunday but Europe’s most powerful leader will have to govern with a far less stable coalition in a fractured parliament after her conservatives poured support to a surging far right. Two years after Merkel left German borders open to more than 1 million......
ISIS releases audio recording of Baghdadi urging militants to keep fighting
September 28th, 20170 CAIRO ― ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has exhorted followers across the world to wage attacks against the West and to keep fighting in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The message released on Thursday was his first purported audio communication in almost a year during which his jihadist group lost much of its self-proclaimed...
If threatened, Trump vows to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea
September 19th, 20170 UNITED NATIONS ― President Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge on Tuesday, threatening to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people and mocking its leader, Kim Jong Un, as a “rocket man.” In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump offered a grim portrait......
