Paralyzed man walks again thanks to Arab American doctor’s innovative procedure
November 29th, 20190 Rochester, Minnesota — A historic medical trial lead by Dr. Mohamad Bydon, a neurosurgeon and spine specialist at the Mayo Clinic, has yielded miraculous results for a patient who was paralyzed from the neck down due to a spinal cord injury. Chris Barr told ABC’s Good Morning America that he had given up hope after the prognosis...
Iraqi PM quits after cleric’s call, but violence rages on
November 29th, 20190 BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi announced his resignation on Friday after the country’s senior Shi’a Muslim cleric urged lawmakers to reconsider their support for a government rocked by weeks of deadly anti-establishment unrest. Violence raged on in southern Iraq, however, killing at least 21 people, and protesters...
Yemeni nationals in U.S. backed into a deadly corner by uncertain TPS policies
November 26th, 20190 By Mark Hedin WASHINGTON, D.C.— "If I go back to Yemen, I have only one option: To die." So said a Brooklyn shopkeeper as he movingly described how a lifeline provided him by the United States has allowed him to thrive despite the horrors of the war afflicting his native country. The Department of Homeland Security could end that...
Iran claims foreign interference in last week’s violent protests
November 26th, 20190 TEHRAN – After 143 people have reportedly died in protests in Iran over rising fuel prices, which took a particularly violent turn last week, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is threatening the U.S. and its allies against encroachments into the nation’s affairs. General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard, told supporters...
Report warns of technology-based threats from WhatsApp, other apps prior to 2020 election
November 26th, 20190 NEW YORK CITY —A major New York-based university is warning of potential technology-based threats that could compromise the 2020 presidential election, the website Tech Times reported. In a report released this September by the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, the organization said that bad actors...
Israel’s Netanyahu Indicted on bribery and fraud charges
November 23rd, 20190 TEL AVIV — Shortly after Israel’s ceremonial President Reven Rivlin informed parliament that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main political rival were able to form a coalition, the country’s attorney general formally charged Netanyahu on serious charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. With an...
Lebanese protesters pack streets to mark independence day
November 23rd, 20190 BEIRUT - Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Lebanon on Friday to mark independence day with a fresh wave of demonstrations against a ruling elite accused of rampant corruption and steering the country into a deep crisis. The unprecedented wave of nationwide protests erupted five weeks ago, leading to the...
Coalition of churches applauds EU’s decision to accurately label Israeli products
November 20th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a coalition of 29 church communions and organizations, applauded this week the European Union’s Court of Justice November 12 decision that products made in Israeli settlements could no longer be labeled as though they were made in Israel. Since 1984, CMEP has worked to...
How Western media bias allows Israel to get away with murder in Gaza
November 20th, 20190 An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when.” The answer came on...
U.S. angers Palestinians, violates international law with reversal on Israeli settlements
November 19th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration changed the U.S. position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday, reversing four decades of American policy and further undermining the effort to gain Palestinian statehood. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. is repudiating the 1978 State Department...
Reuters: Saudi Arabia discussing Yemen truce in informal talks with Houthis
November 17th, 20190 DUBAI — Saudi Arabia is intensifying informal talks with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement on a ceasefire in Yemen, sources familiar with the discussions said. The talks were launched in Jordan in late September, three of the sources said, with Riyadh taking sole responsibility for military efforts by the Arab alliance fighting in...
Tenuous truce in Gaza as Islamic Jihad, Israel differ on terms
November 17th, 20190 GAZA/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and Israel declared a halt to hostilities across the Gaza Strip border on Thursday, but a lasting ceasefire appeared tenuous as they differed on terms. Islamic Jihad said an Egyptian-mediated truce went into effect at 0330 GMT, about 48 hours after Israel triggered the...
Lebanese media: Major parties agree on ex-minister Safadi as prime minister
November 17th, 20190 BEIRUT — Three major Lebanese parties have agreed on nominating Mohammad Safadi, a former finance minister, to become prime minister of a new government, the Lebanese broadcasters LBCI and MTV reported on Thursday. The agreement was reached in a meeting on Thursday between outgoing Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, Lebanon’s leading...
Iraqi forces kill 10 protesters in Baghdad and Basra
November 8th, 20191 BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces shot dead at least six anti-government protesters in Baghdad on Thursday and killed four others as they broke up a sit-in in the southern city of Basra, police and medical sources said. Scores more were wounded in the clashes as weeks of deadly violence in Iraq over protests against an entrenched...
No sign of new cabinet as Lebanese leaders meet, bank curbs continue
November 8th, 20190 BEIRUT — Lebanon's outgoing Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri met President Michel Aoun on Thursday without announcing progress towards forming a new government, and banking sources said most financial transfers out of the country remained blocked. Already facing the worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war, Lebanon has been......
Top U.S. official downplays longterm effects of Baghdadi’s killing
October 30th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. counterterrorism official spoke at a House hearing on global national security threats on Wednesday to tell members of congress that a new leader of ISIS will eventually emerge, following the killing of Abu al-Baghdadi in last weekend’s raid. AP reports that National Counterterrorism Center Acting...
Calls for new and efficient government in Lebanon after Hariri’s resignation, as crisis deepens
October 29th, 20190 BEIRUT — Saad al-Hariri resigned as Lebanon’s prime minister on Tuesday, declaring he had hit a “dead end” in trying to resolve a crisis unleashed by huge protests against the ruling elite and plunging the country deeper into turmoil. His resignation points to rising political tensions that may complicate the formation of a......
Facebook sues Israeli surveillance group over alleged WhatsApp hack
October 29th, 20190 SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc on Tuesday sued Israeli cyber surveillance firm NSO Group, alleging it hacked users of its messaging platform WhatsApp earlier this year, according to a report by Reuters. The hacking spree targeted journalists, diplomats, human rights activists, political dissidents, senior government officials and...
Iraqis defying bloody crackdown, continue protesting against government corruption and dire living conditions
October 27th, 20190 BAGHDAD - Thousands of Iraqi protesters stood fast in Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square on Sunday, defying a bloody crackdown that killed scores over the weekend and an overnight raid by security forces seeking to disperse them. Young men had erected barricades on a bridge leading to the capital’s fortified Green Zone against...
Pence: Turkey and Syria agree to five-day cease-fire in northeast Syria after hours of talks in Ankara
October 18th, 20190 ANKARA — A five-day cease-fire has been agreed upon in northeast Syria to allow for the withdrawal of Kurdish forces, Vice President Pence said on Thursday. “Today the United States and Turkey have agreed to a cease-fire in Syria,” Pence told a news conference after more than four hours of talks at the presidential palace in...
Facebook deletes oldest Palestinian news site’s page, which had more than 5 million fans
October 18th, 20192 The Palestinian Information Center's Facebook page was deleted on Wednesday in a move that is being called part of a war on Palestinian content on social media networks. No prior warning was provided by Facebook prior to the deletion, the site's management team said. The page, which had nearly five million followers, was deleted......
Thousands protest in Lebanon over proposed new taxes, dire economic conditions
October 18th, 20190 BEIRUT — Thousands of people demonstrated in Beirut on Thursday against the government's management of a dire economy in what was one of the country's biggest protests in years, leading the Cabinet to pull a proposed new levy on WhatsApp calls. Roads across Lebanon were blocked with burning tires, broadcasts showed. It was the...
As fires raged in Lebanon, one Beirut woman joined heroic rescue mission
October 17th, 20190 BEIRUT – Villages in the west of Lebanon, just south of Beirut, experienced intense wildfires on early Tuesday morning, forcing villagers to flee their homes, with the Lebanese government sending rescue missions to affected areas. Described by officials as the worst wild fires to have hit the country in decades, the fires were......
Tunisia elects conservative law professor as president
October 17th, 20190 TUNIS — Tunisia’s electoral commission officially announced on Thursday that Islamist-backed law professor Kais Saied has won the country’s presidential election. In a news conference, commission head Nabil Baffoun said the results were definitive since no appeal by opposition had been made to contest them. AP first reported on...
Number of executions in Saudi Arabia reaches 134 people, UN report reveals
October 15th, 20190 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — A total of 134 people have been executed this year alone in Saudi Arabia, with six of those killed being children at the time of their arrest, figures revealed at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva showed. The figures emphasized the systematic torture of detainees and grossly unfair trials culminating......
