More than two years after the Jasmine Revolution brought down the government of President Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, starting the so-called Arab Spring, violent protests have returned to the streets of Tunisia. Police fired tear gas and clashed with protesters on Friday as tens of thousands joined the funeral of opposition leader Chokri
Cyprus has given the “state of Palestine” an embassy, even though it still says that a “Palestinian state” needs to be established through negotiations with Israel. AFP reported Cyprus said on Friday it has upgraded its relations with the Palestinian Authority to full diplomatic mission status, one of just eight European Union countries to
An Islamic group in Algeria has mobilized an army of sociologists, psychologists and religious preachers from inside and outside the country in a campaign urging girls as young as 10-years old to wear the religious headscarf, a moved decried by rights activists as irresponsible and counterproductive. Hisham Ben Khouda, secretary general of ‘al-Daawa’ group
An Egyptian Salafi preacher said raping and sexually harassing women protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square is justified, calling them “crusaders” who “have no shame, no fear and not even feminism.” In an online video posted Wednesday, Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah, known as “Abu Islam” and owner of the private television channel of “al-Ummah,” said these
Once his reputation was of a feared fighter, an American-born extremist who left small town of Alabama to wage war alongside Al-Qaeda-linked Somali Islamists and who called on other foreigners to join. Today, Omar Hamami - better known as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki or “the American” - has split from the insurgents, who want to
Iran's Supreme Leader on Thursday rejected a U.S. offer to negotiate one-on-one on Tehran's nuclear ambitions, ruling out such contacts so long as Washington keeps up its threats against the Islamic Republic. "I am not a diplomat but a revolutionary and I speak frankly," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told air force commanders in remarks published
The Obama administration’s two top defense officials on Thursday publicly acknowledged a policy disagreement with the White House over whether to send U.S. arms to the rebels in Syria, Bloomberg News reports. In congressional testimony, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both said
In his opening speech to the chairman of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) summit on Wednesday, Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made a blunder, when he said “Mohamed Hosni.” Mistaking Egypt’s current President’s last name to that of the toppled Hosni Mubarak did not deter Abbas from correcting himself and
Although details of President Barack H. Obama's visit to Israel remained murky, former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is convinced that Obama will be meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas – together. In a post on his Facebook page Thursday, Ayalon said that plans for such a summit meeting
The Iranian people are ready to march on Israel to “wipe it out” if the Jewish state attacks the Islamic republic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in statements published Wednesday by Egypt’s state news agency. “The people of Iran are ready to march on Israel to wipe it out if it launches into an adventure
