It has only taken two weeks for 22 of the top 25 leading democratic nations listed in the Democracy Index 2011 to fall into abject diplomatic disarray. Their acute discomfort follows the rush by 17 of them to vote to admit Palestine as a non-observer state at the UN General Assembly on November 29
Egypt's opposition is gearing up for renewed protests on Tuesday against a planned Islamist-backed constitution that looks set to be approved in the second round of a referendum next weekend. The mass rallies, the biggest of which are set for outside Mursi's presidential palace and in the capital's iconic Tahrir Square, seek to muster
An assassin slit the throat of Egypt’s last great pharaoh at the climax of a bitter succession battle, scientists said Monday in a report on a 3,000-year-old royal murder. Forensic technology suggests Ramses III, a king revered as a god, met his death at the hand of a killer, or killers, sent by his
Women without veils complained they were not allowed to vote for the new Egyptian anti-secular constitution. Mass protests on Tuesday. Egypt's opposition is calling for mass protests on Tuesday over alleged polling violations after Islamists backing Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi claimed victory in the first round of a referendum on a new charter.
Egyptian Administrative State Council's Judges Club announced on Monday its boycott to oversee the second round of the country’s constitutional referendum scheduled for Dec. 22, Al Arabiya TV reported. Early December, however, the judges club accepted to oversee the plebiscite scheduled for December 15 but with conditions. The club stipulated that the government
Somalia’s Al-Qaeda linked Shebab insurgents said Monday they had broken ties with an U.S. extremist who rose to fame for his rap videos urging fellow Americans to join him to fight. Omar Hamami -- better known as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki (the American)-- was once viewed as a key foreign leader within the Shebab, and
A group of judges and prosecution personnel staged a protest outside the office of the prosecutor-general judge Talaat Abdullah, Al Ahram Online reported. The judges protested President Mursi’s decision to replace Mubarak-era prosecutor-general Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud with Abdullah. Mursi took the decision in November immediately after he issued a presidential decree rendering his decisions
Chief representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington D.C. is warning United States lawmakers against retaliating for last month's statehood vote at the United Nations, maintaining that doing so would only hurt U.S. credibility in the region. “History has shown time and again that the language of threats, financial pressure, and punitive
Palestinian Authority officials confirmed to AFP Sunday that Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani will visit Ramallah for his first ever trip to Judea and Samaria later this month. "The visit of the emir of Qatar has been confirmed but the date of the visit hasn't been determined yet," Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for
While Islamists claim that President Mohammed Mursi has won initial backing from Egyptians for a new constitution, rights groups and opposition parties reported abuses such as polling stations opening late, officials telling people how to vote, and bribery. A first day of voting in a referendum on the draft basic law resulted in 56.5
