Egyptians are voting on Monday for their next president, in the first day of polls expected to see former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi win by a landslide as he contends with leftist political figure Hamdeen Sabbahi. The voting was mired by the killing of a Sisi campaigner in the capital. Unidentified gunmen opened
Pope Francis made an unscheduled visit to a monument in memory of terror victims while visiting the Har Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem. The visit followed a stop at the Temple Mount and Western Wall, and ahead of a tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. While at the cemetery, the pope placed a
The Vatican denied Monday that Pope Francis's Middle East trip has been driven by a political agenda, AFP reports Monday. Francis "has no political agenda" and his unscheduled visits to the Judea and Samaria security fence and to a memorial for Israeli civilians killed in terrorist attacks were "gestures" which "rounded out his official
Pope Francis made an urgent plea Saturday for peace in war-torn Syria as he kicked off a three-day pilgrimage to the Middle East, AFP reports. And he called for religious freedom to be upheld throughout a region ravaged by war and bloodshed, where a dwindling Christian population faces daily persecution. As he walked
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is expected to win the presidential election in Egypt next week, urged Egyptians on Friday to vote in large numbers in the vote on Monday and Tuesday. "You went down (to the streets) because Egypt was in danger on June 30," 2013, Sisi said in an interview to four television
One of the people who were wounded on the Mavi Marmara vessel during the 2010 flotilla passed away on Friday, four years after the incident, Turkish media reported. The man was identified as 51-year-old Ugur Suleyman Soylemez, who was in a coma over the past four years. The Mavi Marmara, which claimed to
Ramadan Salah, leader of the Gaza-based terror organization Islamic Jihad, declared to the Arabic paper Al-Hayat on Tuesday that his group "is prepared to join the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) on a new political and organizational basis." The PLO has achieved international recognition as the representative of the "Palestinian people" since the 1993 Oslo
Libya remained on the brink of civil war Friday amid a lingering standoff between forces loyal to a renegade general vowing to eradicate extremist elements in the North African country and militias backing the Islamist-dominated parliament in the capital Tripoli. The escalating violence that threatens to further split the country drew calls for a
The leader of an Al-Qaeda-inspired group that fired rockets from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula towards the Israeli city of Eilat was killed in a drive-by shooting on Thursday, The Associated Press (AP) reports. Three associates of the leader of the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group were killed in the same incident as well, senior Egyptian security
The Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to modify history by modifying classical art, in an exhibit it commissioned to show Pope Francis during his visit to Bethlehem next Sunday, which presents Jesus as a "suffering Palestinian." The Palestinian Museum arranged exhibit features an array of collages mixing classical paintings of Christian art with photographs of
