A campaign of intimidation by Islamists left most Christians in this southern Egyptian province too afraid to participate in last week’s referendum on an Islamist-drafted constitution they deeply oppose, residents say. The disenfranchisement is hiking Christians’ worries over their future under empowered Muslim conservatives. Around a week before the vote, some 50,000 Islamists marched
The so-called problem of the Palestinian Authority-Israel struggle actually disguises the real problem of Islamic fundamentalism, Israeli Ambassador to Norway Naim Araidi told the local ABC news outlet. He said that Muslim extremists want to replace modern life in Europe with Islamic Shari'a law. As for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, “He does not even
Russia may ease restrictions on the Muslim Brotherhood soon to improve relations with Egypt and rebuild influence lost during the Arab Spring revolutions, diplomatic sources say. The election of President Mohammed Mursi, propelled to power by the Islamist group, offers President Vladimir Putin a chance to improve relations with Cairo that were strained during
The chemical weapons arsenal of the Syrian regime, believed to be one of the largest in the world, is a match for Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal, the defected former head of Syria's chemical warfare program told Al-Arabiya on Monday. Major-General Adnan Sillu, who defected from the regime earlier this year and was reportedly “party
A joint effort by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), IDF and police has uncovered the terror cell that bombed a Tel Aviv bus in late November. The cell is based in the area around the Palestinian Authority capital of Ramallah, in the Samaria (Shomron) region. Its members are affiliated with the Gaza-based Hamas
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
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
