The northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel said that it does not fear the Israeli threats and intimidation attempts, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the relevant authorities in his government to consider the possibility of declaring the movement an “illegal organisation”. The movement added, in a...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the international community yesterday to support Jordan in the fight against “Islamic extremism”, and to back the independence of Iraq’s Kurds, AFP reported. Speaking in a speech to the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel-Aviv, he said: “We need to support...

The Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation issued a joint appeal urging for a ceasefire and a stop of all acts of violence and fighting in Syria during the month of Ramadan, which began yesterday. The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Nabil Al-Arabi, and the Secretary-General of...

Egyptian and Gulf participants clashed during a seminar held recently in the UAE, Swiss-Info reported. The seminar, titled “Egypt: The present and future outlooks,” was held on June 15-16 at Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Center for Studies. According to the report’s author, Saad Mahyo, the dialogue among Egyptian and Gulf...

Whilst the government and the public are occupied with concern over the ramifications of what happened in Mosul and Tikrit, and its impacts on the future of the unity of Iraq and potential breakup of partnerships and common goals, there is also a parallel preoccupation of the political sphere...

The Israeli government yesterday approved a plan to deepen Israeli control over East Jerusalem at a total cost of up to 295 million shekels ($90 million), with the aim of preventing the division of Jerusalem in future peace deals with Palestinians. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the plan aims...

An Israeli airstrike on Sunday evening killed a Palestinian man from the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis and wounded three others, including one with critical injuries. Spokesperson of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Ashraf Al-Qidra revealed that the man killed was a member of Hamas. Anadolu...

The Spanish and Moroccan authorities yesterday thwarted attempts by 500 African migrants to illegally enter the city of Melilla, a semi-autonomous region in the north-east of Morocco held under Spanish sovereignty, the Spanish Civil Guard reported on its Twitter feed. The private Spanish news agency EFE said: “At dawn...

The bodies of 30 illegal immigrants were found by the Italian Navy this morning, on a boat carrying about 600 migrants, including pregnant women. Local media reported that elements of the Italian Navy boarded the boat while it was stationed in the Sicily Channel to help those who were...

A spokesperson for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS, announced on Sunday that the organisation has established a Caliphate State and inaugurated the organisation’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Khalifa, to become “Caliph Ibrahim”. In a statement released on the group’s website and Twitter...

President of Iraqi Kurdistan Masoud Barzani has said that Kirkuk and the other disputed areas in northern Iraq are planning to carry out a referendum on joining Iraqi Kurdistan. Barzani made the statement in Arbil after receiving the UN envoy to Iraq, Nikolai Miladinov, and briefing him about the...

VIDEO An Egyptian cleric known for his opposition of the Muslim Brotherhood and support for the July 3 military coup slammed the latest government decision to limit Ramadan night prayer time to 45 minutes, saying it shows the government’s “anti-religion” agenda. Sheikh Ahmed Karima, professor of Sharia at Al-Azhar...

The State Security Prosecution in Egypt announced in a statement Sunday the referral of one Egyptian citizen and two Israelis to trial on charges of spying for Israel. The prosecution said that Salamah Sulaiman Barakat, an Egyptian citizen and Sinai resident currently in custody pending investigations, will be tried...

A statement by the Egyptian ministry of finance on Sunday said that the recently inaugurated president Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has approved a revised budget for the fiscal year 2014-2015. The new budget reduces deficit to 10 percent of GDP, compared to 12 percent in the previous budget. According to government...

A spokesperson of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas has condemned the statement issued by the European Union regarding the Israeli occupation’s operation in Hebron and rejected the EU’s charges that Hamas blessed the recent kidnapping there. The EU released a statement on Saturday saying that: “The EU reiterates its...

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) will not be content with occupying only parts of Iraq; it is looking to take over Jordan, high-level officials in the administration of US President Barack Obama said during a secret meeting last week. According to the US website the...

The coup regime in Egypt is still promoting the same old merchandise it has been selling to the Egyptians and the world since the bloody coup began on July 3rd last year. This includes “terrorism” in order to frighten the Egyptian people and convince them that they are in...

Leaders of Iraqi political parties have launched talks that could topple Nouri al-Maliki, after top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani urged them to choose a new prime minister, a president and a new parliament speaker before the elected parliamentarians convene in Baghdad on Tuesday. The major groups in...

Around 30 percent of the residents of the Gaza Strip are left without a daily income during the fasting month of Ramadan, a new survey showed on Sunday. Around 600,000 people are left without daily income in the strip, which stands for 30 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.8...

A group of Qatari activists launched their country’s almost first opposition group from the Egyptian capital Cairo. Called the “Youth Movement for the Rescue of Qatar”, the new group aims to lobby for reform back home, according to its founders. “We launched this movement against the background of rampant...

Turkish academic and diplomat Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has been nominated for the country’s presidential race by the two main opposition parties. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) submitted his nomination to the parliament speaker Cemil Cicek on Sunday. Born in Cairo to Turkish parents, Ihsanoglu, 71,...

The Israeli occupation forces have escalated arbitrary measures including night raids, arbitrary arrests and travel bans against the Palestinians in the West Bank under the pretext of searching for the three settlers who went missing near Hebron two weeks ago. According to the Alaraby Aljadeed news site, Israel has...

The Iraqi army is believed to have failed to attack ISIS fighters who control the city of Tikrit, capital of Salahuddin province. America’s CNN quoted an Iraqi security sources yesterday as saying that the Iraqi army stopped ten kilometres south of Tikrit after ISIS militants planted mines around the...

Opposition fighters including members of Al-Nusra Front launched an attack on Saturday against Islamic State of Iraq and As-Sham (ISIS) militants to retake control of the city of Abu Kamal on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic...

I usually make the distinction between the rule of law on the one hand and mob rule on the other. Similarly, I have also made a distinction between the rule of government and the rule of gangs. Rule of law implies that there is a government for and by...

Exports from goods produced on Israel’s illegal settlements have dropped significantly, official statistics have revealed. Goods going to the European Union are affected most, as the EU continues to campaign for a boycott of settlements. Israeli officials describe the situation as “disastrous” for the colonies built on occupied Palestinian...

Tribal and security sources have accused Shia militias loyal to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki of kidnapping 28 Sunni prisoners from a jail in Salahuddin province, Anadolu news agency has reported. The militias belong to the so-called “League of the Righteous”. Sheikh Ghazwan Khazraji of the Khazraj tribe told...

The Kuwaiti ministry of interior instructed its forces on border crossings to remain on high alert in anticipation of a possible attack by militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIS), al-Quds al-Araby newspaper reported. The ministry instructed workers to intensify their security procedures on all borders...

Unknown gunmen killed four Egyptian soldiers in North Sinai on Saturday, the official MENA news agency reported. According to a security source quoted by MENA, the gunmen were “unidentified takfiris elements”. They forced the central security conscripts, who were dressed in civilian clothing, to step out of the vehicle...

Egyptian minister of planning Ashraf Al-Araby said on Saturday his country will raise the prices of electricity and fuel “as soon as possible” to address the budget deficit problem “decisively.” Energy prices in Egypt are among the least in the world. The government, which suffers from shortage in liquidity,...

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah issued a royal decree Saturday sacking the deputy defence minister Prince Khaled Bin Bandar Abdulaziz Al-Saud barely six weeks after appointing him, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. According to the royal decree, the decision has been made on June 26, 2014, based on a...

The Gaza branch of the Arab Bank refused to receive a Qatari grant on Saturday, fearing Israeli sanctions, Anadolu news agency reported. According to Hamas political bureau member Moussa Abu Marzouk, the Arab Bank has turned down a Qatari grant to the Gazan government worth $20 million. The grant...

Egyptian police captured a detainee who tried to escape from a prison truck which was transporting him and other prisoners from court on Saturday, security sources told Anadolu news agency. The defendant, Adel Habbara, along with 9 others tried to escape from their truck after it was hit in...

On Monday, Haaretz reported on Turkish pathology expert Dr. Sebnem Korur Fincanci’s findings regarding the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat. Thirty year old Jaradat died in his cell at Israel’s Megiddo Prison on February 23, 2013. He had been arrested by the Shin Bet security service five days...

The Human Rights Council discussed during its 26th session in Geneva the issue of women rights and the right to education as well as other relevant topics. The representative of the United Arab Emirates delivered a “charming” and carefully-worded speech, calling for other countries to uphold women’s rights and...

The announcement that the Palestinian hunger strikers have ended their peaceful protest following an agreement with the Israeli prison authorities has been hailed by local media as a success for the government. So far, the reasons behind the ending of the hunger strike have not been divulged, although speculation...

Debate has been renewed about “Islamic securities” following the decision by HM Treasury in London to issue “Sovereign Securities compliant with the Islamic principles in an unprecedented step outside the Islamic world that will bolster London’s position as an Islamic Finance base.” Many people have recalled the battle waged...

Two Palestinian citizens were killed on Friday afternoon when an Israeli aircraft targeted a civilian vehicle in the west of the Gaza Strip, witnesses and medical sources said. Several others were wounded by Israeli artillery shelling on the morning of the same day in the east of the southern...

After completing half of its term, the Moroccan government led by the Justice and Development Party (PJD) for the first time in history, speculation has started regarding its destiny and how far it resembles the “rotation” government led by the socialist politician Abdur-Rahman Al-Yousefy. Observers believe that similarity exists...

The more that we view it, the humiliating display of Egypt’s president boarding that Saudi Arabian aircraft with solemnity and bowing to kiss the head of King Abdullah Ibn Saud before sitting opposite the Saudi monarch seems more and more like a comedy. I was reminded of a drive-thru...

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has criticised Israeli Arab demonstrators who took to the streets in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli aggression in Hebron and the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported. The Arab Israelis gathered on Friday at Umm El-Fahm junction during a protest against the actions of the...

Prisoner support and human rights organisation, Addameer, has said that the Israeli occupation has killed 104 Palestinian prisoners since 1991, when it joined the UN convention against torture. The organisation said that 54 of them died after being arrested, 27 died because of poor medical treatment and 23 were...

A disciplinary council on Saturday decided to send former prosecutor-general Talaat Ibrahim Abdullah, who served under Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi, into retirement. “Abdullah was sent into retirement after he was convicted of ‘spying’ on his successor,” a judicial source told Anadolu Agency. Abdullah and his assistant, Hassan Yassin,...

An American Pentagon official said on Friday that US drones started flying over the Iraqi capital Baghdad to protect US civilians and military forces, American media reported. The Huffington Post reported: “A handful of predators armed with Hellfire missiles are being used for the mission, the senior defence official...

Amnesty International “extrajudicial executions” of Sunni detainees took place early this month by Iraqi government forces and Shia militias in the Iraqi cities of Tal ‘Afar, Mosul and Ba’quba. In a statement issued by the international human rights organisation, these “vengeful” acts were described as “war crimes.” The organisation...

The President of the Kurdistan regional government Massoud Barzani said on Friday that his army is controlling Kirkuk and other areas disputed with Baghdad. This is final as article 140 regarding these areas “no longer exists.” “We waited for 10 years for Baghdad to solve Article 140,” he said...

Turkey is looking to develop trade ties with United States and China – the world’s biggest and second-biggest economies – Turkish Development minister Cevdet Yilmaz has said. During a meeting with Turkish businessmen in the Turkish consulate in Los Angeles, US,on Friday, Yilmaz said that Turkey had dramatically increased...

Dozens of anti-coup protests were held across Egypt on Friday to voice opposition to the continuation of the military coup and the repression that followed the July 3 ouster of freely elected president Mohamed Morsi. In southern Cairo, a protest was held in Maadi district, calling for the departure...

Egypt’s ex-army chief and newly inaugurated president Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi said during his trip to Khartoum on Friday that “Sudan is part of Egypt,” triggering controversy on whether the remark had any political meaning. In a visit that lasted only three hours, Al-Sisi met with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir...

The ministry of Moroccans living abroad and migration affairs signed on Friday a number of partnership agreements with NGOs and government sectors aimed at helping migrants and asylum applicants integrate into society, Anadolu news agency said. The agreements came six months after a new policy regarding migration begun in...