All Stories Archive

A new report details the systematic discrimination faced by Palestinian citizens of Israel, after a summer of heightened tension and racist incitement against the state's non-Jewish population. Discriminatory legislation is the focus of the new report by the Mossawa Centre, a Palestinian NGO based in Haifa, who say that...

Algeria will not be joining the US-led international coalition to combat the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria because it refuses to interfere in the internal affairs of other states under the pretext of "fighting terrorism", Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news website quoted Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra as saying....

Those who have seen the leaked minutes of the meeting between Mahmoud Abbas, the Qatari Emir, and Khaled Meshaal, accompanied by a delegation from Hamas and Fatah, which seem to be credible, would see a president in a dire situation, as he continuously says "he is fed up". This...

According to reports by the Ma'an News Agency, PA President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking official European recognition of a Palestinian State prior to the UN General Assembly's debate commencing on September 24. Departing from a very vague reference to "Protective Edge" and its aftermath with regards to settlement expansion,...

Some 17,136 Syrian children have died due to the continuation of the crisis in the country for more than three and a half years, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said in a report yesterday. Published at the start of the new academic year in the country, the...

Last Wednesday Israeli Police filed an indictment against an officer who was filmed beating Tariq Abu Khdeir, a 15 year old Palestinian-American teenager from Florida. He was beaten and arrested during a demonstration to protest the brutal murder of his cousin Mohammed Abu Khdeir. On 2nd July 16 year...

A senior Israeli official has warned that Lebanese based Hezbollah might capture parts of the Galilee in a future confrontation with Israel, local media reported over the weekend. "The situation in the north is quiet; we do not assume we are heading towards war," a senior military official in...

The Qarati and Turkish presidents have agreed to set up a "strategic cooperation council" aimed at bolstering bilateral relations and which will be jointly headed by the two presidents, the Qatari News Agency reported yesterday. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani...

An unidentified military jet yesterday launched an air strike against a military base in the Libyan city of Gharyan, 85 kilometres south of the capital Tripoli. Libya's Bawabat Al-Wasat newspaper quoted witnesses as saying that the bombing resulted in a series of explosions. According to the newspaper, rescue teams...

A senior Tunisian official has denied that the visit of Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal is aimed at discussing his residency in Tunis with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki. Anwar Al-Gharbi, Marzouki's aide for international affairs, stressed that Meshaal's visit to Tunis was to discuss the latest Palestinian issues following Israel's...

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that he "rejected an offer from the United States to cooperate against the organisation of the Islamic State (ISIS)". In remarks made after he was discharged from hospital following prostate surgery, Khamenei said he rejected an...

Israel has confirmed that it would not "hesitate" to interfere militarily in Jordan should Islamic State (ISIS) militants reach the Kingdom. Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post reported an Israeli political source as saying on Sunday: "In case ISIS reach Jordan, we will not hesitate to militarily face it." The...

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi said he expects Egypt's population to grow by 40 million over the next 15 years. During his speech at the 41st session of the Arab Labour Conference in Cairo yesterday, Al-Sisi said: "60 per cent of Egyptians are under the age of 40, and...

The head of Iraq's Shia Sadrist movement Muqtada Al-Sadr yesterday threatened the United States' troops if they decide to return to Iraq. Al-Sadr said, in a statement posted on his official website: "The Black House has decided to resume its attacks on Iraqi territory and perhaps...

An Egyptian court sentenced the supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie and 14 others to life imprisonment. The 15 defendants: Mohamed Badie Mohamed Al-Beltagy Essam El-Erian Assem Abdel Majid Safwat Hegazy Ezzat Sabri Hasan Anwar Ali Al-Husseini Antar Mahrous Hisham Ibrahim Kamel Gamal Fathi Yusuf Ahmad Dahi...

"Immediately after the war Israel initiated a political and a propaganda campaign, including distributing false information about a coup d'état that was prepared in the West Bank, to divert Palestinians from unity. In other words Netanyahu is trying to achieve in political means what he failed to achieve in...

If we listen carefully to what the Islamic State (ISIS) and its supporters are saying, we see a vision of the world in a state of ongoing war between the West and Islam. The essence of this war is religion, not colonial policies, as if colonialism has never targeted...

The Iraq conflict is covered by most of the world's media and the Assyrians are mentioned frequently alongside the Kurds and Arabs. Whilst they are neither Kurd nor Arab, the Assyrians are nevertheless a crucial part of Iraq's history as a distinct ethnic group in their own right. A...

Algeria yesterday officially offered to host talks between the Libyan rival parties to help resolve the crisis in the North African country, the Anadolu news agency said. Algeria's Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said, during a press conference with his Portuguese counterpart Rui Machete in Algiers, that "Algeria welcomes any...

Qatar dismissed allegations by the Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thanni who accused the Gulf country of arming Libyan Dawn troops. In a statement to the Qatari News Agency, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Qatar Mohammed Bin Abdullah Al-Rumaihi condemned Al-Thanni's statements and urged him "not to involve Qatar in...

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) said yesterday that rebuilding war-torn Syria, Iraq and Gaza will cost around $750 billion. The war in Syria has caused the destruction of a great deal of residential, educational and industrial facilities. In Iraq, clashes with the Islamic...

It is the whistle-blower's dilemma: follow the official internal complaints' procedure and risk the truth being buried, or take it straight to the press, and risk improvised prosecution by a bitter government resentful that you did right and exposed its dirty tricks. The forty-three Israeli whistle-blowers of Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim,...

In 1990, America put together an international alliance to end Iraq's occupation of Kuwait; in 2003 Washington and London made their war on Baghdad international. Today, the "gains" made by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq have become critical enough to form another coalition led by the United States...

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has obtained 20 "top secret" documents consisting of three main section all signed on behalf of the Egyptian authorities by Brigadier General Muhammad Muhsin Al-Shadhli, chief of Armed Forces Operations within the army. The first section is a general agreement that resembles joint defence agreements among states....

Iraq's Deputy President Nouri Al-Maliki said yesterday that the Islamic State (ISIS) represents a danger to the entire world and called to "arm the Iraqi army with modern weapons to strike terrorism". Al-Maliki made the remarks during his meeting with heads of tribes of Dhuluiya town and other Iraqi...

Israel's Likud Central Committee meeting was held yesterday despite efforts exerted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abort it as he called for his ministers and Likud officials not to attend. The committee head and Member of the Knesset Danny Danon, who was dismissed from his position as...

A senior UN official has confirmed that the Israeli military turned a school in the Gaza Strip into a military base during July's ground offensive. The comments last week by Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui corroborate a report that was published in...

Egyptian armed forces are preparing for the execution of an extensive operation inside Libya in order to fight the revolutionaries and support the militias that are loyal to the UAE in Tripoli and Benghazi including troops commandeered by Brigadier General Khalifa Haftar, high ranking officials revealed. The operation may...

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki and his Kuwaiti counterpart Sabah Khalid Sabah yesterday signed two cooperation agreements during the latter's visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah. One of the agreements is related to the formation of a ministerial committee on relations between Palestine and Kuwait, and the...

A delegation representing the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad is participating in the second Arab conference on disaster risk prevention in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. This is the first time a regime delegation has participated in an Arab conference since the Arab League froze its membership in 2011 citing...

US former Senator, Bob Graham has accused President Barack Obama's administration of repeating past mistakes by dealing softly with Saudi Arabia, especially following its role in supporting and financing jihadist groups. In an interview with British the Independent newspaper, the senator, who co-chaired the official inquiry into September 11,...

The Cairo Criminal Court has adjourned the "Grand Espionage" case in which ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and 35 others are charged with "spying with foreign entities and harming Egyptian interests". The court adjourned the trial upon the request of the defence panel which requested minutes of meetings of...

Turkey has called on the UN Security Council to hold the Syrian regime accountable for the systematic use of internationally banned chlorine gas in attacks against civilians. A statement by the Turkish foreign ministry yesterday condemned the Syrian regime's use of chlorine gas and called on the UN Security...

Undemocratic powers across the world have always felt the need to have a chosen enemy to maintain their power or to help feed the perception that without their existence there will be chaos and things will get unbearably out of control. The existence of this chosen enemy can be...

Eighty per cent of the electricity grids damaged in Israel's war on Gaza have now been repaired, the Deputy Head of Palestinian Energy Fathi Al-Sheikh Khalil said yesterday. Khalil said that the Israeli occupation destroyed the electricity company's storage units and offices all over the Strip, in addition to...

No sooner had Barack Obama announced a new international alliance to fight what is known as the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq than an international conference was held in Jeddah to put it into effect. Seventeen countries represented by their foreign ministers attended the conference, including US Secretary of...

A senior leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said Monday that the group "does not violate any laws in the U.K." following reports that the U.K. government was planning to impose restrictions on the Islamist movement. "Muslim Brotherhood members living in the U.K. do not engage in any illegal activities...

More than 99 percent of Area C has been confiscated by Israeli authorities to establish and expand Israeli settlements and closed military zones as well as nature reserves, the Department of Culture and Information in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) revealed in a detailed report yesterday. The report pointed...

The Libyan National Army's renegade general Khalifa Haftar signed a strategic and military cooperation agreement with the Egyptian government, leaked secret documents revealed. Al-Jazeera, which reported the news, said that the documents stipulate mutual use of each other's airspace for military purposes and include the exchange of ground military...

For the past two weeks the international media has focused on a speech given by US President Barack Obama about his strategy for tackling ISIS. The so-called Islamic State has been expanding at an alarming rate and now poses a threat to many of the Middle East's unstable regimes...

Palestinian human rights organisations have called on the Palestinian Public Prosecutor to open an investigation into the illegal emigration of families from Gaza. In a statement issued yesterday, Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights said: "With great concern, we are following up the news about the boat which sank off...

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Ali Bishr announced he would not meet with the chairman of the 30 June fact-finding committee because of the latter's "politicisation of the meeting." Lawyer Hoda Abdelmonem, a member in the legal committee of the Anti-Coup Alliance, released a statement clarifying the reasons for boycotting...

The letter sent from 43 veteran reserves in the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200 caused a wave of anger among Israeli officials, including the president, prime minister, defence minister and top security officials. In a letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top state officials, 43...

The former leader of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) Burhan Ghalioun said the Islamic State (IS)'s expansion is a clear indication of the collapse of the entire regional system. Ghalioun's remarks came during a statement made to the Anadolu news agency on the sidelines of his participation in...

Lebanon's Prime Minister Tammam Salam said his visit to Doha is aimed at seeking Qatari help with the release of Lebanese soldiers abducted by IS and Al-Nusra Front militants. Over the past five days, Lebanon's borders have been embattled with clashes between the Lebanese army and militants coming from...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the Qatari capital Doha late on Saturday night for an official two-day official visit to the Gulf state. According to the Qatari News Agency, Erdogan and his delegation were welcomed at Doha airport by the Minister of the Economy and Commerce Sheikh...

Algeria is reported to have requested France guarantee regional stability if the West decides to intervene militarily in Libya, a diplomatic source revealed yesterday. Libya has been witnessing turmoil since the collapse of former Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The source, who requested anonymity, said: "The French Chief of...

The man who used to sell cakes and bread on the streets of Istanbul is now sitting on the throne of the successor to the Ottoman Empire. The shrewdest, most civil and most distinguished of men, the poor man from Istanbul is now ruling Turkey in very sensitive conditions...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara's stance against terrorism is clear, it is not possible to make any concessions on it, describing the sceptical allegations about the Turkish position, which have been circulated by some media outlets, as unfounded. Speaking at the airport before heading to Qatar...

Libyan renegade retired general Khalifa Haftar yesterday threatened to shell any ship that enters the port of Benghazi if the harbour's management does not respond to his demands and close it immediately. Haftar accused earlier rival factions of using the port to arm themselves. A spokesman of Haftar's brigades,...