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Saudi female medics to file lawsuit against Tweep

A group of Saudi female doctors and nurses are planning to file a suit against a Twitter user who they alleged had defamed women working in the Kingdom’s medical sector. The Twitter user described men who allow their wives, daughters, or sisters to work in the medical sector as not being "worried enough" about ... Read More

New tensions in Egypt over top prosecutor

Egypt's top prosecutor retracted his resignation on Thursday, a decision that could cause a new uproar in the country after he was accused of pressuring a judge not to release protesters opposed to the Islamist president. The prosecutor, Talaat Abdullah, who was appointed by President Mohammed Mursi, ... Read More

Israeli Arab MP who joined Gaza flotilla barred from re-election

Israel’s electoral authority barred an Arab lawmaker from re-election on Wednesday, saying she had supported the nation's enemies by joining a protest ship that tried to break a naval blockade of Gaza. Haneen Zoabi is expected to appeal to Israel’s highest court which has overruled most previous efforts to disqualify ... Read More

Al Arabiya wins U.N. Gold news award for Syria coverage

Al Arabiya News Channel has been awarded this week its third global medal for its United Nations coverage. Reporter and U.N.-New York bureau chief, Talal Al-Haj won his record third U.N. Correspondents Association, UNCA, award for his 2011-2012 coverage of the Syrian crisis. Every year journalists from around the world ... Read More

Putin says Russia worried more about Syria’s fate than Assad’s

Russia’s main concern in Syria is the fate of the country and not that of President Bashar al-Assad, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. He said Moscow wanted to ensure that any solution to the conflict in Syria must prevent the opposition and government forces just swapping roles and continuing to fight ... Read More

Picture of man kissing French president’s hand angers Algerians

A picture of an Algerian man kissing the hand of French President Francois Hollande angered Algerians, a newspaper reported Thursday. According to Hespress newspaper, the picture was taken Wednesday when the man lined up with other Algerians to meet their President Abdelaziz Bouteflika alongside Hollande, who was in Algiers ... Read More

Malaysia lifts curbs on Christian travel to Israel

Malaysia has removed quotas and other restrictions on Christians from the Muslim majority nation making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, government and church officials said. The move comes after a string of clashes in recent years between the government and the Christian minority and ahead of national polls ... Read More

Palestinians warn: Israel ‘to be held accountable’ for settlements

Israel will be “held accountable” for its settlement building, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday after Israel pushed forward plans for more than 5,000 new settler homes. “The settlers and the government of Israel should know they will be held accountable,” presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina ... Read More

U.N. probe says Syrian conflict has become ‘overtly sectarian’

Violence in the Syria conflict has become openly sectarian and threatens whole communities, U.N. investigators reported Thursday following a visit to the region. “As battles between government forces and anti-government armed groups approach the end of their second year, the conflict has become overtly ... Read More

U.N. Security Council approves Mali intervention force

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously approved sending an African-led military force to help reconquer northern Mali from Islamist militants. A resolution passed by the 15-member council gave the force an initial one-year mandate to use "all necessary measures" to help the Mali government ... Read More

Syrian man shoots dead Russian pro-Assad wife

A Syrian merchant in his 40s shot dead his Russian wife in the embattled northern city of Aleppo because she supported President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the killer's cousin told AFP on Wednesday. Clothes shop owner Mohammed on Tuesday evening used a pistol to shoot his wife dead after an argument in ... Read More

Fear keeps Egypt’s Christians away from polls

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. ... Read More

Two Sudan Coptic priests arrested after 'baptism'

Two priests from the Coptic Orthodox Church in Sudan have been arrested after the religious conversion of a Muslim in the Islamist-run state, church sources said. “I understand there was someone from the Arab origin that accepted Christ and was baptized by them,” leading to their arrest within the past few ... Read More

FSA says it handed Damascus camp back to Palestinians

The refugee camp for Palestinians in Damascus has been freed from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and is back under Palestinians’ control, Al Arabiya TV reported the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as saying on Thursday. The FSA called Palestinians and the Syrians, who fled the Yarmouk refugee camp battles, to return back. ... Read More

Yemeni president restructures army, eliminates Saleh cronies

Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi announced on Wednesday the restructuring of the army and defense ministry, purging them of relatives and cronies of former head of state Ali Abdullah Saleh, AFP reported state television as saying. Hadi took a series of decisions, including one scrapping the elite Republican Guard which ... Read More

‘Women2Drive,’ Saudi activist earns her second license

A leading Saudi women’s rights activist, who campaigns for women to get behind the wheel, finally obtained her second official driving license, but from the UAE. On Tuesday, Manal al-Sharif posted a picture of her showing off her Dubai driving license on Twitter. “Today, I got my second driver’s license from UAE, that ... Read More

Women will be safer if they start driving: Saudi activist

Allowing Saudi women to drive will be safer than having them commute with male drivers, a Saudi activist, Tahani al-Juhni, told Al Arabiya in a TV interview this week. “One journalist at al-Riyadh newspaper urged the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to follow up on a case of a driver, who ... Read More

Egyptian Islamists plan mass protest ahead of constitution vote

Egyptian Islamist groups are planning a mass protest in Alexandria on Friday, a move that will raise tensions a day before the final stage of a referendum on a new constitution that has split the nation. The rally announced by the Muslim Brotherhood responds to a violent confrontation between Islamists and their liberal and ... Read More

Israel charges Tel Aviv bus bomb suspect

Israel charged an Israeli Arab citizen on Wednesday over a bomb explosion on a Tel Aviv bus during Israel's November military offensive in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, the Justice Ministry said. The bus was driving close to Israel's defense ministry complex when the bomb went off on Nov. 21, wounding 15 ... Read More

Palestinian refugees need help to enter West Bank, Gaza: Abbas

Palestinian refugees fleeing violence in camps in Syria should receive international help to enter the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday. Abbas called on the United Nations to lend a helping hand to Palestinian refugees who have been embroiled in deadly fighting in the past week at the ... Read More

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