World

Yemen’s warring parties agree to ceasefire in Hodeidah and U.N. role

December 14th, 20180 RIMBO, Sweden — Yemen’s warring parties agreed on Thursday to cease fighting for the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, the first significant breakthrough for U.N.-led peace efforts in five years of conflict. At the close of a week of talks in Sweden, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a...

U.S. Senate deals Trump double rebuke on Saudi Arabia

December 14th, 20180 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen and blaming the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass...

Hopeful start to Yemen talks in Stockholm: Free thousands of prisoners

December 9th, 20180 STOCKHOLM — Yemen’s warring sides agreed to free thousands of prisoners on Thursday, in what a U.N. mediator called a hopeful start to the first peace talks in years to end a war that has pushed millions of people on the verge of starvation. U.N. mediator Martin Griffiths told a news conference in a renovated castle outside...

Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib to lead delegation to Israeli-occupied West Bank

December 9th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Due in large part to the abundance of pro-Israel lobbying from organizations like AIPAC, Congressmen and Congresswomen in the United States have largely avoided pledging any support for Palestinians, vocal or otherwise. But newly-elected Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from the 13th District,...

U.S. fails to win enough support at U.N. to condemn Hamas

December 7th, 20180 UNITED NATIONS — A U.S. attempt to get the United Nations to condemn the Palestinian militant group Hamas for the first time failed on Thursday because the draft resolution fell short of votes needed in the General Assembly. The resolution required two-thirds support and while Assembly resolutions are non-binding, they can carry...

America mourns the 41st president, George H. W. Bush

December 7th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — St. Martin's Episcopal Church was the site of Wednesday's memorial service for former President George H. W. Bush, a Republican and father of six, including his eldest son, President George W. Bush. Bush, 94, the nation's 41st president, had been battling several diseases in recent years, including vascular...

Lebanese man fined $50 million, sent to prison for helping Hezbollah

December 7th, 20180 WASHINGTON — A Lebanese businessman sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for being an important financial supporter of Hezbollah pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges associated with evading U.S. sanctions imposed on him, the U.S. Justice Department said. Kassim Tajideen, 63, pleaded guilty to conspiring with at least five...

Francis to become first pope to visit Arabian peninsula

December 7th, 20180 VATICAN CITY — The first visit by a pope to the Arabian peninsula will take place in February when Pope Francis travels to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, the Vatican said on Thursday. The Feb. 3-5 trip, Francis’ latest to a predominantly Muslim nation, will be centered around the theme of inter-religious peace. The...

Israel asks Lebanon to destroy tunnel allegedly dug by Hezbollah across border

December 7th, 20180 Israel asked Lebanon’s army and U.N. peacekeepers on Thursday to destroy a tunnel it said had been dug by the Hezbollah group across the border into what it called its territory. Israel’s occupation forces said this week it had identified a number of passages and sent diggers and troops close the front line with Lebanon to block...

King of Malaysia marries former Miss Moscow

December 2nd, 20180 MOSCOW —Photos surfaced on Facebook revealing that 49-year-old King of Malaysia Muhammad V of Kelantan married the 25-year old former Miss Moscow. The photos and a video clip were posted to Facebook Friday. Russian beauty queen Oksana Voevodina apparently married the Malaysian king in Barvikha, a luxury village in Moscow...

From Gaza to Dearborn: Mohammed Abu Hussein lost his leg, but not his hope

December 2nd, 20180 DEARBORN – The Palestinian struggle carries countless stories of suffering and injustice. Such is the case with Mohammed Abu Hussein, a young Palestinian boy who lost his right leg in June during the Great March of Return along the Gaza border against the Israeli occupation. Mohammed is currently in Dearborn, where he will receive a...

The mother of all Arabic dictionaries makes its debut online

December 1st, 20180 WEST BANK — A computer science professor at Birzeit University has built an online tool called Arabic Ontology that is both a comprehensive dictionary of Arabic and a system that will enable the creation of new Arabic-language software, such as better machine translation. Mustafa Jarrar, an associate professor in the department of...

Senate votes 63-37, advances measure to end U.S. support for Saudi war on Yemen

November 30th, 20180 WASHINGTON — While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was lobbying senators on Capitol Hill not to "pack up and abandon" the U.S. role in the Saudi-led coalition war on Yemen, the Senate voted 63-37 to consider a measure that would do just that, ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's military campaign in Yemen. The vote was a...

Mattis: Yemen peace talks likely in early December

November 24th, 20180 WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that peace talks between Yemen’s warring parties are likely to take place in early December in Sweden. Western countries are pressing for a ceasefire and renewed peace efforts to end the more than three-year long conflict, which is seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia...

Trump praises Saudi Arabia amid mounting pressure to sanction ally

November 23rd, 20180 WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, President Trump praised Saudi Arabia for helping to lower oil prices as pressure intensified for the U.S. to impose tougher sanctions on its Arab ally over dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. In a tweet, Trump thanked Riyadh for the recent drop in oil prices and called for prices to go...

Iran sticking to nuclear deal, rules out renegotiation with U.S.

November 22nd, 20180 Iran has no intention of renegotiating the 2015 nuclear deal, as demanded by the U.S., Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. Speaking at an international conference in Rome, Zarif said the Iranian people will endure U.S. sanctions. Iran sticking to nuclear deal, IAEA says, amid new U.S. sanctions Iran is implementing...

Nissan to fire Ghosn after arrest for alleged financial misconduct

November 19th, 20180 Nissan Motor Company Chairman Carlos Ghosn was arrested on Monday for alleged financial misconduct and will be fired from the board this week, a dramatic fall for a leader hailed for rescuing the Japanese carmaker from close to bankruptcy. Nissan said an internal investigation, triggered by a tip-off from a whistleblower, had revealed...

Fewer Arab students head for U.S. to study, report shows

November 19th, 20180 WASHINGTON — Fewer Arab students are choosing to study at universities in the U.S. than in the previous year, according to a report published on Tuesday, while the number of American students going to the Middle East has surged modestly. The Institute of International Education’s 2018 Open Doors report shows that in the last...

Former Bahraini minister warns of joint Arab-Israel conspiracy against Palestine

November 18th, 20180 Former Bahraini Minister Mohammad Ali Fakhro, a board member of the Arab Anti-Corruption Organization, criticized the Arab world’s normalization with Israel, blaming these ties for Tel Aviv’s continuous targeting of Palestinians, Arabi21 reported on Wednesday. “The Israeli occupation continues its efforts to get rid of the...

U.S. senators seek clampdown on Saudis over Yemen, journalist’s murder

November 16th, 20180 WASHINGTON — Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Thursday seeking to strike back at Saudi Arabia over the death of a Saudi journalist at a consulate in Turkey and for its role in Yemen’s devastating civil war. If it were to become law, the bill would suspend weapon sales to Saudi Arabia and prohibit...

Yemeni father mourns baby girl who died of starvation

November 16th, 20180 SANAA, Yemen — Saleh al-Faqeh held the wasted arm of his baby daughter as she took her last breath on Thursday at the malnutrition ward of the main hospital in Yemen’s capital Sanaa. Four-month-old Hajar al-Faqeh reached the al-Sabeen hospital last week from Saada province, one of thousands of Yemeni children suffering from...

Trump nominates retired general John Abizaid as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia

November 16th, 20180 WASHINGTON — President Trump announced his intention to nominate retired general John Abizaid as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, after two years of the position being vacant. The nomination of  Abizaid, a decorated military commander who fought in six wars and served as the head of Central Command before retiring in 2007, was...

U.S. imposes sanctions on Saudi officials for Khashoggi killing

November 16th, 20180 WASHINGTON — The United States imposed economic sanctions on 17 Saudi officials on Thursday for their role in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor sought the death penalty for five suspects in the murder. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctions were the first concrete response by the...

‘Everything is a target’: Gaza residents decry indiscriminate Israeli strikes

November 16th, 20180 GAZA — Ahmed Abu Saif struggles to maintain a straight face as he looks at the amorphous pile of rubble of what used to be a five-story building he owned. The structure is one of the several civilian sites that have been flattened over the past 24 hours in Gaza as Israeli jets pounded the besieged and densely-populated coastal...

Five reasons why Trump’s Iran sanctions will fail

November 4th, 20180 The next round of economic sanctions on Iran, which will start going into effect on Nov.4, will mainly target the country’s oil and gas industries. These sanctions were eased after the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, but are being phased back in following...