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29th September 2009
Violence flared in southern Yemen yesterday after a month of relative quiet.
Reuters reports that shelling and gunfire between security forces and southern separatists continued for over an hour in Zinjibar (Abyan province) around the house of a relative ofTariq al-Fadhli, the self-declared leader… Read more
29th September 2009
The trial has begun in Jeddah of Mazen Abdul Jawad, the 32-year-old Saudi who bragged on Lebanese television about his sexual conquests. Three others, who have not been named, are also on trial with him, on charges of "publicising vice".
After an initial hearing, the case was adjourned to an… Read more
28th September 2009
A headline at Almotamar, the Yemeni ruling party's website, announces: "UK confirms its stand by Yemen in facing up the rebellion".
Displaying the British and Yemeni flags side by side, it announces that Britain is "ready to increase its development aid to Yemen" and that "the United Kingdom will… Read more
28th September 2009
Al-Azhar – Egypt's ancient Islamic university – could face legal action for discriminating against female students, Almasri Alyoumreports.
Some female students have complained that the admissions process is prejudiced as the university requires higher standards for females, it says.
Parents of… Read more
27th September 2009
Two Saudi al-Qaeda suspects have been killed in the fighting in northern Yemen, al-Hayat newspaper reported yesterday.
One of the dead men, Fahd Saleh Sulaiman al-Jatili, aged 27, was No 62 (out of 85) on the kingdom's most-wanted list. The name of the other man has not been disclosed but he is… Read more
27th September 2009
The plight of Iraqis who worked as interpreters for the British army in Iraq is highlighted in The National. One of them, identified as "Hussein", resigned after a few months when insurgents began targeting interpreters as traitors and two of his colleagues were killed. He then fled to Syria:… Read more
26th September 2009
Two articles from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting highlight a growing language gap between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq.
“Arabic is officially the second language of Kurdistan and the primary language of Iraq,” Najeeba Mohammed writes. “Though studying Arabic is currently compulsory in… Read more
25th September 2009
Three-quarters of web users in Algeria regard the internet as "indispensable", more than 90% of them go online at least once a day and on average they spend one to two hours a day in front of the screen.
These are some of the findings from a survey of almost 6,000 Algerian internet users. (The… Read more
25th September 2009
Morocco's fun-loving king, Mohammed VI, has run into trouble with environmentalists for having one of his luxury cars flown to Britain for repairs.
The car, an Aston Martin DB7, travelled from Rabat in a specially-chartered Hercules transport aircraft. The Sun newspaper hasphotographs of it being… Read more
24th September 2009
Food is running out for tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the conflict in northern Yemen, the UN warned yesterday.
"The continuation of hostilities, the failure of the truce and the closure of roads has prevented humanitarian agencies from coming to the aid of the displaced," spokeswoman… Read more
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
