WASHINGTON: Satellite images show China is building an island on a reef in the disputed Spratly Islands large enough to accommodate what could be its first offshore airstrip in the South China Sea, a leading defense publication said on Friday. The construction has stoked concern that China may be

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police on Thursday detained Mohamed Ali Bishr, one of the few Muslim Brotherhood leaders to escape jail after last year's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, extending a sweeping crackdown on political dissent. Bishr, a veteran politician who served as a cabi

JERUSALEM: Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of 78 new homes in two settlements on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem, likely to aggravate Palestinian anger at a time when violence has flared, including a deadly attack on a synagogue. Jerusalem’s municipal planning committee authorized

JERUSALEM: Tuesday’s deadly attack on a Jerusalem synagogue marked a new level in the violence plaguing the city but a tough Israeli response could trigger further escalation, experts say. After two Palestinians burst into the synagogue armed with a gun and meat cleavers, killing four and woundin

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian bus driver was found hanged inside his vehicle on Monday, an incident Israeli police described as a suicide but which the driver’s family said they believed was an attack. The incident quickly touched off Palestinian stone-throwing protests and a general strike in some la

JERUSALEM: Israel will never agree to limit its construction activity in annexed east Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday. “One thing should be clear: we will never accept the definition of building in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem as settlement activity,” he said at

Authorities in Makkah have thwarted plans for a beauty pageant in the holy city, citing the Shariah law that prohibits such a show as reason for the decision. The pageant, which was planned to take place in one of Makkah’s banquet hall palaces over a period of four consecutive days, starting next

JERUSALEM: Israel eased restrictions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque on Friday after US Secretary of State John Kerry announced agreement on steps to reduce tensions at the flashpoint compound. The site, which is holy to Jews as well as Muslims, has been the focus of months of unrest in annexed Ara

SANAA: A powerful suicide bomb attack on Shiite militia fighters in central Yemen left dozens of people dead on Wednesday, military and tribal sources said. Wednesday’s blast hit a large gathering of Houthis at the residence of a local tribal chief in Rada, a mixed Shiite-Sunni town that has seen

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Myanmar government on Wednesday he is concerned about the welfare of the country’s Rohingya Muslims and asked officials to ensure access for UN agencies delivering humanitarian assistance to them. Ban, in Myanmar to attend summits of t

JERUSALEM: Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during clashes on Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, a day after Palestinian assailants fatally stabbed an Israeli soldier and a woman in attacks that raised fears of a new uprising. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the violence was not or

JERUSALEM: Premier Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday publicly challenged Israeli Arabs protesting against a deadly police shooting in one of their villages to go and live in the West Bank and Gaza. Ahmed Tibi, a prominent Arab legislator, said the comments showed the Likud leader had “gone off the rai

BERLIN: As Germany celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Sunday, Elke Rosin recalled how lucky her family had been. Her pet parakeet and a few personal belongings were all that Rosin managed to grab before her family fled from East to West Berlin 53 years ago. Hours af

GAZA CITY: The European Union’s new foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini on Saturday appealed for the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying the world “cannot afford” another war in Gaza. “We need a Palestinian state — that is the ultimate goal and this is the position of all the Europe

The International Union of Muslim Scholars urged all Muslims to mobilise to protect Al-Aqsa Mosque and preserve it. In a statement issued yesterday signed by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the Union and the General Secretary Ali Al-Qarra Daghi, the group warned against compromising, violating, br

JERUSALEM/GAZA: Palestinian protesters fought with Israeli security forces in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Friday, the latest clashes in a fortnight of violence over access to Jerusalem’s holiest site. At the Qalandia checkpoint separating Ramallah from Jerusalem, troops fired rubbe

CAIRO: A bomb on a train in Egypt killed four people including two policemen, officials said Thursday, while blasts in the Cairo metro and near a presidential palace wounded several others. The makeshift bomb exploded in a carriage late on Wednesday as policemen inspected it after the train stopp

Jordan has recalled its ambassador to Israel and moved to lodge a complaint at the United Nations amid attacks by Israeli troops on Palestinians at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem). On Wednesday, Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur asked Foreign Minister Nasser Jud