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. | The Syrian government has condemned Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi for severing the two Arab nations’ diplomatic ties. Morsi had also called for the implementation of a no-fly zone over Syria.
Damascus on Sunday |
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. | The United States has responded to North Korea’s offer of high level talks to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.
A senior US administration official has said the proposal will be discussed in meetings with Japan and South Korea set to take place in Washington in the middle of next week. |
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. | Facebook became the first to release aggregate numbers of requests, saying in a blogpost that it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data in the second half of 2012, covering 18,000 to 19,000 of its users’ accounts.
The company said it released the information after reaching a deal about disclosures with US national security authorities. |
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. | Peace talks on the Syrian crisis are to be pushed back a month, according to the UN and Arab League envoy on the Syrian crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi.
Speaking after a meeting with US and Russian officials in Geneva yesterday, Brahimi told reporters: “There is still a lot of work to do to bring a conference about. For this reason |
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. | Two UN troops were injured in shelling in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria, a UN spokesperson said on Thursday, as fighting raged between Syrian regime forces and rebels along the Jewish state border.
“The two suffered minor injuries from the fallout of heavy weapons fire in the area,” Kieran Dwyer told AFP. However, the report added that it was still not clear whether the shelling |
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. | Islamist militants have exploited the power vacuum to use the remote desert region as a base of operations to launch attacks against Egypt and Israel. Bedouin tribesmen in the region have long complained of being discriminated against by the government in Cairo.
In August 2012, Islamist militants attacked a checkpoint near the Gaza Strip, killing 16 Egyptian security forces and breaching the border before being killed in an Israeli airstrike. Morsi responded by launching an offensive to regain control of the North Sinai. |
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. | The Syrian military continued its offensive on Qusayr amid reports that at least 13 Hezbollah fighters helping the army in the strategic attack have been killed so far.
Syrian state media said |
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. | Police have clashed with hardline Islamists in Tunisia after the government banned their annual rally.
The Salafist Ansar al-Sharia group, who openly support Al Qaeda, were due to hold the gathering in the central city of Kairouan but told their Facebook followers to |
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. | One in 10 people under 25 are Muslim, while Christianity is in decline, the 2011 UK census reveals. An explosion in the Muslim population and an aging Christian demographic could mean Islam will be the dominant religion in the UK in 10 years.
A new analysis of the 2011 census by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of Christians was falling 50 per cent faster than had previously |
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. | Moscow is also calling for the inclusion on this occasion of its trading partner Iran and US ally Saudi Arabia as a counterweight.
Weapons supply Russia, Syria’s most powerful remaining ally, continues to deliver arms to Assad’s regime, but claims that it has no real interest in seeing the president remain in power |
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. | Nearly 500 Palestinians marched with the posters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
President Abbas addressed the nation on the Occasion of Nakba. Abbas who said that they |
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. | A video which appears to show a west-backed terrorist in Syria taking a bite from the heart of a dead soldier. “I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog,” the man says referring to President Bashar al-Assad as he stands over the soldier’s corpse. The terrorist has been reported having ties to USA and France, having simillar activities in other countries following orders from those government supporting terror in Syria. |
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. | Israel’s Military Intelligence chief has presented Russian President Vladimir Putin with updated information on the turmoil in Syria, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz. The details are unclear, but the intelligence from Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi probably concerns chemical weapons and their use against the rebels in Syria’s civil war. |
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. | Russia and Britain agreed on Friday to work towards a transitional government in Syria, despite acknowledging differences in their approach to the Middle Eastern country’s civil war.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that they had agreed “that as permanent members |
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. | Syria’s information minister has given warning that Israeli air raids against three targets on the outskirts of Damascus “open the door to all possibilities”.
Omran al-Zoubie’s comments in Damascus on Sunday came after an emergency cabinet meeting organised to respond to what a Western source said was a new attack on Iranian missiles |
