Defying U.S. and Israeli policy shunning Hamas as a terror group, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter warmly embraced a leader of Hamas during a visit to the West Bank. Israel accused Carter of dignifying “extremists.” Carter was on a private peace mission to the Middle East. His itinerary also included stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, where the virulently anti-Israel Hamas movement is headquartered and then return to Israel. White House has criticised him for his wi...

Andros Kyprianou, head of the Cyprus delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, has called on European governments to address growing Islamophobia faced by Muslim communities in Europe. Addressing the Assembly, Kyprianou noted a marked increase in this “dangerous phenomenon” recently and stressed the need to investigate the reasons that lead to such “unacceptable behaviour.” Kyprianou pointed out that it is of crucial importance for European gov...

Nik Aziz, the PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) leader, said he could not understand why DAP (Democratic Action Party) leaders were so afraid of the establishment of an Islamic state when most non-Muslims in Kelantan were comfortable living under its administration. He said, “I really want to know what is it that they do not agree (with). We have administered the state without problems despite doing it the Islamic way. We do not force non-Muslims to convert to Islam and this has led to many...

Al-Azhar University opened a branch campus at the Yayasan Sofa Negeri Sembilan Complex, near Kampung Bukit Sembilan in Malaysia. The establishment of the branch campus outside the Middle East also marked the changing of the Al-Azhar mindset in its history of over 1,000 years since the beginning of its foundation during the reign of the Fatimiyyah dynasty. A representative of the university from Egypt, Dr Umar Abdullah Kamil said that this branch of Al-Azhar would attract thousands of Muslim s...

Jeddah’s water shortage problem would be solved temporarily with the arrival of a floating desalination plant at its shores. Abdullah Ahmed Bajunaid, CEO of Bawarij International, said the plant would have a capacity to supply 50,000 cubic meters of water daily. The plant has already arrived in the Red Sea and is on its way to Jeddah. Bajunaid said a second floating desalination plant would arrive at Jeddah shores shortly. The two ships, said to be the largest floating desalination plan...

Followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the American military’s construction of a concrete wall through their Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad, the scene of renewed clashes between his militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops. The wall - a concrete barrier of varying height up to about 12 feet – is being built along a main street dividing the southern portion of Sadr City from the northern, where Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters are concentrated. American command...

UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohammed ElBaradei called for more dialogue between the international community and Iran on the country’s nuclear issue. El Baradei, general secretary of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made the call after a meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin. El Baradei said Iran’s progress in developing uranium enrichment is slow and recent additions to its nuclear fuel production complex have only been older-model centrifu...