The school dropout rate among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is alarmingly high with 50 percent of 17-year-olds and 40 percent of 16-year-olds receiving no education, United Nations officials warned on Friday. "We are sounding the alarm that the dropout rate is too high among school-aged children from the ... More

Hollywood's latest doomsday offering "2012" has caused a storm in Indonesia, with conservative clerics condemning it Thursday as a "provocation against Islam". Screenings have been sold out across the capital Jakarta following the film's success in North America, where it beat ... More

As Muslims prepare for the annual pilgrimage, or hajj, season, Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court announced late Tuesday that Arafat Day, when pilgrims stand in prayer on Mount Arafat marking the climax of Hajj, will fall this year on Nov. 26. The court ruled that a number of people had witnessed the Zul Hijjah crescent and ... More

Little has changed in Egypt to move the poor from unsafe places and prevent a repetition of a rockslide in a Cairo shantytown that killed more than 100 people last year, Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday. The London-based rights group also criticized the government for resettling families far from places ... More

Nearly 12 million Africans deemed at highest risk from yellow fever will be vaccinated next week against the virus, which can cause explosive epidemics in cities, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. The vaccination drive will span three countries, Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone, starting on Monday and take ... More

Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz on Tuesday told voters that the call of the muezzin, or Muslim imam who calls people to prayer, would not sound in Switzerland, as he campaigned against a referendum motion seeking to ban the building of minarets. "Muslims should be able to practice their religion and have ... More

Muammar Gaddafi disappointed some 200 Italian women after he invited them using an agency advertizing a "party" where the Libyan leader proceeded to lecture them on Islam, Italian media reported on Monday. The ad, by the Hostessweb agency, was very specific in the kind of woman that should attend and read: ... More

A hint of incense in the dark and narrow alleys leading to the 410-year-old Hamam al-Abhar in the Yemeni capital's old city reminds the visitor that each step taken is one farther back into history. For centuries, the traditional Turkish-style bathhouse, hamam in Arabic, has been a cornerstone of life in ... More

An Egyptian court sentenced two Christian men to death on Sunday for killing the Muslim husband of a female relative who converted to Islam against the wishes of her family, court sources said. The brother and uncle of Mariam Atef Khilla were convicted of breaking into her Cairo home in 2008 and opening fire on her and her ... More

In a clinic in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, Ratib Samur makes his way from one patient to the next armed with little more than a small box filled with enraged bees. He uses the bees to sting those who have come to him for help -- and amid the territory's deepening isolation, his clinic has been transformed ... More

People at risk of suffering severe consequences from swine flu should postpone going to the hajj in 2009, according to a study released on Saturday. Some 2.5 million Muslims from more than 160 countries converge annually on the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina in western Saudi ... More

Iran has recorded at least 3,409 deaths from AIDS, while another 2,097 people have been diagnosed as having the disease, according to health ministry figures reported by the ILNA news agency on Thursday. The news agency said a total of 20,130 people had tested positive for HIV. It did not specify whether that figure included ... More

Wafa Sarhan was devastated to think her two sons would never hear her voice again after an Israeli strike on Gaza left them deaf. Then Dr. Hajeri showed up in the impoverished enclave. Bahaa and Qusei Sarhan, today six and five, lost their hearing in June 2004 when an Israeli drone fired missiles at a group of militants ... More

An Israeli judge has decided not to convict an Arab youth accused of hurling rocks at a police car, claiming the state discriminates against teenage Arab transgressors, media reported on Thursday. "Israel operates on two fundamentally different levels of enforcement for ideological offenses committed by Arab and Jewish ... More

A U.S.-born Jewish settler was indicted on murder and other charges in a Jerusalem court on Thursday for allegedly killing two Palestinians and carrying out a string of bomb attacks. Jack Teitel, a 37-year-old immigrant from the United States, was arrested in October on suspicion of murdering the men in 1997 while visiting ... More

Saudi judiciary officials have announced that female lawyers would soon be allowed to represent their clients in the courtroom, reported the Saudi Arabic daily al-Madina. The Ministry of Justice said that women will be issued a restrictive form of license which will give them access to certain areas of the courts and in ... More

Britain's Oxford University on Wednesday defended a decision to set up a scholarship in honor of a young Iranian woman shot dead during the recent election protests, which has enraged Tehran. Iran told the university that dedicating a scholarship to Neda Agha-Soltan was a "politically motivated" campaign that ... More

Babylon, Sinbad, the Garden of Eden -- war-scarred Iraq touted its attractions for tourists Tuesday, as it sent a delegation to a major industry fair for the first time in decade. Iraqi tourism officials said "very few pockets" of the country remain dangerous, more than six years after the controversial US-led ... More

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament called for a ban on a book written by a rabbi who sanctions the killing of non-Jewish children if they pose a threat to security, according to press reports Tuesday. The 320-page book called "The Torah of the King" is a collection of religious edicts, backed by fanatic Jews ... More

South Sudan could face famine following low rainfall and a surge in tribal conflicts, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said on Sunday. U.N. officials earlier this year said at least 1.2 million people in the underdeveloped region could be left without enough food after a poor start to the rainy ... More