International Features

Unique sentencing from Christian judge in Lebanon, where insulting religion can be punishable by up to three years in prison, praised as message of coexistence Three Lebanese teenagers who were hauled before a court on charges of insulting Christianity have been handed the unusual sentence of studying the references to the Virgin Mary found in the Quran.  Christian judge Joceline Matta found …

The image was designed to shock: dozens of Muslims prostrated towards Mecca behind the razor wire of Goulburn’s Supermax jail. “Jailhouse jihad,” the headline blared above a story warning that Australia’s prisons were becoming a hotbed of extremism. It’s a theme that appears sporadically in the national media. One that, intentionally or otherwise, conflates in the reader’s mind prison-based conversions to Islam and radicalisation. …

DUBAI: Real estate developers seeking to build the world’s tallest skyscraper in Jeddah have signed a 620-million Saudi riyal contract for infrastructure work at the site, signaling the project will go ahead. The contract was awarded to local Al-Fouzan General Contracting Co. and the work is to be finished within 12 months, Jeddah Economic Co, the consortium behind the project, …

“People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.” ~ Noam Chomsky It was an irony of fate that after two weeks, Trump’s unilateral decision on Jerusalem was dumped into the dustbin by the rest of the UN Security Council. The US was left isolated and forced to use its veto after all …

DUBAI: A Dubai-based British woman has found a passion in supplying clothes and other stitched items to thousands of destitute people worldwide. Under the banner “Rags to Riches,” Barbara Evans, 69, converts old sheets and pillow cases into new clothes for children, then donates them to the needy. “It started three years back, when I read a story about a …

RIYADH: Bank fraud is low in the Kingdom compared to rising rates in other countries, Saudi Banks, the nation’s association of bankers, said on Thursday. While money transfer fraud, ATM and online banking fraud have become a worldwide threat, prudent banking measures meant the country had one of the world’s least-registered rates of financial fraud, a Saudi Banks spokesman said. …