As far as Hu Jia was concerned, the door to his apartment was always open to fellow Chinese who shared his desire for greater freedom, foreign friends, or activists with issues to discuss.
Beirut / Damascus- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday was quoted as saying that he has no objection to establishing diplomatic ties with Lebanon but only after the formation of a national unity government.
April 2 -- Attitudes toward U.S. influence on the world have improved in the past year, according to an annual survey of people in 34 countries. Iran scored worst in the poll.
Palestinians in Lebanon lack the full recognition of their basic human rights, said the Palestinian Organization for Human Rights (SHAHED) in the 2007 edition of its annual report, which was released to the public at a news conference on Thursday.
The Safadi Foundation launched a project entitled "She is Going to Work" in Tripoli on Thursday with the aim of giving women a greater share in the labor market. The project consists of teaching women skills in a bid to
The Tourism Ministry and Lebanon Daleel Association launched four cultural and tourist documentaries by Lebanese producer and director Fouad Khoury on Thursday, displaying Lebanon's nature, sports activities, cuisine and archeological sites in an effort to promote tourism in Lebanon.
Saudi authorities have released 32 men repatriated from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba last year, a newspaper reported on Thursday. They were freed on bail after being questioned and undergoing "rehabilitation" sessions with Muslim clerics and
Facing a new day of reckoning in Iraq next week, the soon-to-depart Bush administration appears stuck in a rut trying to isolate pivotal player Iran, analysts say. Iran wielded its influence in intra-Shiite fighting in Iraq last week, but Washington
Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri has launched a blistering attack on the United Nations in an online audio file. "The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims: It is the one which codified and legitimized the setting up
A leading US expert on urban universities and their interaction with their neighborhoods highlighted the two-way rewards of having universities engage more actively with their host communities, during a lecture at the American University of Beirut on Wednesday.
Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Beirut Elias Audeh called on MPs on Thursday to fulfill their duties within Parliament's walls, "the specialized place for treating national issues." Audi expressed his sorrow at the Lebanese people's inability to hold their MPs and
Private and public school teachers, as well as Lebanese university professors and instructors, held a strike on Thursday to call for an increase of their salaries, which have remained flat since 1996. Nehme Mahfoud, who heads the Teachers Union for
A European court on Thursday annulled a EU decision to place Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on its proscribed terror list. However, the decision has no immediate impact as the ruling refers to the decision to place the group
Police in Indian Kashmir said Thursday they had arrested the chief spokesman of Islamic militant group Hizbul Mujahedin in the summer capital of the disputed Himalayan region. Hizbul Mujahedin, which has been active in Indian Kashmir for two decades, is
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a message to Diego Maradona, hailing the Argentine soccer star as "His Excellency" and thanking him for his support of the Islamic Republic, media reported on Thursday. "I am sincerely thankful for His Excellency's
Vietnam will open an embassy in Israel in the coming months after 15 years of diplomatic ties between the two states, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. Vietnam's deputy foreign minister, Vu Dung, on an official visit to Israel,
At least 19 Somalis, including 15 soldiers, were killed and several wounded Thursday in separate clashes between Islamist insurgents and security forces, officials and witnesses said. The Islamist fighters attacked a military camp near the town of Addado, 500 kilometers
A parliamentary investigation on Thursday blamed the Palestinian intelligence service for the death of a Hamas cleric in a prison last month, and claimed he was tortured. Imam Majd al-Barghuti, 42, from Kobar village in the north of the Israeli-occupied
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has signaled his group's willingness to accept a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the 1967 borders. During an interview with the Palestinian daily Al-Ayam published on Wednesday, Meshaal offered what could be
A British civil rights group threatened Thursday to sue Britain and Portugal if they did not divulge relevant information on the secret transfer of detainees to Guantanamo. "I wrote a letter to the British government asking them to give out
