Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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French gendarmes secure the roundabout near the scene of a police lock-down around an industrial zone where the Charlie Hebdo suspects are holding one person hostage in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris on January 9, 2015. (Reuters/Eric Gaillard)

French police seal off town as they close in on newspaper killing suspects

by Asharq Al-Awsat | Jan 9, 2015 | World

Dammartin-en-Goele, France, Reuters—French anti-terrorist police surrounded a small northern town and helicopters hovered overhead after at least one person was taken hostage in a print works by two men believed to have carried out an attack on a Paris satirical...

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A Saudi man explores a website on his laptop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on February 11, 2014. (Reuters/Faisal Al-Nasser)

First online bank to launch in Saudi Arabia

by Ali Al-Qattan | Jan 9, 2015 | Business

Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat—The launch of the first online bank in Saudi Arabia will be announced on Friday evening, informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. A source close to the Manama-based Gulf International Bank, which will be launching the new bank, said it would be...

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A rebel fighter from the Free Syrian Army’s Al-Rahman legion takes up position behind sandbags in Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, on December 22, 2014. (Reuters/Baszsem Khabieh)

Syrian rebels to receive US training to fight Assad, says opposition official

by Nazeer Rida | Jan 9, 2015 | Middle East

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—Five thousand members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are to receive training in Turkey to fight against both the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Syrian government forces, a senior FSA commander told Asharq Al-Awsat, despite US silence...

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Thousands of people demonstrate against a rally called by anti-Islam group PEGIDA in Cologne, Germany, on January 5, 2015.
(AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Opinion: Europe Between Fear and Hope

by Amir Taheri | Jan 9, 2015 | Opinion

For the past six months the German city of Dresden has been the site of gatherings every Monday under the banner of “Saving Europe from Islamization.” The group that started the exercise calls itself “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West” (PEGIDA),...

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Walking trails criss-cross the 150-hectare Bentael Nature Reserve in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Natural Fortress

by Mazen Majouz | Jan 9, 2015 | Lifestyle & Culture

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—In the hills that rise above the Mediterranean, north of Beirut, a narrow ribbon of land has escaped the urban sprawl that characterizes the Lebanese capital’s perpetual growth. Bentael Nature Reserve became Lebanon’s first...