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Pope Francis  has joined  Morocco ‘s King Mohammed VI in saying  Jerusalem  should be a “symbol of peaceful coexistence” for Christians, Jews and Muslims, on the first day of a visit to the North African country. The spiritual leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics was invited by King Mohammed VI for the sake of “interreligious dialogue” according to Moroccan authorities. He is expected to celebrate mass at a Rabat stadium with an estimated 10,000 people attending as well as visiting a church-run social services centre and meeting with Catholic priests and other Christian representatives on Sunday. In a joint statement on Saturday, the two leaders said Jerusalem was “common patrimony of humanity and especially the followers of the three monotheistic religions”. “The specific multi-religious character, the spiritual dimension and the particular cultural identity of Jerusalem… must be protected and promoted,” they said in the declaration released by the ...

Kaduna, Nigeria – On February 3, Khadijah Adamu, a 24-year-old pharmacist in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, told her Twitter followers about a harrowing case of physical abuse, detailing claims of how an ex-boyfriend almost killed her. “ It was a burden that I was carrying around for two years,” Adamu told Al Jazeera. “Talking to people didn’t work, praying didn’t work, nothing worked, and to make matters worse my abuser refused to leave me alone.” Fakhriyyah Hashim, an entrepreneur and development worker in the Nigerian capital Abuja, noticed Adamu’s tweet and replied with empathy, adding the hashtag #ArewaMeToo.   Arewa is the general term used to refer to northern Nigeria, which has a majority Muslim population and a conservative society where issues surrounding sex and sexuality are rarely discussed in public. Soon, young women and men from the north started sharing experiences of rape and abuse on Twitter, using the hashtag. Some tweets even named the alleged abu...

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Polls have opened in Ukraine ‘s hotly-contested presidential elections with political novice Volodymyr Zelensky poised to win over 38 other candidates, including President Petro Poroshenko and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Sunday’s vote is testing the war-torn country’s democracy for the first time since the so-called Revolution of Dignity brought Poroshenko in power in 2014. The voting stations opened at 8am (06:00 GMT) and will close at 8pm (18:00 GMT). The elections will be monitored by observers from 18 countries as well as 139 Ukrainian civil society organisations, according to Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC). An early count is expected on Monday. If none of the candidates secures 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two candidates will take place on April 21. The latest surveys show Zelensky, a 41-year-old comic who is best known for playing a president in the political comedy, Servant of the People, leading the vote with 20.6 percent. ...

Tunis, Tunisia   – Eight years after chants of “the people want the fall of the regime” swept across North Africa and the Middle East, echoes of the same demand are making waves again in parts of the Arab region. In Sudan, “Tasqut bas” (Just fall) has been the rallying cry after protests against the spiralling costs of living  in December escalated into ongoing rallies calling for long-time President Omar al-Bashir to step down. And in Algeria, hundreds of thousands of have been shouting “No to Bouteflika” since late February after the country’s ailing president announced his bid to seek a fifth term at elections scheduled for April. Bowing to the growing public pressure, Abdelaziz Bouteflika later dropped his plan to run again. But the 82-year-old also postponed the polls and has remained in office, angering the demonstrators who have continued taking to the streets en masse calling not just for his departure but the banishment of the entire ruling elite. Yet the protes...

Glenn James/Getty Images New York police are investigating an allegation of rape against Dallas Mavericks star Kristaps Porzingis , according to the New York Post ‘s Tina Moore . A woman told authorities the assault happened on Feb. 7, 2018, shortly after Porzingis suffered a torn ACL in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks . Porzingis played 11 minutes against the Bucks before going down with his injury. Upon returning to his apartment, he visited the woman, who lived in the same building, around 2 a.m. ET, she said to police. She said he then invited her to his apartment, where he allegedly raped her. ESPN.com’s Tim MacMahon shared a statement from Porzingis’ attorney: Tim MacMahon @espn_macmahon Statement from Kristaps Porzingis’ attorney Roland G. Riopelle, obtained by @IanBegley: https://t.co/gHVjk3RfP3 Moore reported that the woman said she didn’t come forward with the allegation earlier because Porzingis had offered her $68,000 “ to pay for her brother’s college tuit...