The Daily Star Lebanon Breaking News, Lebanon News, Middle East News & World News

SEOUL: Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt defended Thursday YouTube’s hosting of an anti-Islam film that sparked violent global protests, saying the answer to “bad speech is more speech” — not a ban. Google, the parent company of the video-sharing site, has blocked access to “Innocence of Muslims” in a number of nations, including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where it …

BEIRUT: At least one, and possibly three, of 10 Lebanese pilgrims held hostage in Syria will be released in the coming few hours,  mediators said. A mediator, who requested he remained anonymous, told The Daily Star early on Tuesday that three men would be released, identifying them as Awad Ibrahim, Ali Termos, Khalil Saleh. The Sunni Committee of Muslim Scholars of Lebanon, …

MARIKANA, South Africa: The bloody protest by South African miners that ended in a hail of police gunfire and 34 deaths this week could also wound the ruling ANC and its main labor ally, laying bare workers’ anger over enduring inequalities in Africa’s biggest economy. Thursday’s shooting, bringing back memories of apartheid-era violence, underlined that after 18 years in power …

BEIRUT: An Australian of Lebanese origin has won third place in this year’s Miss World competition, Al-Arabiya reported Sunday. Jessica Kahawaty placed after Miss China Yu Wenxia, who won first place in the pageant and Sophie Elizabeth Moulds of Wales, who came in second place. This was not the Lebanese beauty’s first pageant. She was in the 2008 Miss Lebanon Emigrant and also competed for Miss Lebanon …

EAST CHINA SEA: Several Japanese nationalists landed on Sunday on a rocky island in the East China Sea at the heart of a territorial row with Beijing, with protests in several Chinese cities also indicating ties were worsening between Asia’s two biggest economies. Tokyo and Beijing have been feuding for decades over the island chain, known as the Senkaku in …

LONDON: Ireland’s Katie Taylor moved a step away from becoming one of the first Olympic women’s boxing champions on Wednesday when she produced a clinical performance to reach the lightweight final. The four-time amateur world champion, at the forefront of the campaign to get women’s boxing into the Olympics, beat Tajikistan’s Mavzuna Chorieva 17-9 in front of another raucous crowd …

MANCHESTER, England: The only top contender still left in the men’s Olympic football tournament, Brazil has no excuse to leave the London Games without the gold medal. First, though, it will have to get past South Korea in the semifinals on Tuesday. Brazil brought most of its top players to the Olympics and has been dominant so far, getting more …

WEST JERUSALEM, Israel: Israeli troops shot across the ceasefire line with Syria on the occupied Golan Heights to wound a man suspected of planning to tamper with the boundary fence on Saturday, the military said. The Golan, which Israel captured from Syria in a 1967 war and later annexed, has been largely untouched by the 17-month-old uprising rocking Damascus. But …