Armed Conflicts

Iraqi Women Seek a New Liberation

By Karlos Zurutuza
From full literacy declared in the seventies, Iraq is down to 40 percent literacy for women. From the first woman prime minister and the first woman judge in the Middle East in 1959, Iraq has slipped to a place where an abnormal number of widows struggle, and where child marriages are on the rise. Hanaa Edwar is putting up a fight to win Iraqi women their freedoms again.

The Ugly Face of Street Justice in Sierra Leone

By Tommy Trenchard
On a steamy, starless night in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, a teenager runs desperately down a potholed street before being violently brought to the ground by a bystander. As word spreads that a thief has been caught, young men come running from all directions.

Digging for Water, But Striking Oil

By Thalif Deen
The volatile politics of the Middle East have long been dominated by the fluctuating fortunes of a single commodity: oil.

Kurdish Rights Back in Focus in Turkey

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
After over a year without accountability for a Turkish aerial bombing that killed 34 Kurdish men and boys, Turkey has come under heavy criticism for what many say is a widespread culture of impunity, especially when it comes to the treatment of its Kurdish citizens.

Syrian Refugees Face Storms With Cardboard

By Zak Brophy
Zuhur al-Khalaf is eight months pregnant and lives in a one-room shack in northern Lebanon with her husband and five children. The cloth walls and cardboard roof have become sodden and musty after heavy storms this past week, and two of the children are suffering from fevers and chest infections.

U.S. Prepares Support for French Military Intervention in Mali

By Carey L. Biron
U.S. Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta has applauded France's surprise airstrikes on Islamist rebels in northern Mali that began late last week and continued over the weekend.

Hugo Chavez and Colombia’s Peace

By Constanza Vieira
Colombia has suffered an internal armed conflict for so many decades that it almost amounts to a "forgotten crisis" for external donors. But the president of neighbouring Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is well aware of the conflict, and understands that it destabilises Latin America, where centre-left governments proliferate.

A Hundred Killed, A Community Cornered

By Zofeen Ebrahim
"I want justice,” says Shukria Jamali, 20. “But I wouldn't want my worst enemies to feel the intense pain I am feeling now."

Obama to Accelerate Handover to Afghan Army

By Jim Lobe
President Barack Obama announced Friday that U.S. forces will accelerate the transfer of primary security responsibilities to their Afghan counterparts and take on an exclusively support and training role beginning this spring.

U.S. Urged to Stem Broader Ethnic Violence in Myanmar

By Carey L. Biron
Worried over the possibility of further escalation of armed conflict in Myanmar, activists here are calling on Washington to take stronger action to condemn state forces for aerial bombardment of ethnic Kachin rebels and civilians in the country’s north, which some say constitutes crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu Suffers From Being Too Popular

By Pierre Klochendler
“We feel like we finally live a normal life in a normal country,” marvelled a popular radio host. Normalcy – this rare appreciation by Israelis of the privilege to indulge in small talk about the stormy weather that’s wreaked the whole region – is so abnormal here.

Slum Dwellers Say “No” to Blood Money

By Miriam Gathigah
With less than two months before Kenyans head to the polls for what is shaping up to be the most competitive and polarised general election in the country’s history, many fear that this East African country of over 40 million has not seen the last of electoral violence.

Education Fights Militants and Military

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Eight-year-old Muhammad Akram was forced to quit school when he was in the second grade, when the Taliban destroyed the small, government-run school that he and his brother had been attending.

Showdown Looms Between Erdoğan and Gülen Movement

By Dorian Jones
A tactical alliance in Turkey between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and a movement headed by theologian Fetullah Gülen is unraveling. And the break-up is threatening to turn acrimonious.

Historic Mapuche Land Conflict Flares Up

By Marianela Jarroud
A string of attacks in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía, where native Mapuche people are struggling for their land rights, puts the spotlight squarely on what analysts call the "supine ignorance" displayed by authorities about the country's history.

Obama Nominates Hagel for Pentagon, Brennan for CIA

By Jim Lobe
Rounding out his second-term foreign policy picks, U.S. President Barack Obama Monday nominated former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to head the Pentagon and his top counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, to direct the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
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Major Test for Israel Lobby As Obama Leans to Hagel for Pentagon

By Jim Lobe
With President Barack Obama reportedly primed to nominate former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to head the Pentagon early next week, the powerful Israel lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), faces a major dilemma.

OP-ED: The Arab Spring at Two: What Lessons Should We Learn?

By Emile Nakhleh
As the Arab Spring enters its third year, new Arab democracies and the international community should reflect on several critical lessons from the past two years.

Groups Decry Obama’s Failure to Close Guantanamo

By Jim Lobe
Human rights groups are denouncing President Barack Obama’s failure to veto a defence bill that will make it far more difficult for him to fulfill his four-year-old pledge to close the Guantanamo detention facility this year.

CAR Rebels Halt Advance on Capital

By AJ Correspondents
Rebels in Central African Republic have said they have halted their advance on the capital, Bangui, and would participate in dialogue, as head of regional African forces warned them against making further moves.

The Mindlessness of War in Afghanistan

By Noor Wali Sheenwari
One night in 1979, bombs dropped from the sky, killing 16 members of Ismail’s family. “The war took some people to Europe and America, but it destroyed my family,” Ismail, who is universally addressed as “uncle”, says.
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