North’s Policies Affecting South’s Economies

Since the onset of the crisis, the South Centre has argued that policy responses to the crisis by the European Union and the United States has suffered from serious shortcomings that would delay recovery and entail unnecessary losses of income and jobs, and also endanger future growth and stability. 

Proposed Arms Embargo on Syria a Political Mockery

When the 15-member Security Council, the most powerful body at the United Nations, fails to resolve a military conflict, it invariably exercises one of its tried, and mostly failed, options: punish the warring parties by imposing punitive sanctions.

New Palestinian World Heritage Site Under Threat of Defacement

The Palestinian village of Battir, just six kilometres southwest of Jerusalem and a similar distance from Bethlehem, is the latest to be trapped in the gap between international recognition and Israel's policies in the West Bank.

Syria’s Chemicals Haunt the Mediterranean

Scientists and local communities are expressing serious concern about the ongoing destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal on board a vessel in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea.

Liberated Homs Residents Challenge Notion of “Revolution”

Al-Waer, Homs’s most populated area and the city’s last insurgent holdout, might soon achieve the truce that Hom’s Old City saw in May this year when, in an exchange deal, the insurgents left their strongholds.

Bahrain’s Expulsion of U.S. Official Sets Back Ties, Reform Hopes

Monday’s expulsion order by Bahrain against a visiting senior U.S. official has set back tentative hopes for internal reforms that could reconcile the kingdom’s Sunni-led government with its majority Shia community and drawn a sharp protest from Washington.

Lebanon’s Closed Doors for Palestinian Refugees

Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in Syria have been uprooted since the violent government crackdown on the uprising and the ensuing battles that ensnared their communities. For around 50,000 of them, Lebanon was their only safe route out but now it seems this door is being closed on them.

Trouble Brewing in Kurdish-Controlled Kirkuk

The Kurdish flag is flying high in the wind from the rooftop of an old brick house inside Kirkuk’s millennia-old citadel, as Rashid – a stern-looking man sitting behind a machine gun – monitors the surroundings.

Syrian Kurds Have Their Own TV Against All Odds

Rudi Mohamed Amid gives his script one quick, last glance before he goes live. "Roj bas, Kurdistan (Good morning, Kurdistan)," he greets his audience, with the assuredness of a veteran journalist. However, hardly anyone at Ronahi, Syrian Kurds' first and only television channel, had any media experience before the war.

U.S.: What Is the Greatest Threat of Them All?

This month’s stunning campaign by Sunni insurgents led by the radical Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) against the mainly Shi’a government of Iraqi President Nouri Al-Maliki is stoking a growing debate here about the hierarchy of threats facing the United States in the Middle East and beyond.

OP-ED: Surging Violence Against Women in Iraq

Shortly after their conquest of Mosul, young men armed with assault rifles went door to door in Iraq’s second-largest city, taking “women who are not owned” for jihad al-nikah, or sex jihad.

Obama, Rights Groups Protest Egypt Sentencing

The administration of President Barack Obama joined international human rights groups around the world in “strongly condemn(ing)” Monday’s conviction and sentencing by an Egyptian court of three Al Jazeera journalists and 15 others for their alleged association with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Neo-Cons, Hawks Can’t Get No Iraq Traction

Despite their ubiquity on television talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages, neo-conservatives and other hawks who propelled the U.S. into war in Iraq 11 years ago are falling short in their efforts to persuade the public and Congress that Washington needs to return.

Race for the Turkish Presidency Promises Suspense

The announcement this week of the personality chosen by Turkey’s opposition parties to run for the office of the President of the Republic has taken the majority of the Turks by surprise.

Conflicts in Syria and Iraq Raising Fears of Contagion in Divided Lebanon

With jihadists leading a Sunni uprising against Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq are beginning to reverberate across the region, raising fears of contagion in divided Lebanon where a suicide bombing took place on Friday after a period of calm.

IT and Internet Offer Possibilities of Overcoming Blockade in Gaza

"After graduating, I joined the thousands of other graduates on the list of the unemployed. Then I read about a project that offers a technology incubator for youth projects, applied, was accepted and now I’m no longer on that list!

From Religious Conflict to an Interfaith Community

Holy men and their holy books have etched a trail of tears and blood in the annals of human history. From the depths of peaceful temples, mobs have been dispatched with flaming torches; from steeples and minarets messages of hatred have floated down upon pious heads bent in prayer. For too long religion has incited violence and fueled conflict.

Turkey’s Kurdish Problem Likely to Worsen After ISIS Gains in Iraq

Eighteen months after a ceasefire between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkey’s security forces took effect, clouds of trouble are gathering in the country’s south-east.

Mosul Refugees Victims of “Victory of the Revolution”

“People with long beards and dressed like Afghans broke into our neighbourhood after they had bombed it. We were lucky to escape from that nightmare,” Aum Ahmad, a46-year-old woman from Mosul – 400 km northwest of Baghdad – told IPS from the recently set up Khazar refugee camp, 25 km east of the besieged city.

‘Fortress Europe’ Closing the Doors to Syrian Refugees

Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in their home country have come up against a less than accommodating “Fortress Europe”.

Syria’s Twin Jihads

The war in Syria has brought back to the forefront the concept of ‘jihad’, with tens of thousands of fighters currently waging what they believe to be a religious war there.