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Sunday, May 24, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Arabs Rise for Rights
Syrian Opposition Rebrands as Rebels Advance
As Syrian rebels launched a new attack in Damascus, opposition leaders announced the creation of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, an umbrella group designed to be more representative of – and more influential with – anti-Assad forces on the ground.
Kurdish Prisoners Hungry for Freedom
Five MPs from Turkey’s main Kurdish political party, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and the Mayor of Diyarbakır have gone on hunger strike to support a protest by more than 700 Kurdish prison inmates. The prisoners’ hunger strike has now lasted 63 days, and spans dozens of prisons across Turkey.
Home Is Not for Visiting
It came like a bolt from the blue on this serene city perched in the hills of Galilee. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared on Israel’s Channel Two television earlier this month, “I want to see Safed! It’s my right to see it, but not to live there.”OP-ED: Unfinished Business Awaits Obama’s Second Term
Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region.
U.N. Warns Syria Heading Towards Destruction
Following its failed efforts to contain the 19-month-old insurrection in battle-torn Syria, the United Nations has issued a new warning: the besieged country is heading towards "destruction".
Egypt’s Women Rebel Against Harassment
Egyptian bullies who sexually harass women in the streets, often taking advantage of mob situations and the anonymity these provide, are getting a taste of their own medicine - and they don’t like it.
Algeria Skips the Revolutionary Spring
As the Arab Spring continues to rage across the Middle East and North Africa, the gaze of the international media has largely passed over a country that was once known for its restive population, its long and bloody decolonisation struggle and revolutionary zeal.
Dignity Grows On Olive Trees
Affixed to a large cement bloc, the rusted, grey gate leading Palestinian farmers from the northern West Bank village of Salem to their olive groves was opened for four days this year.
Egypt Revolution Makes It Worse for Women
During the uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak women stood shoulder to shoulder with men in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, pressing the revolution’s demands for freedom, justice and dignity. But those who hoped the revolution would make them equal partners in Egypt’s future claim they may be worse off now than under Mubarak’s authoritarian rule.
U.S.: Greater Middle East Dominates the Last Debate
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney Monday night.
Christians Worry Over a Future in Egypt
The tranquil, green, upper class Cairo suburb Maadi is a bubble of privilege separated from the city’s noisier, dirtier and overcrowded suburbs where working class Egyptians struggle to make ends meet and where Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has established a strong following.
Bombing Leaves Lebanon Shaken
The assassination of Lebanon’s top security official on Friday not only ravaged a quiet Beirut neighbourhood but also shattered the precarious sense of security many Lebanese have been desperately clinging to in recent months.
Pill Fails to Cure Occupation
It’s being taken as an antidote to the stresses of Occupation. But the prevalence of the painkiller Tramadol in the Gaza Strip has more to do with its ease of availability than its singular effectiveness as a reality-numbing substance.
Injured Struggle in the Sahara
Safia’s six-year-old body is riddled with scars from the rocket that hit her home in February. With her immediate family all killed in the violent attack, this sole survivor smiles shyly as she visits the medics that fought to save her life.U.S.: On Eve of Foreign Policy Debate, Voters Sour on Arab Spring
On the eve of Monday’s foreign policy debate between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the electorate appears increasingly disillusioned with the so-called Arab Spring, according to a new survey released by the Pew Research Center here.
Poverty Sparks New Unrest in Egypt
Ahmed Hassanein works in a modern factory in an industrial enclave west of Cairo. He wears a neatly pressed uniform and operates precision calibrated machinery on a line that produces components for foreign-brand passenger vehicles.U.N. Envoy Warns of Syria Crisis Spillover
Syria's 19-month conflict can set the entire region ablaze, international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has told reporters in Lebanon.Syria Stands Between Egypt and Iran
The election of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi to the presidency this summer was followed by a flurry of conjecture that the restoration of Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic relations – frozen since 1979 – was in the offing. Yet despite some initial indications to this effect, local analysts now say such speculation appears to have been premature.
Caged in the Great City
Ali Shuruf turns on the lights, that shine into a gaudy living room. Beyond the window, the dominant colour is uniformly grey: the house stands literally against a wall. Not just any wall – the infamous eight-metre cement wall separates Palestinians from Israelis.
The Key to Damascus Could Lie at the Borders
A group of six men listen as voices crackle through a walkie-talkie. They are sitting in a farmhouse in the north of Lebanon less than a kilometre from the Syrian border. The sound of gunfire and shelling in the distance sporadically punctuates the atmosphere. One of the group returns to the room after taking a telephone call. “Good news from the battle,” he exclaims with a smile.Experts Urge Focus on Microeconomics in Maghreb
A failure to focus on small-scale economics could be the most significant obstacle to stability in North Africa in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, economists, diplomats and development workers warned here on Friday.« Previous Page — Next Page »
The Arab Spring has changed the Arab seasons that have followed; it had to. The struggle continues in Syria; in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and in countries that did not change that dramatically, such as Bahrain and Yemen, the political world, and the tone of society itself has changed. IPS has not left these countries with the headlines that accompanied cataclysmic changes. We continue to track changes closely, always keeping in our sights first the rights of peoples, and then reporting changes from fresh, newsy and human perspective.
Middle East & North Africa
