GREECE: Austerity Measures Responsible For Athens’ ‘New Poor’

Harsh austerity measures and a struggling economy have given birth to the ‘new poor’ in Athens, a term used to describe those suffering the impacts of social exclusion and rapidly shrinking civic welfare institutions.

LIBYA: Visitors Could be Saviours

"A crossroads of history, continents and ancient empires; a place where history comes alive through the extraordinary monuments on its shores", reads a well- known tourist guidebook about Libya. It’s all still there, but the tourists aren’t there to see it.

U.S. Halts UNESCO Funding After Palestinian Vote

The administration of President Barack Obama announced Monday that it would immediately cut U.S. funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, just hours after UNESCO's governing board voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine full membership.

EGYPT: First Woman Candidate Begins Campaign

When post-revolution Egypt holds presidential elections next year, Buthaina Kamel is set to become the first woman in the country's modern history to run for the highest office. Although she knows her chances of winning are slim to none, she says she's doing it out of principle.

MIDEAST: Virtually, There Are No Borders

Israeli entrepreneurs dream of a region without borders. Given their country's remoteness from its vicinity, that's a natural need. It's a dream also nurtured by their Palestinian counterparts, and a national necessity given their own encirclement by Israel. That's where high-tech comes into play...

LIBYA: After Gaddafi, Unease Rules

"The war is over and Gaddafi already buried. What else could we possibly ask for?" says Adnan Abdulrafiq at his busy street restaurant in Omar Mukhtar street in downtown Tripoli. But troubles may not have ended with the war.

TURKEY: Media Bares Its Anti-Kurdish Bias

Following the attacks by Kurdish rebels against the Turkish military last week, the Turkish press has openly struck a nationalist and militaristic tone.

Q&A: Doha Summit to Boost Education on World’s Political Agenda

As digital technology begins to spread across classrooms the world over, the United Nations says the next generation of children will be educated far differently from their counterparts in the past.

Yemeni Women Burn Veils to Protest Killings

Hundreds of Yemeni women have set fire to traditional female veils in protest against the government's brutal crackdown on the country's popular uprising, as overnight clashes in the capital and another city killed 25 people, officials said.

EGYPT: Mubarak Men Begin to Resurface

Members of the regime of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak have demanded to be allowed to run in upcoming elections and warned of violence if legislation to prohibit their political ambitions is passed.

MIDEAST: Israel Evicting the Indigenous

As Israel moves ahead with a plan to forcibly displace tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins in the occupied West Bank, Mohammad Al-Korshan and his family are facing the real prospect of not only losing their home, but their traditional way of life.

Citizens of Nowhere

When Mona Kareem, a member of the Bidoun population of Kuwait, was 11 years old, a neighbour Kuwaiti woman asked her where she was from. When Kareem answered, "I am from Bidoun," the woman laughed at her. "There is no country called Bidoun. There is no Bidoun."

Plot Allegations Stir Complex Nationalist Feelings in Iran

The news of Iran's participation in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington and subsequent harsh rhetoric by senior officials in both Washington and Riyadh have generated deep and complex nationalist feelings on the part of the public here.

LIBYA: Hatred Divides Libya After Gaddafi

The long-time dictator who ruled Libya for nearly four decades with an iron fist may be gone, but racial hatred surfaces increasingly now by the day.

TUNISIA: Women Seek to Set Their Stamp

Nine months after a popular election toppled the dictatorship of former Tunisian president Zine Abidine Ben Ali, voters headed to the polls Sunday to cast their ballots for fresh leaders to rewrite the laws of the country's political system.

EGYPT: Bumpy Ride to a New Human Rights City

The upheaval of the Arab Spring has provided fertile ground to plant the seed of a new framework for human rights that moves beyond monitoring violations. Rights advocates want to integrate human rights into the fabric of daily life and are working at the community level to establish the first Human Rights City in the Middle East.

U.S.-IRAQ: Obama Confirms Full Withdrawal by Christmas

In a decision promptly denounced by Republicans, President Barack Obama announced here Friday that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the Christmas holidays in late December.

U.S. Looks Increasingly Irrelevant as Mideast Peace Broker

While a growing number of influential voices here and in the region insist that the nearly 20-year, U.S.-sponsored "peace process" has reached its terminal phase, the administration of President Barack Obama remains committed to reviving direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Q&A: Tackling Human Rights in Iran Is “Like a Minefield”

The Islamic Republic of Iran has one of the most desperate human rights situations in the world.

U.S. May Have Concealed Deterrent Aim of Iranian Plan

Scepticism about the U.S. allegation of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador has focused on doubts that high-level Iranian officials would have used someone like used car salesman Monssor Arbabsiar to carry out the mission.

TUNISIA: Islamist Violence Rises Ahead of Elections

Violent and increasingly common protests organised by far right Islamists are shocking and dividing the nation, and potentially threatening stability in the birthplace of the Arab spring.