MIDEAST: Aid Agencies Slam Gaza Blockade

Forty international aid agencies and NGOs have released a joint statement condemning Israel's blockade of Gaza, to mark the second anniversary of the coastal territory being hermetically sealed off from the outside world.

LEBANON: Defeated Shias Ponder Uncertain Future

A large highway cuts through the green hills connecting Lebanon's south to the Mediterranean Sea. Here, nestled amid banana trees and colourful bougainvillea bushes, lies the city of Tyre, a bastion of the Shia community and a significant base of the Lebanese opposition. Now, following the parliamentary elections and the victory of the March 14 political group, Shias of the south are asking what lies in store for them.

MIDEAST: Attack on Water Brings Sanitation Crisis

'Biddun mey, fish heyya', they say in Arabic for a universal truth: 'Without water, there is no life'.

LEBANON: Law to Stop Violence Against Women Takes Time

There was some good news for women’s activists in Lebanon last week.

MIDEAST: Netanyahu Offer a ‘Big Zero’

Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, and a close confidant of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign policy speech Sunday night as a big zero.

MIDEAST: Peace Talk Without Peace Vision

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much anticipated policy speech about his peace intentions was suffused with peace rhetoric, but it was starkly short on a peace vision.

MIDEAST: Israel Tightens Stranglehold in East Jerusalem

"What are you doing here?" The motorist in the battered white Volvo stops to ask us alongside an overflowing rubbish cart. Residents of this poor Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem have been burning garbage in a bid to clear the uncollected mounds.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Begin to See Real Hope

Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat believes Palestinians are politically in their strongest position ever in their decades-long conflict with the Israelis.

MIDEAST: Obama Speech Leaves a Heavy Hangover

The historic speech U.S. President Barack Obama delivered in Cairo Jun. 4 continues to stir people around the Middle East. Questions are raised what it will mean on the ground in the region.

MIDEAST: Some Unclean Drops to Drink

Faqua village has found itself unfortunately named. Faqua in Arabic means spring water bubbles; the village was named after the abundant natural underground springs that were once found all around it.

MIDEAST: Long Way From ‘Settlerland’ to ‘Palestineland’

Has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the Obama message? To judge by his minimalist response to President Barack Obama's landmark Cairo University address and his continuing reluctance to meet Obama's demand for a total freeze on Israeli settlements, the answer would seem to be, 'No'.

LEBANON: March 14 Marches Ahead

The Jun. 7 election in Lebanon has provided another dramatic turn of events in the country's tumultuous political arena. While early opinion polls had pointed to a landslide sweep for the March 8 opposition that prominently includes Hizbullah, the Western and Arab backed March 14 coalition won the majority of parliamentary seats in a surprise victory.

MIDEAST: Israel Cracks Down on Minority Rights

Three bills recently making the rounds in the Israeli parliament have caused outrage amongst Israel's Arab minority.

LEBANON: Hizbullah Punching Above Its Numbers

Understanding Lebanon's complex political system is no easy task. In a relatively small country of about four million, Lebanon has more than 18 religious communities and dozens of active political parties. The sectarian political system divides the 128 seats of parliament between 10 of those religious sects, leaving one for minorities.

LEBANON: Women Battle for Citizenship Rights

One can be born in Lebanon and live here all one's life, and still not be a Lebanese citizen. Lebanon is one of few remaining countries in the Middle East where a mother is unable to pass citizenship to her children.

MIDEAST: Obama Turns the Screws on Israel

Air raid sirens wailed out on Tuesday morning and Israelis were asked to go down into bomb shelters as the country engaged in its largest-ever civil defence drill. Israelis remain deeply worried by what they perceive as an existential threat of a possible future all-out missile attack from Iran and its proxies.

MIDEAST: Palestinian Authority Going the Israeli Way

A surge in confidence, following unprecedented U.S. political support, led to the Palestinian Authority's bloody crackdown on a Hamas cell in the northern West Bank on Sunday which left six Palestinians dead.

EGYPT: Cyber Insurgency Rattles Regime

Egyptian cyber-dissidents are becoming increasing vocal in their online criticism of President Hosni Mubarak's regime, utilising a widening repertoire of Internet networking and publishing tools to expose government abuses.

LEBANON: Legal Flaws Could Twist Election Result

When Lebanon heads to the polls Jun. 7 to decide whether the Hizbullah-led opposition alliance will unseat the ruling Western-backed coalition, voter anonymity could be compromised by shortcomings in the 2008 parliamentary election law.

MIDEAST: Bloody New Battles Suit Israel

The inevitable has happened. Simmering tensions between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have left six Palestinians dead, in the bloodiest confrontation between the two groups since Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza in June 2007.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Honour Holocaust Victims

On a cool and overcast day, a procession of grim-faced people filed silently past pictures of heaps of skeletons piled high, of emaciated survivors with blank stares corralled behind barbed wire, barely clinging to life.