MIDEAST: Truce Beginning to Crack

Ten days of intensive fighting broke out between Israel and the Islamic resistance organisation Hamas last month despite a ceasefire.

IRAQ: Looking After Pockets, Not Patients

A nurse at Baquba General Hospital asked Ahmed Ali, who co-authored this report, for a bribe to look after his sick baby. It was hardly an exceptional demand. Patients around Iraq have begun commonly to speak of the need to bribe medical staff to get some form of care.

RIGHTS-MOROCCO: Abolition Activists Failing to Stir Campuses

Anti-death penalty activists have yet to carry through their plan for a new boost of campaigning in Moroccan universities, facing a combination of outright hostility and political apathy from some students.

DEATH PENALTY: Arab Cyber Project to have New Year Launch

The Rights and People project - an Arabic-language anti-death penalty venture - will start work in early 2009 with the launch of an online magazine, the first of its kind run by human rights activists in the 24-country region.

EGYPT: Many Oppose Jewish Festival

Jews from around the world come annually to Egypt to celebrate the birth anniversary of Abu Hassira, a 19th century holy man buried in the Nile Delta. But many local people oppose the celebrations, and this year particularly because of Israel's ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip.

MIDEAST: Gaza Fishermen Play Cat and Mouse with Israeli Navy

Israeli naval commandos recently hauled off three international peace activists off Palestinian fishing boats seven nautical miles off Gaza's coast. They were accompanying 15 Palestinian fishermen attempting to complete a day's fishing without being shot at or arrested by the Israeli navy.

LEBANON: Protected Against Melting Down

With the recent turmoil taking global economies by storm, industrialised countries have witnessed their growth levels slowly erode. How will the regional economy fare as dark clouds congregate over the Levant?

Q&A: ‘We Have to Develop Our Modern Sharia’

A unique human rights project has been recently set up to empower more than 300 million people in the Arab world to campaign for their individual human rights, according to Mostafa Hannaoui.

Q&A: ‘The Abolitionist Cause Should Be Separate from Politics’

The abolitionist movement in Syria faces more difficulties from religious institutions and scholars than from the state, says Ammar Qurabi.

Q&A: ‘Divinely Ordained Law Makes Abolition More Difficult’

Political Islam is the main barrier to abolishing the death penalty in most countries where it is still practised, says Maryam Namazie.

Q&A: 'Religious Institutions and Islamists Oppose Abolition'

King Mohamed VI of Morocco could easily abolish the death penalty by royal decree. But by keeping capital punishment on the statute books, the young King is yielding to official religious institutions and Islamists, says Brahim Ahensal.

MIDEAST: Settlers Stay, Or It’s Civil War

The resolution of the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict and future stability in the Middle East could hinge on Hebron, a little town in the southern Palestinian West Bank, 30 km south of Jerusalem.

DEATH PENALTY-LEBANON: Public Must Wait for Full Abolition Plan

The Lebanese government will use television to gain maximum attention for its plan to abolish the death penalty, giving one station the first right to question Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar about the details of an abolition bill which will be eventually presented to parliament.

MIDEAST: On Top of Humanitarian Disaster, A News Blackout

Israel has imposed a virtual news blackout on the Gaza Strip. For the last ten days no foreign journalists have been able to enter the besieged territory to report on the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's complete closure of Gaza's borders for the last two weeks.

MIDEAST: Palestinian Factions Torture Opponents

Unity talks between the two main Palestinian political factions Hamas and Fatah failed before they even began this week following Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's refusal to release 400 Hamas prisoners held in PA jails in the West Bank.

MIDEAST: Arabs Uneasy About Joining Israeli Army

The Israeli government has begun to actively promote voluntary army service for Israeli Arabs. The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is meanwhile considering plans to make civil service compulsory for all Israeli citizens, including Israeli Arabs.

LEBANON: Another Rupture Sealed, For Now

Over the past few months, Tripoli, a large harbour city sitting on Lebanon's northern shores, known for its mazy souks, century-old mansions and oriental sweets, has made front page headlines, falling prey to a series of deadly security threats. Following the recent political reconciliation between warring politicians, however, the army made headway towards establishing stability by infiltrating a terrorist cell accused of orchestrating attacks against the Lebanese army.

MIDEAST: So Easy for Israelis to Shoot to Kill

Israeli soldiers shot and killed three young Palestinians in the Ramallah district of the central West Bank last week. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) claimed the Palestinians were about to throw Molotov cocktails at soldiers and settlers in the Bet El settlement.

MIDEAST: Israel Targets Palestinian Students

The letter of acceptance that 28-year-old Hazem Hussain got for a business graduate programme in a Californian university once brought joy. Now he does not know what to do with it.

MIDEAST: Israel No Place To Be An Arab

The uneasy co-existence between Israel's Arabs and Jews has been further exacerbated by days of continuous rioting in the mixed city of Acre in northern Israel.

MIDEAST: Pressure Piling Up on Hamas Ahead of Unity Meet

Egypt recently re-opened its border with the Gaza Strip to limited traffic in advance of an upcoming Palestinian reconciliation conference to be held in Cairo next month. But some independent commentators say Egypt is merely using the border as a means of pressuring resistance faction Hamas into accepting its proposals for a Palestinian national unity government.