MIDEAST: Israel Looks Set On Confrontation Course with Syria

Israel will almost certainly strike again at Syria, possibly already in about a fortnight's time, a senior defence official indicated.

POLITICS-ISRAEL: Strike into Syria Lacks Conviction

A perilous move born of intense frustration over the inability to extinguish Palestinian suicide attacks, and one which could lead to a wider regional conflagration. Or, an overdue strike against a country that sponsors terror groups and is in any case too weak to retaliate.

POLITICS-SYRIA: Restraint Is the Only Option

Israel is risking a wider Middle East conflict in taking its battle against Palestinian militants to Syria for the first time in decades, analysts say. But a Syrian military response does not seem an option.

DEVELOPMENT: Donors Asked for Billions to Rebuild Iraq

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations said Friday that Iraq will need some 36 billion dollars for reconstruction and infrastructure over the coming four years, some of which is expected to come from sales of Iraqi oil.

IRAQ: Women’s Rights Put on Hold

Six months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women are waiting on the sidelines to see if and how they can achieve the rights they were deprived of under 35 years of dictatorship.

POLITICS: Israel Stronger but Still Shaky

The war in Iraq and the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime have left Israel in a position of unprecedented strategic strength in the Middle East.

MIDDLE EAST: Violence Fatigue Among Palestinians, Israelis Alike

The Palestinian uprising against Israel has entered its fourth year, making it clear that the bloody conflict in the Middle East cannot be resolved by force, as the loss of more than 3,200 lives since the Intifadah began three years ago proves.

MIDEAST: Israel Shaken by Rebel Pilots

"Only the best become pilots," they said in Israel in the early years of the state. Today, that still holds; only a few pass a gruelling battery of tests to become pilots. Even fewer complete the course, and those who do often move on to key positions.

POLITICS-SYRIA: US Could Find an Unlikely Partner

As the United States faces growing challenges in Iraq, help could come from an unexpected source. Syria, a member of the United Nations Security Council, which strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, is now ready to send peacekeeping troops.

IRAQ: Occupiers are Near Prisoners

They are the hated ones, the despised face of U.S.. occupation in Iraq. But the men and women who make up the U.S. forces are living in a hell of their own.

MIDEAST: Forget Killing Him, Israel Needs Arafat

Yasser Arafat is in his element. After three years of relative diplomatic obscurity, his name is again on the lips of leaders around the world.

FINANCE: IMF, Bank Move Into Middle East – Too Fast?

Middle Eastern governments need to adopt extensive free market economic policies, liberalise their business and trade and chop official spending if they want to spur growth and create jobs for their burgeoning populations, say the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

RELIGION: Controversial Fatwa Seeks to Unite Muslim Lovers

A leading Muslim scholar in Yemen has issued a controversial fatwa to create "married friendship" among Muslims living in the West.

POLITICS-ISRAEL: Where an Attack Is Not Just News

First comes the blast, towards the end of the evening in this quiet, residential Jerusalem neighbourhood. The loud dry sound is unmistakably that of a nearby bomb attack, the windows shake and the phoneline goes dead for a split second. After a minute or so of eerie silence, the sirens start screaming. The familiar scenario of a Jerusalem suicide attack once again unrolls outside in the street.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Targeted Killings – Self-Defence or War Crime?

Israel maintains that its policy of targeted killings, which have claimed the lives of at least 200 Palestinians since the start of the intifadah almost three years ago, is a legitimate means of defence against terrorism.

MIDEAST: New PM Nominee Brings Little Promise

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat on Sunday picked a moderate and one of the architects of the Oslo peace accords with Israel as the next Palestinian prime minister. But it is not clear that his choice, Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qureia, will enjoy any greater success than the battered Mahmoud Abbas who handed in his resignation Saturday.

IRAQ: Mostly Outsiders Appointed Ministers

The first post-Saddam Hussein team of ministers took office Wednesday in the midst of a rapidly deteriorating security situation.

MIDEAST: Across the Fence, Both Sides Are Right

An army jeep meanders along a dirt road next to a fence that scythes through the olive groves in the wadi down below, forming a brown snake-like scar on the landscape. This is the controversial separation fence being built by Israel between itself and the West Bank.

MIDEAST: Tensions Rise on Temple Mount

The Temple Mount, the Haram al Sharif to Muslims, has been reopened to non-Muslim visitors after remaining mostly closed to them since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifadah in September 2000. For more than a week now, tourists have again been posing for photographs before the gold-plated dome.

MIDEAST: Arafat Back in the Forefront

The seeming collapse of the peace road map has brought Yasser Arafat back to centre stage even though he was never quite outmanoeuvred by Israel and the United States.

ENVIRONMENT-EGYPT: Red Sea Loses its Sharks

Divers report a dramatic decline in the population of sharks amidst growing evidence that the controversial practice of shark-finning has reached Egypt's Red Sea.