MIDEAST: Children Find an Island of Near Normalcy

It is a warm spring day as citizens go about their business. Colourful bougainvilleas climb the building housing the Yaffa Community Centre (YCC). Inside the centre’s kindergarten children play while older students attend a class at the media centre. A group of foreigners is touring the attractively decorated building and getting a brief introduction to its history.

MIDEAST: From the Sea to the Pond

"Farmed fish are now better than sea fish in Gaza. They shouldn't be, but because of the sewage in Gaza's sea and the Israeli fishing restrictions, farmed fish are cleaner and healthier than sea fish."

EGYPT: Anger Grows Over Slow Pace of Justice

The violence that engulfed downtown Cairo last week and left over 1,000 civilians injured took everyone by surprise, but was not unexpected. It had been brewing for nearly five months.

BAHRAIN: Rifts Weaken Women’s Protest

Women activists in Bahrain have acknowledged their poor showing in the recent unrest as well as in efforts to fight sectarianism, and blamed it on rifts within their organisations.

MIDEAST: Dancing in a Palestinian Bubble

It’s Thursday night, the beginning of the weekend in the Muslim world, and time to party and let one’s hair down in Ramallah, the occupied West Bank’s isolated bubble and de facto capital.

EGYPT: Parties Proliferate in Political Spring

The liberalisation of Egypt's political process following the Jan. 25 Revolution has led to a proliferation of new political parties, both religiously-oriented and secular. Within the last five months, four new parties have officially launched, while at least 16 others are currently in the pipeline.

LEBANON: Indictments Issued in Hariri Death Probe

A United Nations-backed court has handed down indictments requesting the arrest of four members of the Shia movement Hezbollah in connection with the 2005 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, according to media reports.

Egypt Rejects IMF Conditions

Egypt has cancelled plans to borrow 3 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund because of conditions that violated the country’s national sovereignty and a public outcry that warned against terms that were blamed for impoverishing many Egyptians.

MIDEAST: A Zionist Way to Back Palestinians

To many people Rabbi Arik Ascherman would appear to be a contradiction in terms. He is an ardent Zionist and religious Jew who believes that God made a covenant with the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. But the core of Ascherman’s Zionist ideology revolves around fighting for human rights, especially those of the Palestinians.

MIDEAST: Post-Mubarak Egypt Inches Towards Iran

Based on several recent statements by Egyptian and Iranian officials, Cairo and Tehran appear closer than ever to restoring diplomatic ties following a 31-year hiatus.

MIDEAST: Turkey Sails Closer to Israel Ahead of Flotilla

Amidst last-minute preparations for a new Peace Flotilla that will try this week to break Israel's maritime blockade on Gaza, signs of a tentative thawing in relations between Israel and Turkey following a two-year crisis are becoming more and more apparent.

Scrubbing Egypt Clean of Mubarak

Throughout Egypt the once-ubiquitous name and image of ousted president Hosni Mubarak is becoming increasingly scarce as citizens attempt to purge the land of the former dictator's tarnished legacy.

Protests Follow Syrian President’s Speech

Protesters have taken to the streets across Syria to denounce a speech by President Bashar al-Assad, saying his address did not meet popular demands for sweeping political reform.

MIDEAST: When a Spy Speaks

The man who, for the last eight years, embodied Israel's secret operations and had a penchant for the use of forged documents by his spies has been ordered by his former boss to relinquish his own diplomatic passport.

MIDEAST: Medical Crisis Worsening in Gaza

"During the first years of the siege, we could still manage, but nowadays we have no alternatives," says Dr. Hassan Khalaf, Deputy Health Minister in Gaza. "It is a major crisis: many health services have stopped, and I'm afraid this will spiral out of control, because Gaza doesn't have the essential medicines and supplies needed."

OP-ED: Experts Fear Israeli Design to Balkanise Arab States

Developments in Libya have raised fears among Egyptian analysts and political figures of the possible break-up of the North African nation into two warring halves. To support the assertion, they point to longstanding Israeli designs - supported by the western powers - to balkanise the Arab states of the region.

MIDEAST: Sphinx Avenue Paved With Bitter Memories

Mohamed Saeed’s battle with a wrecking crew ended predictably. His refusal to leave the home his grandfather built and defiant attempts to throw himself in front of the giant hydraulic hammer bought his family some time, but by the end of the day their two-storey house was reduced to rubble.

MIDEAST: Where Freelance Means Abandoned

Sitting by the hospital bed of freelance photographer Mohammed Othman, Ashraf Abu Amrah knows that nobody owns a freelance journalist from Gaza who gets injured, or dies.

Al-Zawahiri Named New Al-Qaeda Chief

Al-Qaeda has named Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new chief following the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group has said in a statement issued in the name of the group's general command.

MIDEAST: Politics Triumphs Over Reason

"The heart has it reasons, of which reason knows nothing of," wrote 15th- century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Apply the words of wisdom to the prospective U.N.-endorsed recognition of Palestinian statehood, but replace "the heart" with 'politics'.

SYRIA: Humanitarian Crisis Intensifies as Security Council Remains Idle

When reports of protests and subsequent civilian deaths as security forces fired on protestors began filtering in from the southern Syrian city of Dera‘a in March, many wondered what turn events would take in both Syria and the international community in the wake of earlier uprisings during the ‘Arab Spring’.