MIDEAST: Divided We Educate

A thin Palestinian boy, no older than ten, darts between the piles of garbage and the congested lines of traffic which converge at the Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

MIDEAST: A Circle Not Easily Squared

Security first or borders first: security says Israel, borders retort the Palestinians. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are finally again getting under way. Israel though remains adamant that the only chance the talks have to make headway is for its security concerns to be satisfactorily addressed.

LEBANON: Twin Visions, Twin Enemies Tearing the Country Apart

Last month's bloody gun battle in the streets of a heavily populated Beirut neighbourhood may have been triggered by an individual incident; its sectarian dimension, however, has once again highlighted the underlying battle of two currents – two visions of Lebanon that have been tearing the country apart for the last four years.

MIDEAST: PA has its Back to the Wall

The village of Bani Naim, near Hebron in the southern West Bank, was under curfew and sealed off by Israeli soldiers stationed in troop carriers and jeeps, as peace talks continued in Washington.

MIDEAST: Gazans Desert Their Donkey-Zebra

"We haven't had a single visit yet through Ramadan, what kind of zoo doesn't get visitors during holidays?" asks Mahmoud Barghoud, 22, co-creator of the Marha zoo.

Poor Thirst as Nile Taps Run Dry

The midday sun punishes a group of veiled women as they wait in line to fill their buckets and jerrycans. They have travelled on foot to a rusty tap on the outskirts of Cairo that gushes irrigation water never intended for human consumption.

MIDEAST: Media New Battleground for Palestinians and Israelis

Palestinians and Israelis are using the media as a new battleground in their war to win hearts and minds across the globe, even as the protracted conflict in the Mideast drags on with no apparent end in sight.

MIDEAST: The Lights Are Going Out on Gaza

The Muslim festival Eid approaches, but not the end to power cuts that have darkened the month-long Ramadan fasting leading up to the festival. Or to the agony of Gazans, made worse by the reminder that it's approaching festive time.

MIDEAST: Ramadan Goes Down Under Rubble

With power cuts up to 16 hours to full days, a soaring heat wave and unbearable humidity, the Israeli-led siege on Gaza is but one of many factors leaving Ramadan miserable for the majority of Palestinians in Gaza.

LEBANON: Rich Feast Through Month of Fasting

Although not a celebration in the traditional sense, Ramadan in Lebanon is a time of joy for many, during which families reconnect and share their wealth with the poor. But in this country of extremes, not everyone has the luxury of celebrating the holy month.

MIDEAST: Netanyahu Ignores President, and Wife

Thousands of Israelis have protested in a central park here demanding that their government revoke its decision to deport 400 children of migrant workers.

EGYPT: Military Court Sentences Civilian Workers

An Egyptian military court handed down sentences Monday in the trial of eight civilian factory workers who led a protest against deteriorating safety conditions in an army-owned factory. Rights groups say the trial should never have taken place.

MIDEAST: Bureaucracy Limits Rights of Palestinian Women

As Hamas cracks down on the rights of Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip, their sisters in the occupied West Bank are slowly gaining ground. But a bureaucracy, that is sometimes supported by foreign aid, is crippling these advances.

MIDEAST: ‘McCarthyism’ Rises in Israel

Rightwing Israeli groups financially supported by Jewish and fundamentalist Christian groups from abroad are on a campaign to undermine free thought in Israeli universities. Collaterally, a move is under way by right-wing parties in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to limit the freedom of action of civil and human rights-minded NGOs.

MIDEAST: This Math Class May Figure Out Israel

In a bright and spacious classroom, with plants overflowing in the courtyard outside, six students lean forward at their desks looking at the 10-digit addition they are asked to make. One student stands before the numbers on the chalkboard and a red and yellow-beaded abacus. But her attention is on the abacus she visualises in her mind.

MIDEAST: Palestinian Patients Suffer From Political Rivalry

Cancer patient Ahmed Abu Fuad needs chemotherapy to survive. Muhammad Subeh needs an eye-transplant while paramedic Alaa Sarhan desperately needs surgery to remove shrapnel from his body. But these Gazans are unable to leave the area to seek the required medical treatment elsewhere, and it is not because of the Israeli siege.

MIDEAST: Darkness Dawns at Ramadan

"It's been days without electricity and water. We can't do anything, and it's unbearably hot now." Abu Fouad, 83, speaks of the power cuts plaguing all of the Gaza Strip.

MIDEAST: Stitching Together a Living, Somehow

Just off Omar Al-Mukhtar Street, Gaza City's main thoroughfare, in a narrow, sandy alley way is a little second-hand clothing shop. In the dimly lit store, with only intermittent electricity for some hours a day at best, sits a single battered and aging sewing machine.

MIDEAST: Barriers Rise Between Ramadan Gatherings

For seven years Majda Abdul Qader Sheikh, 38, has not been allowed to visit the home of her parents, just a few hundred metres from her house.

MIDEAST: Uprooted Villagers Hold Fast During Ramadan

On the eve of the start of Ramadan last week, Israeli police demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert. It was the third time within two weeks that the village had been razed.

MIDEAST: Towards ‘Deja vu All Over Again’

"If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Sometimes, the nonsensical quote of the legendary New York Yankees baseball catcher Yogi Berra has a real message. It can pointedly be applied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on peace with the Palestinians.