MIDEAST: Environment Too Encounters a Barrier

The visual impact of Israel's new separation barrier is all too clear. Even from the historical heart of old Jerusalem, the massive grey concrete wall snaking over nearby hills is a huge eyesore.

U.S.: Jewish Groups Press Mideast Peace

A growing number of American Jews believes that major changes in U.S., Israeli and Palestinian policies are essential to the resumption of any meaningful negotiations for peace - but they are fighting an uphill struggle because of President George W Bush's support for the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

MIDDLE EAST: Israeli Closures Crush Palestinian Economy

Four years of an Israeli military crackdown on a popular Palestinian uprising, based on closures of towns and villages, have left the economy of the occupied territories in tatters and its people facing soaring poverty, the World Bank said Tuesday.

RIGHTS: Groups Push Bulldozer Maker to End Sales to Israel

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has joined the campaign to pressure U.S.-based heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc to stop selling bulldozers to Israel's military because it uses the machines to violate human rights in the occupied territories.

IRAQ: France Stands Up to the U.S.

The differences between France and Iraq entered a new phase at the summit that began at the Egyptian resort Sharm el-Sheikh Monday.

PALESTINE: Environment a Casualty in Israeli Occupation

''Trees Sustain the Lives of People. Stop Uprooting the Trees of Palestine,'' reads a poster that is trying to call attention at a world conservation conference, underway here, to how precious olive trees have become a casualty in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

POLITICS-U.S.: Arafat’s Passing Poses Major Test for Bush II

The death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will test whether U.S. President George W Bush intends to maintain his staunch support for Israel's right-wing government at the risk of further alienating the U.S.' European allies and Muslim public opinion.

POLITICS: Groups Fear Canada Tilting to Israel

Fears are rising among groups that lobby for the Palestinian cause that Canada might be abandoning its traditional middle-of-the-road position on the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

MIDEAST: There Is Life After Arafat

Ramallah moves to the slow and heavy rhythm of any Muslim town in the Middle East during the fasting month of Ramadan.

U.S. ELECTION: New Bush Foreign Policy Posture Unlikely

Earnest hopes that U.S. President George W Bush will be prepared to seriously ''reach out'' to U.S. friends and allies overseas to make his foreign policy less aggressive and unilateral in his second term are likely to be earnestly disappointed.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: ‘What After Arafat?’

A historic vote in Israel's parliament to withdraw from Gaza has been overshadowed by serious concern over the health of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

POLITICS: U.N. Terrorism Treaty Deadlocked

The United Nations, which was on the verge of adopting a new international convention against nuclear terrorism, has been forced to shelve the proposed treaty because of opposition from Islamic states.

FINANCE: Church to Cut Dollars to Firms Aiding Israeli Occupation

The U.S. branch of a global church that threatened to stop investing in companies whose actions support the Israeli military's occupation of Palestinian land says it will go ahead with the plan despite an outcry from Israel, some Jewish groups and members of the U.S. Congress.

POLITICS: Mideast Reformers Warn of Backsliding

A landmark reform plan prepared by 40 civil society groups from 15 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries for a recent G8 meeting in New York is at risk of "a false start," according to one of its signatories.

MEDIA: Is Al-Jazeera the New Symbol of Arab Nationalism?

When the League of Arab States was created in 1945, it was perceived as the ultimate symbol of Arab nationalism in a politically and militarily de-moralised Middle East.

POLITICS: Bush May Support Sharon, But Jewish Voters Back Kerry

If U.S. President George W. Bush thought that aligning U.S. Middle East policy behind the Likud-led government in Israel would win him substantial numbers of Jewish votes in the November election, he must be sorely disappointed.

POLITICS-U.S.: Spy Probe Scans Neo Con-Israel Ties

The burgeoning scandal over claims that a Pentagon official passed highly classified secrets to a Zionist lobby group appears to be part of a much broader set of FBI and Pentagon investigations of close collaboration between prominent U.S. neo-conservatives and Israel dating back some 30 years.

IRAQ: Palestinians Go Down with Saddam

The scorched football field of the Palestinian Haifa sports club on the edge of Baghdad, now an improvised refugee camp that at one point housed some 2,000 people, stands as a symbol of the fate of the Palestinians of Iraq, which looks today uncertain.

MIDEAST: Conflict Spreads Within Fatah

A bullet hole in the curtain of the television room at Palestinian opposition figure Nabil Amr's luxurious villa still attests to the shooting last Wednesday in which he was heavily wounded. Amr survived and is in hospital in Jordan, but Palestinian politics may be in a terminal crisis.

POLITICS: Lobbying Crests Ahead of U.N. Vote on Israel’s Wall

Lobbying has shifted into high gear on a resolution to be brought before the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that will call on Israel to tear down a wall it is building around the West Bank and pay reparations to affected Palestinians.

IRAQ: Arms Suppliers Scramble to Feed Hungry Market

When the 15-member U.N. Security Council legitimised the U.S.-imposed interim government in Baghdad in June, the five-page unanimous resolution carried a provision little publicised in the media: the lifting of a 14-year arms embargo on Iraq.