Palestinians Prisoners Languish in Administrative Detention

"I’m sick with worry about my daughter. I’m afraid of what they are doing to her. She has done nothing to deserve this. If they have anything against her why don’t they bring her to trial?" Yehiya Al Shalabi asked IPS rhetorically.

EGYPT: Mubarak Trial Another Win for Tahrir Protesters

Egyptians watched with rapt attention as deposed president Hosni Mubarak was hauled before court on live television to answer charges of corruption and murder. The move appears to have restored public confidence in Egypt's ruling military council, which has governed the country since Mubarak's February ouster.

Gaza Clings to a Touch of Disneyland

On any given evening, Gaza's small downtown pedestrian area, the Jundi, is crowded with adults and children. Many are fleeing the heat of their homes during the regular power cuts. The majority are there for want of something to do, even if that means merely sitting on the park's simple concrete benches to talk and sip tea.

After the Arab Spring, an Israeli Summer

"The people demand social justice!" Across the country's major cities, over 300,000 demonstrators, five percent of Israel's Jewish population, chanted the rallying call for the third consecutive Saturday.

EGYPT: State Media has New Bosses, Old Habits

Six months since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the state media organs that once glorified the dictator's policies and glossed over his failures have new leaders. Yet the mindset of decades of authoritarian rule remains intact, say media experts.

ISRAEL: High Costs Force New Settlements of Sorts

About 10,000 people marched through the streets of downtown Jerusalem last week chanting "The people demand social justice" and calling for access to affordable housing. The demonstration was one of about a dozen taking place simultaneously throughout Israel – which drew nearly 150,000 total protesters – as part of a growing movement against the high cost of housing and living expenses.

Book Plots J Street’s Coordinates on Map of U.S.-Israel Politics

The "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby group J Street has drawn a lot of attention in its short lifetime. Despite decidedly moderate politics, its leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has repeatedly been the centre of controversy, and the group's very existence has stirred debate in the U.S. Jewish community about the boundaries of acceptable discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

MOROCCO: Arab Spring Haunts Flexible King

In spite of an amendment to the constitution, early general elections planned next October, and numerous social and economic reforms, the Moroccan monarchy may not survive the Arab Spring, activists say.

U.S. Muslims More Tolerant, Opposed to Violence than Other Faiths

Muslims in the United States express greater tolerance for members of other faiths than any other major religious group, according to a major new survey and report released here Thursday by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center.

Palestinian Bedouin a Besieged Minority of the Minority

Israeli policies are destroying the livelihoods of Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and the Negev in southern Israel, activists and aid workers warn.

JORDAN: Ripe for Reform, Slow to Change

Having weathered the maelstrom that engulfed the Middle East earlier this year, Jordan's government has faced simmering unrest as protesters continue to press for political and economic reforms.

MIDEAST: Boats Run Short of Sea to Sail On

"My father was a boat-builder and I learned from him, worked on boats all my life. Now there's no work at all." Abu Fayez Bakr, 64, is one of two boat-builders in the Gaza Strip, the last of a dying trade, despite Palestinians' penchant for the sea and its bounty.

U.N. Rights Committee Breaks 43-Year Israeli Taboo on Gaza

When the United Nations General Assembly created a three- member special committee to investigate Israeli human rights violations in occupied territories back in December 1968, the Jewish state reacted with obvious anger.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Prepare for Massive Uprising

Leading members of the Palestinian Popular Committees in the West Bank plan massive civil unrest and disobedience against the Israeli occupation authorities come September when the Palestinians take their case for statehood to the UN.

EGYPT: Defections Threaten to Crack Muslim Brotherhood

For the last 40 years, the Muslim Brotherhood's united front has been the envy of Egypt's political opposition. But in the six months since the fall of the Mubarak regime, the Islamist group has been racked by unprecedented internal divisions.

Iran’s Image Plummets in Arab World, Poll Finds

Iranian leaders have tried to portray democracy movements in the Arab world as inspired by their 1979 Islamic revolution and predicted that Iran's regional support would grow as pro- Western dictators fell.

U.S.: Key Committee Slashes Foreign Aid, Warns Palestinians

Amidst growing fears of a new fiscal crisis sparked by a possible U.S. debt default next week, a key Republican-led Congressional committee Wednesday approved deep cuts in foreign aid and contributions to the United Nations and other multilateral institutions next year.

MIDEAST: Families Cry Out for Palestinian Prisoners

"We could enter the Guinness book of records for the longest running weekly sit- ins in the world," Nasser Farrah, from the Palestinian Prisoners' Association, jokes dryly. Since 1995, Palestinian women from Beit Hanoun to Rafah have met every Monday outside the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Gaza City, holding photos and posters of their imprisoned loved ones, calling on the ICRC to ensure the human rights of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel's 24 prisons and detention centres.

War Makes for Strange Bedfellows

A soldier and an Islamist - both fleeing the crackdown on Syrian pro-democracy protesters and seeking refuge in neighbouring Lebanon - have discovered that they share similar views on the ongoing uprising.

EGYPT: ‘One Mubarak Goes, 18 Come In’

Almost six months after the popular uprising that led to the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak, the honeymoon between protesters and Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) - initially portrayed as a "defender of the revolution" - appears to be over.

EGYPT: Parliamentary Polls to Precede New Constitution

In a blow to those calling for a new constitution to be drawn up before elections are held, Egypt's ruling military council last week reiterated its intention to hold parliamentary polls later this year.