Egypt Embraces Oil Monarchs, Dubiously

With the nation's economy in tatters from the uprising that ousted its dictator of 30 years, Egypt's transitional government has turned its back on the Western lending institutions that once propped the Mubarak regime. But its decision to accept the massive aid packages dangled by the oil-rich Arab Gulf states has raised suspicions about their intentions, as well as its own.

MIDEAST: Alternative Remedies Fall Short in Gaza

"When I came back to Gaza in 2006, before the siege started, people came to me for acupuncture," says Dr. Hisham Mwtoweh, a medical doctor and acupuncture practitioner trained in China and Korea.

MIDEAST: Marching in Step for Peace

For the first time in over 20 years, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists marched peacefully together on Friday to support the Palestinian drive for statehood expected to be endorsed at the UN General Assembly in September.

MIDEAST: Borders in Way of Orders

Waddah Bsaiso is ready to export, if the Israeli-imposed siege would allow him. He has the experience, the contacts, and the products, but is prevented by Israel's strict ban on virtually all Gazan exports, save a token amount of flowers periodically allowed out of the Strip.

HEALTH: Israeli Takes a Step Forward

"One step at a time," this fairy tale says. "Wonders and miracles, these shoes brought me back my life!" For Miriam Gilebsky, walking is no simple thing, it’s an achievement greater than life, like walking on the moon, perhaps. One small step for health is one giant leap when you suffered a stroke.

U.S. Standing Plunges Across Arab World

The United States' popularity in the Arab world has plummeted to levels lower than the last year of the George W. Bush administration, according to a new survey of public opinion in six Arab countries released here Wednesday.

OP-ED: Foreign Policy Goes Gaga

Lady Gaga and Alice Walker don't have much in common. One dresses in red meat; the other doesn't even eat the stuff. One writes lyrics like "I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it's free." The other writes "The Color Purple".

French Ship Carries Freedom Flotilla’s “Dignity” to Gaza

The French vessel Dignité-Al Karama is the only boat from the Freedom Flotilla II actually sailing for Gaza in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade imposed in 2006. At the same time, six Spanish members of the humanitarian aid mission went on hunger strike in the Greek capital.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Won’t Learn Israeli Lessons

Widespread strikes across Palestinian civil society could be in store for East Jerusalem at the start of the next school year, as the municipality moves ahead with its current plan to implement an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools.

EGYPT: Fishing Dangerously for Quick Net Worth

Ali Mohsen knows how to tell a good fish story. The wiry, white-haired Egyptian mariner weaves a yarn about his childhood days when the sea was so full of fish that one could simply dangle a hand net over the side of the boat and pull up a seafood dinner. This morning, his crew spent hours out at sea with only four kilos of small fish to show for it.

MIDEAST: Never a Good Day for This Population

In dire need of money to assist her family back home, 27-year-old Makeda from Ethiopia was forced to return to the Middle East as a domestic worker.

MIDEAST: ‘Flytilla’ Debacle Another PR Nightmare For Israel

Confused foreign tourists arriving at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on Friday would be forgiven for thinking that a terrorist attack was about to take place.

MIDEAST: A Weekly Walk to the Border

It is another sweltering morning in Gaza. Despite the heat, a tenacious group of women, men and children gathers near the bombed Agricultural College in Beit Hanoun for the weekly march to the "buffer zone", the 300 metres flanking the Gaza-Israel Green Line border which Israeli authorities have declared off-limits to Palestinians.

MIDEAST: Egypt-Israel Gas Pipeline Targeted

The pipeline that carries Egyptian natural gas to Israel was attacked by unknown perpetrators on Monday (Jul. 4), the third such incident since the Jan. 25 Revolution that ended the rule of longstanding former president Hosni Mubarak.

MIDEAST: Mosques Carry the Scars of War

"The mosque was just 100 metres from our house. We prayed there every day, five times a day. But it was more than a house of prayer," says Mohammed, a Beit Hanoun resident, of one of the 34 mosques completely destroyed during the 23-day Israeli war on Gaza in 2008-2009.

GREECE: Activists Protest Ban Confining Gaza Freedom Flotilla to Port

Some 30 Spanish activists are occupying the embassy of their country in the Greek capital to demand that their government pressure Greece to allow the Freedom Flotilla II – "Stay Human" to set sail for the Gaza Strip.

MIDEAST: Women on a Political Backslide

Following five months of bitter political wrangling, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati finally announced a new government in mid-June. But while many Lebanese feel relieved over the long overdue appointments, gender equality campaigners despair that there is not a single female among 30 ministers appointed to the new Cabinet. It has further ruffled activist feathers that this glaring omission has failed to elicit the condemnation they are demanding.

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."

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.

MIDEAST: Gaza Flotilla Move Sinks

The besieger is besieged, such is the forlorn fact emanating from the order by Greece to block the ships docked at its ports from setting sail to the Palestinian strip of land, and that fact seems to have sealed the Flotilla's fate.