POLITICS: U.S. to Name Ambassador to Damascus after Four Years

After informing the Syrian embassy in Washington on Tuesday night, the U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday that President Barack Obama will be sending an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005.

MIDEAST: The Writing Is On the Settlement Walls

A paralysing equation has long bedevilled would-be Middle East peacemakers: either, go directly to negotiating the kernel issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict - borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem - and leave, in the context of a full peace, the thorny question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to fall naturally into place. Or, tackle the settlements head-on, thereby opening the way for a peace drive.

MIDEAST: Bloody Showdown Looming if Unity Talks Fail

Egyptian mediators have set Jul. 7 as deadline for final Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo. The Egyptians say time is running out, and if there is no progress in July, they will no longer be prepared to arbitrate.

EGYPT: Unquiet Flows the Nile

Differences over sharing of Nile waters may have deepened following the failure among the nine countries along the Nile to come to an agreement.

MIDEAST: Aid Agencies Slam Gaza Blockade

Forty international aid agencies and NGOs have released a joint statement condemning Israel's blockade of Gaza, to mark the second anniversary of the coastal territory being hermetically sealed off from the outside world.

LEBANON: Defeated Shias Ponder Uncertain Future

A large highway cuts through the green hills connecting Lebanon's south to the Mediterranean Sea. Here, nestled amid banana trees and colourful bougainvillea bushes, lies the city of Tyre, a bastion of the Shia community and a significant base of the Lebanese opposition. Now, following the parliamentary elections and the victory of the March 14 political group, Shias of the south are asking what lies in store for them.

US-MIDEAST: Carter Adds Weight to Shuttle Diplomacy Push

Pres. Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and peace envoy Sen. George Mitchell have been moving steadily ahead with the campaign Obama launched on his first day in the White House, to broker a comprehensive and sustainable Arab-Israeli peace.

MIDEAST: Attack on Water Brings Sanitation Crisis

'Biddun mey, fish heyya', they say in Arabic for a universal truth: 'Without water, there is no life'.

POPULATION: The Worst Places to Be a Refugee

Gaza, South Africa and Thailand are among the world's worst places to be a refugee, according to the latest annual World Refugee Survey released here Wednesday by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

US-MIDEAST: Parsing Netanyahu’s Palestinian State

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out his terms for peace in the Middle East. In a highly anticipated speech at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University last Sunday, Netanyahu said – for the first time – that he was willing to consider a "demilitarised" Palestinian state, existing side by side with Israel.

MIGRATION: Pakistan Refugee Crisis Worst in a Decade, U.N. Says

Forty-two million people were forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide in 2008, said a new report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released Tuesday.

MIDEAST: Netanyahu Offer a ‘Big Zero’

Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, and a close confidant of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign policy speech Sunday night as a big zero.

MIDEAST: Peace Talk Without Peace Vision

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much anticipated policy speech about his peace intentions was suffused with peace rhetoric, but it was starkly short on a peace vision.

MIDEAST: Israel Tightens Stranglehold in East Jerusalem

"What are you doing here?" The motorist in the battered white Volvo stops to ask us alongside an overflowing rubbish cart. Residents of this poor Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem have been burning garbage in a bid to clear the uncollected mounds.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Begin to See Real Hope

Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat believes Palestinians are politically in their strongest position ever in their decades-long conflict with the Israelis.

DEVELOPMENT: UNESCO Race Wide Open

The contest for a new UNESCO director-general is now wide open with the addition of last-minute nominees for the post, following the controversy around leading contender Farouk Hosny.

MIDEAST: Obama Speech Leaves a Heavy Hangover

The historic speech U.S. President Barack Obama delivered in Cairo Jun. 4 continues to stir people around the Middle East. Questions are raised what it will mean on the ground in the region.

POLITICS: Syrian Foreign Minister Eager to Work with Obama

Former U.S. senator George Mitchell is due to arrive in Syria's capital, Damascus, Friday on his first visit there since being named Pres. Barack Obama's special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace.

MIDEAST: Some Unclean Drops to Drink

Faqua village has found itself unfortunately named. Faqua in Arabic means spring water bubbles; the village was named after the abundant natural underground springs that were once found all around it.

MIDEAST: Long Way From ‘Settlerland’ to ‘Palestineland’

Has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the Obama message? To judge by his minimalist response to President Barack Obama's landmark Cairo University address and his continuing reluctance to meet Obama's demand for a total freeze on Israeli settlements, the answer would seem to be, 'No'.

POLITICS: Iranians Keen on Improved Ties with U.S.

More than three out of every four Iranian citizens favour improved relations with the United States, according to a major survey conducted less than one month before this Friday's presidential elections in Iran by a U.S. non-governmental organisation, Terror Free Tomorrow (TFT).