POLITICS: Where Iran Fits in the Mideast Peace Puzzle

What is the relationship between the United States' policy towards Iran and its performance on Arab-Israeli peacemaking, including the crucial quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

FRANCE: 'Defying Rules on Arms Sales to Israel'

French arms sales to Israel are "in total contradiction" of European Union rules on the defence industry, the author of a new study has said.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Honour Holocaust Victims

On a cool and overcast day, a procession of grim-faced people filed silently past pictures of heaps of skeletons piled high, of emaciated survivors with blank stares corralled behind barbed wire, barely clinging to life.

MIDEAST: Israel Threatens to Outlaw Palestinian Memory

Israel is set to approve a radical new bill which threatens to legalise discrimination against its sizeable Arab minority for the first time.

MIDEAST: Gaza Collects So Much Rubbish

Suliman Khodari begins his shift at 5am on one of Gaza City's busiest streets. With his horse-drawn cart, Suliman spends seven hours every morning hauling away the rubbish left by residents and shop owners of the neighbourhood. But he is not a scavenger.

MIDEAST: Humanitarian Crisis Deepens in West Bank

"I heard voices, I turned around to look, and saw a group of Israeli settlers assaulting my brother Hammad," says Abdallah Wahadin, 82, a Palestinian farmer from Beit Ummar near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

MIDEAST: Political Clouds Hang Over UNESCO Selection

With only a few days left before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) nominates final candidates for the post of director-general, controversy continues to swirl around the leading contender, Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni.

MIDEAST: Israel Prepares for North Korean Fallout

The tremors of Monday's North Korean nuclear test have been felt all around the world, no more so in a country seemingly not directly affected by whether or not North Korea is a full-fledged nuclear power. In Israel, there is deep concern, an existential fear even - over the implications that Iran will be next in the nuclear line.

MIDEAST: Egyptians Too Hit by Israeli Strikes

Residents along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip are still awaiting compensation for property damaged by air strikes during Israel's recent onslaught against the Hamas-run enclave.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Scoring Own Goals

While the U.S. appears to be optimistic about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, inter-Palestinian rivalry, a recalcitrant Israeli government, and an international community with its own agenda could well scuttle a settlement.

MIDEAST: Showdown Looming Over Settlements

A showdown over Israeli settlements in the occupied West bank is looming between Israel and the United States barely a week after the encounter at the White House between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What's becoming increasingly clear is that the May 18 encounter was no friendly 'getting-to-know-you' meeting between a new President and a new Prime Minister of the Middle East's most enduring alliance.

POLITICS-US: Iran Hawks Push Obama on Deadline for Diplomacy

After an uneventful first meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that seemed to produce no real breakthroughs, hawks in the U.S. and Israel are seizing upon what they claim is a significant concession by Obama: his setting a "timetable" for negotiations with Iran.

MIDEAST: Israel Slow to Recognise New U.S. Face

A ballistic missile, an anti-missile defence system and the transfer of nuclear technology - three inter-related issues addressed on the same day this week highlight the radical re-adjustment in U.S. priorities as the Obama Administration demarcates a fresh strategic outlook for the Middle East.

POLITICS: At East-West Crossroads, Turkey Presses Ambitious Agenda

Two soaring bridges link Asia and Europe in this historic city, which straddles the two continents.

Q&A: “Gaza Will Not Be Sidelined”

Six months after Israel's devastating air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip, Ambassador Riyad Mansour of the Palestinian Observer Mission to the United Nations says he will "keep up the pressure on all fronts until the perpetrators of these crimes are held accountable and reparations are made by Israel".

Q&A: 'More Women Need to Judge'

Thuraya Judi Alwazir is one of few women judges sitting on the Palestinian Authority's Judicial Authority. Alwazir speaks here to IPS about her experiences in a largely male-dominated environment, on the rights of women in regard to honour killings and domestic violence, and on the death penalty as applied in the West Bank.

MIDEAST: Power Struggle Killing Patients

The lives of hundreds of critically ill Gazans continue to be jeopardised by the power struggle between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, and political blackmail by Israel.

MIDEAST: Netanyahu Up Against a New U.S.

June 5 is a date that resonates powerfully in the troubled modern history of the Middle East. On that fateful day, 42 years ago, the seminal 1967 Arab-Israel war erupted. Six days later, Israel was in control of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Syria's Golan Heights and all of the Palestinian territories.

MIDEAST: : Obama Has Real Chance to Change Arab Opinion – Survey

President Barack Obama has a major opportunity to improve the mostly negative views about the United States in the Arab world, but is likely to have only a short period of time to do so, according to a major new survey of public opinion in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

POLITICS-US: Bigger, Badder Jihad Plot in 'Obsession' Rebooted

A new documentary from a shadowy non-profit, the Clarion Fund, has ties to groups widely accused of Islamophobia.

MIDEAST: Despite Smiles, Obama, Netanyahu Seem Far Apart

While reaffirming the "special relationship" between their two countries, U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared unable to bridge major differences in their approaches to Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts following their White House meeting here Monday.