US/MIDEAST: Respite on the Road to Nowhere?

An informal truce between Israel and Hamas went into effect early Thursday morning, temporarily suspending a year of fighting that has left more than 600 Palestinians - many of them civilians - and 18 Israelis dead.

MIDEAST: New Ceasefire Could Ease the Burden

An Egyptian proposal for a "calming" of hostilities, or tahdia, between Israel and Palestinian resistance faction Hamas officially came into effect Thursday. The deal follows several months of three-way talks between Israeli officials, Palestinian delegations and Egyptian mediators.

POPULATION: Iraq Still a Major Source of Refugees in 2007

Despite a marked reduction in violence due in part to more aggressive U.S. counter-insurgency efforts in 2007, Iraq was the biggest source of the world's newest refugees for the third year in a row, according to the latest annual report of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) released here Thursday.

MIDEAST: Anything for a Bath, Anything for Fuel

The girl, about 16, is wandering about Jebaliya refugee camp, picking up anything she thinks can burn. She cannot find enough bits of wood, so she gathers plastic bags, old notebooks and even a pair of broken plastic sandals.

Q&A: 'Occupiers Cannot Also Be Liberal'

Support for an academic boycott of Israeli universities exposed Ilan Pappe to death threats last year, forced him to resign as senior lecturer of political science at the University of Haifa, and leave the country.

MIDEAST: Cracks Widen in Israeli Cabinet

The Prime Minister and the Defence Minister are at each other's throats. The Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister are barely talking. And the Deputy Prime Minister, who wants to replace the Prime Minister, is already talking about what he might do if he does.

EGYPT: Govt Forced to Bend on Israel Gas Deal

In the last two months, popular and parliamentary opposition to the sale of Egyptian natural gas to Israel - at undisclosed prices - has mounted. As a result, in a rare nod to public opinion, the government recently announced it was "revising" the terms of the sale agreement.

LEBANON: Newsrooms Fall Prey to Seven Deadly Sins

Prejudiced reporting is not uncommon anywhere, but in Lebanon the level of news distortion has taken on a new dimension as a result of assassinations, physical threats, political pressure, biased reporting, lack of professionalism, rampant corruption and self-censorship. These are the seven deadly sins that have increasingly been plaguing the Lebanese media over the years.

POLITICS: Rice Midwifes Lebanon’s Latest “Birth Pangs”

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit to Beirut Monday to pledge her support for an agreement giving greater political power to Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group that Washington still considers a terrorist organisation.

US/MIDEAST: Let's Not Make a Deal

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was more explicit than usual last Sunday, asserting that Israel's settlement activity in the occupied West Bank was illegal and hurting efforts for a Mideast peace deal.

LEBANON: Divided We Arm

Despite the new peace agreement in Doha, Lebanese are becoming increasingly polarised, with confrontation between groups affecting the population at every level.

POLITICS-US: Christian Zionist Gathering Mired In Controversy

The battle lines over Pastor John Hagee have been drawn, redrawn, and are no doubt being drawn again as this is being written. The San Antonio, Texas-based mega-preacher with the multi-million-dollar empire has always been controversial, but these days, the pastor is a lightning rod for critics.

MIDEAST: Net Tightens Around the Fishermen

When the broiling sun sinks behind the rolling Mediterranean sea in Gaza, hundreds of fishing boats turn on their motors and assemble ragged nets to round up the evening catch. Flickering blue lights scatter across the shallow seas as the boats gather offshore in close quarters. Mackerel, sardine and grey mullet are caught in nets and dumped into plastic crates to be sold in the street markets. But under severe military occupation dominating the Gaza strip, it has become increasingly difficult to make a living as a Gaza fisherman.

MIDEAST: Kites Rise Above Divisions

Mahmoud Abu Teior (13) knows it's Abdullah's kite up in the skies, though he has never seen Abdullah. But that kite rises into the skies from just that place on the Egyptian side of the border across from Gaza. And, Mahmoud knows Abdullah's voice because they speak sometimes. They have never met, and likely never will, but they are connected through their kites.

MIDEAST: Israel and Syria in Diplomatic Charade

After an eight-year hiatus, Israel and Syria have resumed negotiations - albeit via Turkish middlemen - on the issue of the strategic Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. But according to analysts in Cairo, neither side appears entirely genuine in its desire to reach a final settlement.

POLITICS: Was Obama's Rhetoric on Israel for Real?

When Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate for the November U.S. presidential elections, addressed one of the most influential pro-Israeli lobbying groups last week, he offered himself as a more trusted ally of Israel than his rival, Republican candidate John McCain.

MIDEAST: Hospitals in Need of Care

In the brightly painted new intensive care unit wing of al-Awda, northern Gaza's only emergency medical facility in the massive Jebaliya refugee camp, doctors, nurses, aides and administrators are ready to provide emergency surgery services for the area's 300,000 people.

EGYPT: Protests Rise Against Fertiliser Plant

For the last two months, controversy has raged over planned construction of a massive fertiliser plant near the port city of Damietta. Residents fear the plant could adversely affect the local environment.

MIDEAST: Remark Raises Oil Price, and Temperatures

As Transportation Minister, one might have expected that Shaul Mofaz would have given greater consideration to the impact his comments would have on the already galloping price of a barrel of crude oil. Maybe he did. But with the scent of elections in the air in Israel, the international ramifications of his comments were apparently not uppermost on his mind. Far more narrow political calculations clearly were.

POLITICS-US: Pledging Allegiance to AIPAC

With the Iranian nuclear "threat" in the crosshairs, discussion of Palestinians or a Syrian-Israeli detente was virtually non-existent. But then again, one should not expect many overtures for peace when attending the annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

LEBANON: Celebrities and Celebration Take Their Own Toll

In the dark streets across from the main Hamra road, one of the major commercial arteries in Lebanese capital Beirut, light streams from behind the drapes of a first floor apartment. A politician's speech blaring from a TV resonates loudly in the night. As music cues the closing credits of the show, sudden celebratory gunfire from the political figure's supporters erupts outside.