EGYPT: ‘Army On Its Way Out’

Egyptians in Cairo and Alexandria went to the polls on Monday in the first parliamentary elections since the January 25 protest movement drove former president Hosni Mubarak from a 30-year grip on power.

ISRAEL: Eritreans Flee From Dictatorship to Detention

Standing across the street from the American embassy in Tel Aviv, more than 200 Eritrean asylum seekers chanted "Yes to justice! Yes to humanity!", and demanded international intervention to stop torture camps in the Egyptian Sinai. Protests by African asylum seekers in Israel are growing, in the face of increasingly tough policies by the Israelis.

Arab Women Seek a Place in the Spring

As several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) elect bodies to write new constitutions, women are looking to expand their rights through legislation.

MIDEAST: Guarding Aggressors Against Victims

Ahmed Qaraeen walks with a limp, more than two years after he was shot twice, in the hip and left knee, by an Israeli settler near his home in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan.

ISRAEL: Not When Desert Is Home

"Anyone who lives sees, but he who moves sees more," a local Bedouin proverb has it. Caught in a web of roads and fences, electric cables and pylons, closed military training grounds and trails of Air Force jets, Bedouin Israelis have long been reduced to a half-hearted life of immobility.

EGYPT: Military More Repressive Than Mubarak

Egyptians hoping for greater freedoms and less police brutality after the fall of president Hosni Mubarak say the military council that has ruled in his place has carried on the ex-dictator's brutal legacy, and in some cases exceeded it.

EGYPT: It’s January Again in Tahrir Square

Days of clashes between protesters and security forces culminated on Tuesday evening in what was estimated to be a million-man rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand an end to military rule. The new political crisis has prompted fears that Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls, slated to begin only five days from now, could be called off.

MIDEAST: Erdogan Most Popular Leader By Far Among Arabs

Despite repeated expressions of support by President Barack Obama for democratic change during the "Arab Spring", the United States remains widely distrusted in the region, according to a major new survey of public opinion in five Arab countries released here Monday.

Egyptians Launch New Battle for Minimum Wage

Mohamed El-Abyad's employer has agreed to increase his salary by 20 percent, but the factory worker still cannot afford to send his children to school. After paying his apartment rent and utilities, El-Abyad will have the equivalent of 20 dollars left over each month to put food on his family's table. And while education is mandatory, he pulled both his sons out of school to help cover the shortfall.

ISRAEL: Women Push Back Into Public Space

They're looking at you "uncensored". Posters of women by women have recently multiplied on the holy city walls. "Women on billboards are back in Jerusalem," they proclaim defiantly.

US-IRAN: Key Senator Pushes “Nuclear Option” Against Central Bank

Amid simmering tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear programme, a key pro-Israel U.S. senator has tabled legislation that would effectively ban international financial companies that do business with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from participating in the U.S. economy.

LIBYA: Headed for Some Sort of Sharia

The announced introduction of Islamic law in post-Gaddafi Libya has drawn strong opposition from women, the non-religious and the Amazigh minority.

MIDEAST: Israeli Military Fires Up the Creative Side

War brings economic development, we're told at times. Like the cliché or not, in their case, Israelis have become a successful start-up nation by building a powerful start-up military.

U.S.: “Israel’s Advocate” to Leave White House for Pro-Israel Think Tank

Dennis Ross, President Barack Obama's top Middle East aide who has attracted criticism for his allegedly strong pro-Israel sympathies, will leave his post at the end of this month, the White House announced here Thursday.

MIDEAST: Jailed Activists Get Little Help

As a number of international activists remain in an Israeli prison following the take-over of two Gaza-bound aid ships late last week, the activists have condemned their respective governments for failing to apply pressure on Israel to release the detainees and to respect international law.

Palestine Pushes On at United Nations

Palestine plans to continue its bid to become a full member at the United Nations, even with the odds stacked against the Palestinians receiving the requisite nine votes from the Security Council.

MIDEAST: Festive Season Highlights Deprivation

Crowds of women waving coupons worth two kilograms of beef line the stairwell to Secours Islamique France’s Gaza City office several hours before the aid agency begins its meat distribution for Eid. Aid workers struggle to climb the stairs, hauling large bags of fresh meat to assist impoverished families in Gaza this holiday season.

U.S. Move Hurts More Than UNESCO

The United States’ decision to cut funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation will hurt the specialised agency’s work, officials here say.

ISRAEL: To Strike Iran or Not, With the US or Not

Preceding the UN atomic watchdog's report on Iran's nuclear quest, a flurry of reports about Israel increasingly tilting towards preventive military action against Iran highlights U.S. military support of Israel, but tests its influence over its ally.

Twenty Years After Madrid, Israel-Palestinian Peace Prospects Bleak

Veteran U.S. diplomats and scholars who have worked for decades on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have grown increasingly pessimistic about the continued viability of the U.S.- sponsored "peace process" and the two-state solution that was presumed to be its goal.

U.S. House Committee Okays Sweeping Sanctions on Iran

Amid growing tensions in the Middle East, including speculation about a possible Israeli attack on Iran, a key U.S. Congressional committee Wednesday approved two bills that would impose sweeping new economic and diplomatic sanctions against Tehran.