Middle East

By Mona Alami BEIRUT, Sep 1 2014 (IPS) – At a time when HIV rates have stabilised or declined elsewhere, the epidemic is still advancing in the Arab world, exacerbated by factors such as political unrest, conflict, poverty and lack…

Georgette comes home and sets the table. She brings out a large variety of cheeses and cold drinks, all labelled with the name of the company she owns. Her husband, Pascal, has invited neighbors to join them at the dinner…

Human Wrongs Watch By Uri Avnery 30 August 2014 AFTER 50 DAYS, the war is over. Hallelujah. On the Israeli side: 71 dead, among them 66 soldiers, 1 child. On the Palestinian side: 2,143 dead, 577 of them children, 263 women,…

29 August 2014 – Three million Syrians will have registered as refugees outside of their country today, the UN refugee agency reported, amid accounts of increasingly horrifying conditions inside their homeland – cities where populations are surrounded, people are going…

New York, 27 August 2014 — Climate change is not a far-off problem. It is happening now and is having very real consequences on people’s lives. Climate change is disrupting national economies, costing us dearly today and even more tomorrow.…

“Many observers are correct in noting that the Middle East is undergoing yet another seismic shift – that the Russian-brokered destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, a US-Iranian rapprochement, the diminished strategic value of Saudi Arabia and Israel, and a…

Ziad Majed writes on the blog Tarir-ICN that “…the organization abbreviated as ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is not new in the region, nor is it a newfound expression of the crises afflicting Arab societies at a moment…

by Rosa Lia, for the Palestine-Israel Journal Here is a list of terms taken from different cultures and languages (English, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit and Bantu) that all form part of the quest for that one elusive word: peace. Ahimsa: A…

Israel and Hamas appear to have accepted an Egyptian proposal for a long-term ceasefire after seven weeks of war.  According to UK’s Channel 4 News “an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “a complete and unlimited-in-time ceasefire” had…

Militants from Islamic State stormed an air base in northeast Syria on Sunday, capturing it from government forces. Fighters from Islamic State have seized three Syrian military bases in the area in recent weeks. This comes as the Pentagon considers…