Middle East

The European Union and Young Entrepreneurs Palestine launched a new youth initiative “Yalla Shabab” that includes several activities in partnership with Palestinian youth in the West Bank and Gaza such as lectures at Palestinian universities about the current affairs, volunteer…

The BBC has reported that a much anticipated study by the WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health will show that rates of birth defects in Iraq are higher in areas that were subject to heavy fighting in 2003. The report,…

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon today said that the United Nations will launch an independent investigation into allegations of the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria, after receiving a formal request from the country’s Government. “The investigation mission is to look…

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the country’s military will end operations against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) forces if the group stops fighting. “If there are no more armed actions our troops will not undertake armed actions,” Erdogan told…

The jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan has announced much-expected ceasefire to end the 28-year conflict between the PKK and Ankara. “We are at a stage where guns should be silenced,” Ocalan said in a letter…

Press release from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK, Tuesday, 19 March 2013. A decade on from the bloody and illegal invasion of Iraq on 20th March 2003: a wave of explosions have rocked Baghdad and surrounding towns killing 56…

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) welcomed the activation of the world’s largest operational Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) facility to date, as the Middle East turns to clean energy to fuel future growth. The Shams 1 thermosolar plant – in…

U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed this week Iran has not decided to develop a nuclear weapon and that it would be unable to do so secretly. Testifying before the Senate, Clapper said Iran could not divert safeguarded…

A decade of war in Iraq has killed roughly 134,000 Iraqi civilians and potentially contributed to the deaths of many hundreds of thousands more, according to researchers at Brown University. Their report was released ahead of the 10th anniversary of…

After a full week of intensive activities in Oslo during the Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, major anti-nuclear campaigners moved Monday to the Bahraini capital, Manama, in yet another step towards the abolition of atomic weapons. “Nuclear…