| MIDEAST: Pessimistic About Peace, Yet? | more |
As President Obama on Wednesday initiates the ninth U.S. attempt in the last 30
years to bring about a final Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, expectations
are low and pessimism is high.
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| MIDEAST: Netanyahu Ignores President, and Wife | more |
Thousands of Israelis have protested in a central park here demanding that their
government revoke its decision to deport 400 children of migrant workers.
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| EGYPT: Military Court Sentences Civilian Workers | more |
An Egyptian military court handed down sentences Monday in the trial of eight
civilian factory workers who led a protest against deteriorating safety conditions
in an army-owned factory. Rights groups say the trial should never have taken
place.
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| MIDEAST: Bureaucracy Limits Rights of Palestinian Women | more |
As Hamas cracks down on the rights of Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip,
their sisters in the occupied West Bank are slowly gaining ground. But a
bureaucracy, that is sometimes supported by foreign aid, is crippling these
advances.
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| MIDEAST: 'McCarthyism' Rises in Israel | more |
Rightwing Israeli groups financially supported by Jewish and fundamentalist
Christian groups from abroad are on a campaign to undermine free thought in
Israeli universities. Collaterally, a move is under way by right-wing parties in the
Knesset, Israel's parliament, to limit the freedom of action of civil and human
rights-minded NGOs.
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| MIDEAST: This Math Class May Figure Out Israel | more |
In a bright and spacious classroom, with plants overflowing in the courtyard
outside, six students lean forward at their desks looking at the 10-digit addition
they are asked to make. One student stands before the numbers on the
chalkboard and a red and yellow-beaded abacus. But her attention is on the
abacus she visualises in her mind.
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| MIDEAST: Palestinian Patients Suffer From Political Rivalry | more |
Cancer patient Ahmed Abu Fuad needs chemotherapy to survive. Muhammad
Subeh needs an eye-transplant while paramedic Alaa Sarhan desperately needs
surgery to remove shrapnel from his body. But these Gazans are unable to leave
the area to seek the required medical treatment elsewhere, and it is not because
of the Israeli siege.
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| MIDEAST: Darkness Dawns at Ramadan | more |
"It's been days without electricity and water. We can't do anything, and it's
unbearably hot now." Abu Fouad, 83, speaks of the power cuts plaguing all of
the Gaza Strip.
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| ISRAEL-LEBANON: U.N. Treads Cautiously in Probe of Border Firefight | more |
Three weeks after a fatal exchange of fire between Israel and
Lebanon along the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line, the United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has yet to make
recommendations on easing tension at the border.
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| MIDEAST: Stitching Together a Living, Somehow | more |
Just off Omar Al-Mukhtar Street, Gaza City's main thoroughfare, in a narrow,
sandy alley way is a little second-hand clothing shop. In the dimly lit store, with
only intermittent electricity for some hours a day at best, sits a single battered
and aging sewing machine.
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| New Book Assembles Eyewitness Accounts from Mavi Marmara | more |
A growing number of activists is contradicting the claims of
the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) regarding the Gaza Freedom
Flotilla debacle in May, including a large faction of both
Israeli and U.S. Jews.
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| MIDEAST: Barriers Rise Between Ramadan Gatherings | more |
For seven years Majda Abdul Qader Sheikh, 38, has not been allowed to visit the
home of her parents, just a few hundred metres from her house.
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| MIDEAST: Uprooted Villagers Hold Fast During Ramadan | more |
On the eve of the start of Ramadan last week, Israeli police demolished the
Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert. It was the third time within two
weeks that the village had been razed.
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| MIDEAST: Towards 'Déjà vu All Over Again' | more |
"If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Sometimes, the nonsensical quote of
the legendary New York Yankees baseball catcher Yogi Berra has a real message.
It can pointedly be applied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on
peace with the Palestinians.
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| Arab-Israeli Orchestra Spreads Message of Peace in Latin America | more |
"The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has proved that music can break down barriers previously considered insurmountable," its Argentine-Israeli conductor, Daniel Barenboim, told IPS on a visit to Ecuador.
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| MIDEAST: God Grant Us a Permit to Pray | more |
For Muhammad el-Baradiyeh, 38, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is always
a blessing.
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| Food Cartels Feast on Ramadan Profits | more |
Opportunistic food traders have been blamed for soaring food prices across the
Middle East that have added a financial burden on families observing the Islamic
holy month of Ramadan.
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| Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Attack on Iran | more |
Pro-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg's article in "The
Atlantic" magazine was evidently aimed at showing why the
Barack Obama administration should worry that it risks an
attack by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
on Iran in the coming months unless it takes a much more
menacing line toward Iran's nuclear programme.
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| White House Questions Suspension of Military Aid to Lebanon | more |
Several powerful members of Congress have worked to suspend
U.S. military aid to Lebanon's military after a deadly
skirmish on the Lebanese-Israeli border last week which left
two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and one Israeli
officer dead.
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| U.N. Chief May Be Heading for Showdown with Israel | more |
When the Israeli government gave its blessings to a U.N. panel
of inquiry probing the military attack on a flotilla of ships
carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza last May, there was
widespread speculation that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon may
have struck a backdoor deal over its mandate.
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| MIDEAST: Homeless Take On Israeli Forces | more |
A bruising battle of will is taking place between Israeli security forces and
Palestinians recently made homeless after two Palestinian villages were razed
and hundreds left homeless.
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| MIDEAST: Injured Workers Man Battered Services | more |
Outside the battered Civil Defence station in northern Gaza's Jabalia region,
Mohammed Zidan, a seven-year veteran of fire-fighting and rescue services,
stands on crutches in front of battered Civil Defence vehicles.
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| ISRAEL: Kibbutz Returns With Moneyed Communism | more |
It was an idea that became an institution, and that became the moving spirit
behind the creation of the State of Israel. These were people who wanted to
change the world. Now, they're content to live a life of carefree irrelevance.
That's the Kibbutz today.
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| MIDEAST: On the Freedom Flight From Gaza, For a While | more |
I tasted freedom for the first time in three years. After being stuck in Gaza since
2007 I travelled to Malaysia for a holiday. It was like visiting another planet.
Being treated like a human being and being able to experience what many young
people around the world take for granted, was a miracle.
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| MIDEAST: On the Freedom Flight From Gaza, For a While | more |
I tasted freedom for the first time in three years. After being stuck in Gaza since
2007 I travelled to Malaysia for a holiday. It was like visiting another planet.
Being treated like a human being and being able to experience what many young
people around the world take for granted, was a miracle.
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| Dictators Guard Their Death Switch | more |
Abolition movements are gaining momentum in North Africa, but authoritarian
regimes appear reluctant to remove capital punishment from the penal code.
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| Iran Benefits from Arab Disillusion with Obama | more |
U.S. President Barack Obama has suffered a sharp drop in
popularity in the Arab world over the past year, and Iran may
be reaping the benefits, according to a major new survey of
public opinion in five Arab countries released here Thursday.
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| MIDEAST: Hamas Slowly Islamising Gaza | more |
Gazans are caught between a rock and a hard place. While Israel continues to
apply a crippling siege on the coastal territory, Gaza's Hamas government is
cracking down on civil and political liberties in what appears to be a campaign to
slowly Islamise Gaza.
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| Despite Iraq Withdrawal, Greater Mideast Not Looking Good | more |
While President Barack Obama Monday touted the continuing U.S.
military withdrawal from Iraq as a key marker in the success
of his regional policies, the latest news from the Greater
Middle East, as well as a new public opinion survey, is far
less encouraging.
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| U.N. Names Panel to Probe Israeli Killings on Gaza-Bound Ship | more |
Despite initial misgivings, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
received the tacit approval of the Israeli government to
establish an international panel to probe the widely-condemned
killings of nine Turkish civilians onboard a flotilla of ships
carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza last May.
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