Full Coverage: Middle East

31.01.2005 As counting gets under way after the election in Iraq, the results of a Red Pepper poetry competition remind us of the price that has been paid for this particular path to democracy.

31.01.2005 The situation in Iraq would be unpredictable and could become even more dangerous if U.S. troops leave the country, but the same will be true if they stay, says Council for a Livable World president John Isaacs, who served 18 months as a U.S. foreign service officer in Vietnam and sees many similarities between this conflict and that one.

31.01.2005 "On my way out of the voting site, an American soldier handed me a sticker with the words 'I voted' printed on it. He looked perplexed as I stuck it on his rifle and left." Tongue planted firmly in cheek, Iraqi-American Hawra Karama tells what Sunday's elections meant to him, and how they differed from the ones in which Saddam Hussein made him participate in 1995 and 2002.

31.01.2005 Turnout among registered voters was well above 50 percent in Baghdad Sunday despite numerous deadly attacks, according to Institute for War and Peace Reporting correspondents throughout the capital city. Some are hailing a victory for democracy while others doubt the legitimacy of elections, pointing especially to U.S. control of the political process and the large number of Iraqis who never registered at all.

28.01.2005 "Let me describe the scene on the ground here in 'liberated' Iraq. With the 'elections' just three days away, people are terrified. Families are fleeing Baghdad much as they did prior to the invasion of the country...huge lines of cars are stacked up at checkpoints on the outer edges of the city. Policemen and Iraqi soldiers are trying to convince people to stay in the city and vote. Nobody is listening to them."

26.01.2005 When a local newspaper in Kurdistan published the list of candidates for the Iraq election, some very surprising names were disclosed.

25.01.2005 Should oil-rich Arab states be more generous in their tsunami relief pledges? It's not a straightforward question.

25.01.2005 More than half of the land owned by Palestinians in East Jerusalem is expected to be affected by Israel's decision to expropriate the property of "Absentee Landowners." One Palestinian representative to Israel's Knesset called the decision a war crime and a Jewish politician warned that it would "open a Pandora’s box...of legal and moral questions."

24.01.2005 Equality Now marked its launch in London with an event to honour the work of Rana Husseini, the Jordanian journalist who broke the silence on ‘honour’ killings. Speakers included Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Charles Wheeler. Anuradha Vittachi, Director of OneWorld UK and herself a writer on women’s rights, reviews the event and the work of Equality Now.

24.01.2005 As Israeli and Palestinian leaders move to increase security cooperation in Gaza, a major U.S. human rights organization is urging the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to reject proposals to build a trench along the Gaza-Egyptian border that could destroy up to 3,000 Palestinian homes.

24.01.2005 A period of relative calm has settled over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent days, but Israel is now considering a plan to dig a trench to stop weapons smugglers along the border between Egypt and Gaza, destroying anywhere from 200 to 3000 Palestinian homes in the process. There are much less destructive ways to accomplish the same goal, human rights defenders said Sunday.

24.01.2005 A new War on Want briefing demonstrates that Israel has breached the human rights conditionality of its bilateral trade agreement with the European Union. It's time for sanctions, says the campaigning group.

23.01.2005 If you view the Israeli "security wall" as a primitive and inappropriate means of conflict resolution, here is a campaign where you can join celebrities and MPs who feel the same way.

21.01.2005 Even as George W. Bush celebrates his inauguration for a second term as U.S. president, a series of opinion polls--in the United States and in 21 foreign countries--show that Americans largely disapprove of his conduct of the Iraq war, and the rest of the world believes he has made life more dangerous for them, too.

19.01.2005 Key components of a six-point peace plan--known as Clinton's Permanant Status Settlement Package--and the plan as a whole have received majority support from citizens on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the first time.

19.01.2005 Arab leaders are encouraging Iraqis to vote in the forthcoming election, possibly more out of concern about escalating violence than anticipation of the likely outcome.

19.01.2005 Last week the group looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq finally gave up the search, noting that not only did Iraq have no serious weapons programs nor the means to begin such programs, it didn't even consider the United States an adversary.

19.01.2005 The last Latin American country remaining in Iraq is now helping the U.S. out with soldiers in Haiti too--and hoping for a big payoff in return.

18.01.2005

17.01.2005