Noticeable Changes

After years of land appropriation and harassing Palestinian villagers, Efrat settlers have decided that they want to acquire more of Um Salomona's farmland separated from the village by the main road for a cemetery. Raed, a Palestinian resident of the village, owns the land targeted by the settlers. He knows all too well that without strong action (and […]

Earlier this year, Khamis Fathi Abu Rahmah, 27, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister while participating in a nonviolent demonstration against Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank near the village of Bilin. Israeli soldiers used the same weapon a few months later and killed his cousin, Bassem Abu Rahme. The Electronic Intifada […]

Daoud Suleiman Ahmad, 48, an unemployed construction worker, has been unable to find work for almost three years due to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Life for Ahmad and his family in the al-Maghazi refugee camp has been desperately difficult, something that is particularly on his mind during the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday. Rami Almeghari reports […]

Insidious pressures and overt threats have created a hostile environment to telling Rachel Corrie's story and of course, the countless tragic stories of Palestinians. They are emblematic of a determination to maintain ignorance about the realities of life in Palestine, and a desire to perpetuate the notions of Israeli innocence, virtuousness and victimh […]

After the 11 September 2001 attacks there have been many books and articles regarding the misuse of justice and harsh treatment of Arab Americans and Muslims in the United States. Louise Cainkar's extensive research and excellent analysis is the most complete published so far. Homeland Insecurity is an ethnography which took three years to complete and […]

My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness bills itself as "A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century." To better understand Adina Hoffman's biography of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, however, consider it: "A Palestinian Century in a Poet's Life." But this syntactical slip doesn't discredit Hoffman's wor […]

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (IPS) - More than two years after their refugee camp was destroyed in a war between the Lebanese army and the Islamist militant group Fatah al-Islam, Nahr al-Bared refugees Wednesday witnessed the start of the camp's reconstruction. Their relief is mixed with skepticism, however. Established in 1949, the Palestinian refugee camp o […]

Since the end of August, construction equipment in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, has stood unused after the Lebanese State Council granted a two month moratorium for the reconstruction of the camp. Nahr al-Bared, home to approximately 30,000 refugees, was destroyed during a three-month-long battle […]

BEIRUT (IRIN) - The politics of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a rugged sliver of mountainside wedged between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, have long overshadowed what some Lebanese environmentalists call "the real issue" of the disputed area: its water resources. Now activists are calling for hydro-diplomacy to take precedence over political mane […]

Last month, the Swedish Institute in Paris hosted a meeting of 26 young people from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Sweden to improve dialogue between opinion leaders in Sweden, the Middle East and North Africa. Global Voices in French was there.

‘I wasn’t surprised to see during my my trip to Egypt and Gaza that no one watches music videos anymore. When I asked few people about their choice of boycotting music videos, the answer was similar, “they have gotten trashy”,' writes Hanitizer at Arab-American group blog KABOBfest.

“It’s a great pleasure to introduce to you our latest project: Israelis for Palestine. This has been in the works since the beginning of October and we’re happy to finally be launching it, despite the fact that it’s still very much in its early stages,” writes Bahraini Esra'a on Mideast Youth.

The Iranian opposition has planned a large demonstration for Monday, December 7 as Iran marks the annual Students Day. Online expressions of solidarity are appearing worldwide.

Netizens have launched a campaign to collect the money in form of coins to show support for Prita Mulyasari, an Indonesian housewife who wrote an online complaint against a bad hospital service, was found guilty in court for "defaming" a private hospital.

Indonesia is facing a huge challenge in tackling the spread of HIV virus in the country. Health agencies believe that the number of HIV-positive patients are bigger than currently reported.

Photoblogger Monirul Alam comments on the indigenous people (adivasi) of Bangladesh: “Adivasis are among the poorest of the country. Participation of Adivasis in education is very low, and almost zero at the higher levels of education.”

On Livejournal, Christopher Bradley in the USA explains why he hates Thanksgiving. “I don't think there's any need to have holidays with the specter of genocide over them,” he says.

“To European-Americans this holiday is laced with fanciful symbolism and metaphorical memories about that great feast between Pilgrims and Indians. But the historical truth often goes untold and unheard,” writes Rusty’s blog.