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  • Syrian forces 'ordered to shoot to kill'

    Defectors of Syria’s security forces have described receiving orders from their superiors to fire live rounds at protesters to disperse them, according to Human Rights Watch. The New York-based rights body released a statement on Saturday detailing interviews with eight soldiers and four members of secret security agencies it said had defected.. More

  • 'Greek government has bowed to pressure'

    The Greek government decided to prohibit the departure of a flotilla of 'aid ships' from Greek ports to the Gaza Strip. In a statement released on Friday, the Greeks explained that this was done in a bid to prevent a breach of Israel's naval blockade against the Palestinian enclave. Khalid Turaani is a 45-year old American-Palestinian activist and.. More

  • No relief for Iraqi doctors

    As thousands of doctors leave Iraq, those who remain to heal the sick say they need more security and less corruption. "The hospital is crowded, the medical staff are overloaded, and we are deficient of medical staff because doctors continue to leave Iraq," Dr Yehiyah Karim, a general surgeon at Baghdad Medical City, told Al Jazeera, "There.. More

  • Global diabetes numbers at all-time high

    The number of adults who have been diagnosed with diabetes worldwide has more than doubled since 1980 to 347 million, a far larger number than previously thought, a new study has found. An international team of researchers working with the World Health Organization has found that the rates of diabetes have either risen or, at best, remained essentially.. More

  • Israel escalates demolitions of Palestinian homes in West Bank

    Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has issued a new report detailing the government’s dramatic escalation in the number of Palestinian home demolitions in the Jordan Valley, part of the eastern West Bank. According to the report, the Israeli government has demolished 103 homes there so far this year, after 86 were demolished in all of.. More

  • Gaza unemployment levels 'among worst in world'

    Gaza's unemployment rate was among the world's highest, at 45.2% in late 2010, the UN has found, as Israel's blockade of the territory enters its fifth year. Real wages meanwhile fell by more than a third, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said. Its report says that private businesses have been hardest hit by the continuing.. More

  • From street seller to global statesman

    For those living in the Istanbul neighborhood where Recep Tayyip Erdogan grew up, Turkey's leader is still "one of us". As a politician, he is Turkey's most successful prime minister of modern times, a man who stepped out of a prison cell to lead his party to three straight election victories, at the same time raising Turkey's profile on.. More

  • Libyan kids maimed by war remnants

    On May 31, 2011, UNICEF Communication Specialist Rebecca Fordham boarded the relief boat carrying two boys injured from explosive remnants of the war in Libya. She also participated in workshops to raise awareness and protect children from these horrific weapons of war in the conflict-affected eastern Libya. This is her first-hand account. I witnessed.. More

  • "Massacre": Yemeni forces kill 20 protesters as sit-in smashed

    Forces loyal to the embattled Yemeni president killed 20 protesters as they dispersed a sit-in in Taez, an organizer said on Monday. Security service agents backed by army and Republican Guard troops stormed the protest against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Freedom Square in the centre of Yemen's second-largest city during the night, shooting at.. More

  • The price of return

    The May 15 Nakba protests took a toll on one family in particular, losing a son who made the ultimate sacrifice. Seventeen-year-old Mohammed al-Saleh grew up in Burj al-Shemali refugee camp in south Lebanon, caring little about politics and more about sport. However, when it came to Palestine, Mohamed's 16-year-old cousin, also named Mohammed, described.. More

  • Syrian abuses are 'crimes against humanity'

    The nature and scale of human rights abuses by Syrian security forces in the crackdown on anti-government protesters over the past two months could qualify as crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. In a statement released on Wednesday, the New York-based rights body said interviews with victims andwitnesses indicate "systematic.. More

  • Syria's crackdown: Why did Fawaz die?

    Fawaz al-Haraki had only minutes to live. As the shots rang out, Abu Haidar and the other protesters ran for cover, grimly familiar with what to do when the mukhabberat (secret police) attacked. But Fawaz fell, the blood soaking his trousers where the bullet from a Syrian secret policeman had torn into his leg. It was Friday April 22 in the industrial.. More

  • Obama to Israel: Take whatever you want

    In 2008, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, pandered to pro-Israeli voters and Israel by promising in a speech addressed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem would forever remain "the undivided capital of Israel". Three years later, Obama is on another pre-campaign trail in order to improve.. More

  • Obama: Doomed to disappoint

    Barack Obama gave a major speech on the Middle East on Thursday, May 19, and it is clear from the subsequent commentary that he impressed few people. The main reason for this is that he did not say much new or indicate that there would be any serious changes in US policy in the region. It was essentially more of the same with some tweaking here and.. More

  • Assad's regime of torture

    President Assad reaffirms his father's legacy by quelling dissent with brute force. As the fists and boots and sticks pummeled his body and bloodied his face, the college student screamed out what he thought his interrogators wanted to hear: The name of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad. It worked. The secret policemen tired of beating him for the.. More

Hajj virtues