Two years after their historic uprising, many Egyptians, from intellectuals to the working class, are reflecting on what has been gained since the heady days on Tahrir Square and what still needs to be done. VOA’s Elizabeth Arrott reports from More »
Activists in Egypt have created a makeshift museum to chronicle the last two years of uprisings and political protest. VOA’s Al Pessin visited a branch of the museum that has been set up across the street from the presidential palace in Cairo, where he spoke to one of the museums founders. The video was More »
The mention of Saudi Arabia often has people envisioning an oil-rich, nearly empty desert, where Islam originated. An exhibit in Washington, D.C., offers insight into the real history of the Arabian Peninsula, focusing on its pre-Islamic role as a trade route, the influence of nearby cultures, and the evolution of language. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry More »
Lebanon’s many different sects have their own history, which makes formulating a unified national history challenging. The 1989 Taif Accord, which ended the 15-year Lebanese civil war, called for civic education to be uniform across the country in order to promote national unity. But as Paige Kollock reports for VOA, the goal remains More »
Turkey’s largest Kurdish city, Diyarbakir, is at the center of a decades-long conflict between the state and Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy. The city often sees clashes between young people and security forces. But one man has devoted his life to bringing hope and a way out of violence for the city’s youth through More »
The United Nations says the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria has exploded in the past month from a few hundred to thousands a day. According to estimates, by the end of the year the total could reach 700,000, three times the number projected a month ago. VOA’s Scott Bobb visited Bab More »
The Fair Play international music awards honor young musicians for their work exposing corruption and oppression around the world. This year’s winner, Youssra el Hawary, who will travel to Brazil in November to receive her award, comes from Egypt. VOA’s Elizabeth Arrott spoke to el Hawary in Cairo. Combining a poem written by a friend More »
Arab-Americans make up roughly 0.5 percent of voters who will cast a ballot in the November general election in the United States. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from Dearborn, Michigan – home to the largest Arab-American community in the United States – despite those numbers, their influence is growing, and Arab-American community leaders More »
Many Muslims in the United States have been closely following news of the protests in the Middle East and the anti-Muslim film that sparked widespread unrest there. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee spoke to many of them about their thoughts. Many condoned the violent reactions to the video, others did not with some suggesting that there More »
In the aftermath of widespread protests throughout the world stemming from an anti-Muslim film produced in the United States, VOA’s Jerome Socolovsky investigates the origins of Islamophobia in the U.S. Experts say U.S. Islamophobia comes from a well-financed group which has been cultivating these sentiments since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Jocelyne Cesari from More »
As fighting continues in the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus, the Syrian government has withdrawn its troops from several Kurdish areas in the northern part of the country. Kurdish leaders there have set up their own security force and say they intend to maintain control of their areas no matter what happens in More »
Conflict brings with it not only human suffering, but also often produces setbacks for peoples’ cultural acquisitions and accomplishments. Yemen, one of the countries where the Arab Spring has unleashed aspirations for broader freedoms, has has proven no exception with its internal strife overshadowing the rich cultural heritage of one of the world’s oldest More »
The 9/11 terror attacks against the United States unleashed a deluge of surveillance activities by law enforcement agencies specifically targeting American Muslims. The initiative was met with broad opposition by the affected communities and produced a public outcry by civil liberties groups claiming that the effort amounted to nothing more than religious and ethnic More »
A half million Palestinian refugees are registered in Syria and slightly fewer in Lebanon. Most have remained in Syria, but with the escalation of fighting in and around their camps in recent weeks, hundreds of Palestinian families began seeking safer havens in neighboring Lebanon. As VOA’s Margaret Besheer reports from Beirut, these Palestinians have now More »
TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyans filled with optimism went to the polls Saturday for their nation’s first multi-party elections in 60 years. It was an emotional moment for people who have lived through 42 years of dictatorship and a bloody revolution. Many young men were fighting the forces of Moammar Gaddhafi just nine months ago. Today, More »
As Egypt struggles to get back on its feet after 16 rocky months of revolution and military rule, the country’s young Olympians are hoping to do the seemingly impossible under the circumstances, medal at the 2012 Olympics in London. That’s even tougher for pentathlete Aya Medany, 24. As if training for one event were More »
Naglaa Ali Mahmoud, wife of Egypt’s president-elect Mohamed Morsi, shuns the title of first lady, preferring instead the idea of a servant to the nation. A sharper contrast to her predecessor, Suzanne Mubarak is hard to imagine. Both married future presidents while still in their teens, but the glittered, Westernized style of Mubarak proved alienating More »
CAIRO – Egyptian President-elect Mohamed Morsi will be sworn in Saturday, and the location of the ceremony will mark his first public challenge to the nation’s powerful military. Egypt’s current ruling military council says Morsi will take the oath of office in front of the constitutional court. But the president-elect has vowed to assume his More »
YINCHAUN, Ningxia – Islam in China is flourishing, with official statistics counting more than 20 million Chinese Muslims. But, as with all religions in China, the state continues to maintain close watch over Islamic activities. Northwest China’s Ningxia is the country’s only provincial-level autonomous region for the country’s most numerous Muslims, the Hui. Ningxia’s Na Jia More »
CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi will be Egypt’s first freely elected president according to results announced Sunday. Just a few months ago, the idea of Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s first post-revolution leader seemed remote at best. But in Edwa, his home village in the eastern Nile Delta, no one seemed to doubt this native More »
