The assassination of prominent Tunisian secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid highlights the growing threat of militancy in the country. This threat has the potential to deepen the divide between the secular and Islamist factions within Tunisia and delay the transition to a permanent government. Meanwhile, the Islamist-led interim government in Tunis is attempting to More »

Positive civil and political youth activism has been the most rewarding result of the Yemeni uprising of 2011. Individual activism, youth initiatives and the participation of youth in new political parties have introduced fresh approaches and perspectives to Yemen’s civil and political arenas. This youth involvement is already changing the landscape in Yemen. For example, in More »

When declaring a state of emergency in the canal cities in response to clashes in Port Said last week, President Mohamed Morsi finally showed Egyptians his “bad cop” side after months of “good cop” rhetoric filled with invocations of “hugs” and “love.” What quickly became viral from the announcement was the clip of the More »

When the plane of deposed Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali touched down in Jeddah in January 2011, the Saudi monarchy’s worst nightmare re-emerged. Ben Ali was a close personal friend of then Saudi strongman, the late Saudi Crown Prince and longtime Interior Minister Naif bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. For the Saudi monarchs, seeing two More »

A decade ago, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) shone a spotlight on the sorry state of education in the Arab world with its inaugural Arab Human Development Report in 2002, and its 2003 follow-on report, “Building a Knowledge Society.” The reports’ statistics still shock: in one year, Spain translates the same number of More »

The Arab Spring introduced us to the strength and determination of the many Arab women who took to the streets and the Internet to call for change in their governments and societies. Gone were the stereotypes of oppression and passivity. In their place were voices and faces of hope, courage and indomitable spirit, calling More »

With Israel’s new Knesset polarized and, in broad strokes, almost evenly divided between right and center-left following recent parliamentary elections, it remains to be seen what type of government will emerge to lead the country into the near future – or whether a government can be formed at all. A final tally of the vote More »

Just days ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah made history when he named thirty women to the kingdom’s Shura Council, an appointed advisory body that cannot enact legislation but is still the closest institution to a parliament in that country. He also amended the Shura Council’s law to ensure that women would make up no less than More »

Saudi King Abdullah is poised to appoint* women for the first time as members of the country’s Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council). The move is symbolically important, but the assembly itself lacks real power. The king first announced his intention to appoint women to the Majlis al-Shura over a year ago, and, since that time, newspaper reports 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 »

Sami, a self-described citizen-journalist in Qusayr, writes about how the prolonged armed conflict in Syria has changed not only the outlook on weddings and marriages but also longstanding traditions surrounding them. Sami has shared previous narratives about barrel bombings, a Christian friend who fled Syria, and the impact his brother’s combat injury has had More »

Recent reports that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has been in poor health have fueled new questions about royal succession, an issue that has been looming over the Kingdom for years. Six kings have ruled Saudi Arabia since its creation in 1932, including its founder, King Abdul Aziz bin Abdulrahman al-Saud. All of his successors have More »

A small number of exiled Syrians in Paris, Cairo and other cities launched a radio station called SouriaLi (My Syria / Surrealist) in October for the people of war-torn Syria. The programming is uncensored and available from a Cairo studio as a web-based series of podcasts on www.souriali.com. Two of the station’s founders spoke More »

In Egypt, domestic abuse is not a crime. When a woman is beaten by her husband, the authorities are seldom called. Hospital trauma centers see the extreme cases of internal bleeding and broken bones. Otherwise, it’s only when marital violence shifts into child abuse that many women seek out help. According to a 2007 study More »

In an interview with Al Jazeera last year, the young Pakistani peace activist Malala Yousafzai said, “If this new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by terrorists.” Yousafzai, who was shot October 9 by the Taliban and is being honored globally today by what the United Nations established as Malala Day, More »

- The U.N.-Arab League envoy takes his Syria peace work to Beijing - Turkish Kurds are being allowed native language classes - Could waste plastic cut the U.S. need for foreign More »

While the image of women participating in last year’s Arab uprisings has been repeatedly used to provide a narrative for the Arab uprisings, the outcome of what was dubbed the “Arab Spring” did not turn out to be that positive for women. In Egypt, women hold two percent of parliamentary seats in comparison to 12 More »

Our source for this report is Sami al-Rifaie who, by his own account, is an activist and citizen-journalist who lives in Qusayr. Qusayr is a city in the mountains of western Syria that overlooks the Lebanese border. Sami al-Rifaie is not his real name. Sami last wrote about a childhood friend who escaped from Syria More »

In recent weeks, people the world over have heard a great deal about divisions and conflict between Muslim communities and America. Yet looking more deeply at American history shows how much American tradition actually runs in the opposite direction. In today’s seemingly divisive world, I cannot help but think of the values of America’s More »