Middle East
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • September 29, 2015

Seizing a chance to respond more coherently to the deadly situation in Syria, the European Union and Jordan are proposing a “resilience plan” to alleviate the humanitarian emergency while pushing for a political course to stop the Syrian government…
- Categories: Human Trafficking, Libya, Middle East, Refugees
- Barbara Crossette
- • September 27, 2015

Four working groups formed to dissect and discuss the Syrian crisis in concrete terms are being set up by the United Nations in a plan conceived by Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy in Syria since July 2014. The…
- Categories: Middle East, Refugees
- Tendai Musakwa
- • September 24, 2015

As the United Nations prepares to formally accept the new Sustainable Development Goals at midday at a summit meeting on Friday, here is a close look at one of the main resources that helped inform the long debate on…
- Categories: Governance, Health and Population, Latin America, Middle East, Poverty, SDGs, Women
- Shazia Z. Rafi
- • September 18, 2015

As a relentless remake of the Middle East and North Africa has been taking place, mass displacements of populations have also been occurring. And more chaos is ahead, says the United States Defense Intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart,…
- Categories: Middle East, Migration, Refugees, UN Agencies
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • August 24, 2015

Four months after Saudi Arabia pledged to donate $274 million to the United Nations to fully cover an emergency humanitarian appeal for Yemeni civilians desperately hungry for food, medicine and water, the money has not materialized, the UN has…
- Categories: Humanitarian Aid, Middle East
- Chris Chaky
- • August 20, 2015

Khalid al-Asaad, an internationally recognized Syrian scholar of antiquities, was beheaded by ISIS on Aug. 18 for refusing to disclose the location of archeological treasures apparently removed for safekeeping from Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s most important archeological landmarks…
- Categories: Education, Middle East
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • July 16, 2015

RAMALLAH — As the head of the Palestinian Civil Police Family and Juvenile Protection Unit, Lieut. Col. Wafa Muammar is the highest-ranking female officer in the Palestinian police force and a role model for women trying to find their…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East, Women
- Johanna Higgs
- • July 9, 2015

TUNIS — Tunisia has possessed the rare reputation of being progressive in gender equality in the Middle East-North African region. Yet with the rise of an Islamist political party in Tunisia after its relatively placid revolution in 2011, the…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Human Rights, Middle East, Women
- Barbara Crossette
- • March 4, 2015

The shocking scenes of irreplaceable centuries-old treasures being smashed and toppled from their pedestals in a museum in Mosul — with the rabid acts of destruction proudly videotaped by fighters who call themselves the Islamic State — has provoked…
- Categories: Asia, Middle East
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • February 12, 2015

The Russian-sponsored resolution to fight more precisely the financing of the Islamic jihadists who control swaths of Iraq and Syria passed unanimously in the United Nations Security Council recently, expressing the entire council’s dread, at least for now, of…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Human Trafficking, Middle East, Security Council
- Barbara Crossette
- • January 4, 2015

The news from Syria and Iraq is most often dominated by besieged cities and airstrikes on the strongholds of the Muslim extremists of the Islamic State. What those fighters are doing to women they abduct is often hidden by…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Human Rights, Middle East, Women
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • December 31, 2014

The Palestinians’ failed proposal to formally establish a state and end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017 through a vote in the United Nations Security Council on Dec. 30 continued to reflect the immense influence of…
- Categories: ICC, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East, Security Council, US Foreign Relations
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • November 20, 2014

BAMAKO, Mali — In the primarily Francophone and Anglophone region of West Africa, Mali is said to have one of the highest rates of female genital mutilation, with about 91 percent of girls and women having undergone the circumcision…
- Categories: Africa, Gender Violence, Health and Population, Human Rights, Middle East, Women
- Shiwani Neupane
- • November 9, 2014

Liat Shetret is the director of the New York office for the Global Center on Cooperative Security, a nonprofit group that helps governments and other organizations develop responses to international security issues. Shetret’s work — currently in Africa —…
- Categories: Middle East, Peace and Security, Women
- Barbara Crossette
- • October 29, 2014

Beyond the horrific executions, the deadly assaults on Christian and Yazidi communities and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing towns to avoid their terror, fighters of the Islamic State movement sweeping through Syria and Iraq are…
- Categories: Middle East, UN Agencies