RAMALLAH -- A convoy of boats laden with humanitarian goods and accompanied by hundreds of journalists, human rights activists and European parliamentarians, is due to challenge Israel's naval blockade of Gaza at the end of May. The Free Gaza movement's "Freedom...
CAIRO - Activists and opposition groups are stepping up pressure on the Egyptian government to stop constructing a barrier along the border with the Gaza Strip. Officials say the barrier will prevent cross-border smuggling, but critics say it will seal the fate of the...
Something odd, almost bizarre, is going on in Egypt these days. About 1,400 activists from all over the world gathered there on their way to the Gaza Strip. On the anniversary of the "Cast Lead" War, they intended to participate in a nonviolent demonstration...
CAIRO -- The specter of a U.S. nuclear umbrella for the Middle East haunted the U.S.- Egyptian summit this week. In the run-up to President Hosni Mubarak's first Washington visit in five years, both the Egyptian leader and his senior aides categorically rejected an...
President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration's confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic...
CAIRO, Jun 5 (IPS) -- Egyptian officials are lining up to praise U.S. President Barack Obama's address to the Islamic world delivered in Cairo Thursday. But local campaigners for political reform say the speech was disappointingly light on the issues of democracy and...
Mohammed al-Sheikh Yousef could save his eyesight if only he could cross the border out of Gaza. He was denied a permit by Israel; he got one from Egypt, but not for someone to accompany him. And he can't go on his own, because he cannot see very well. "If...
