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A new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee released on Wednesday suggested that the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war has reached “a new level of hopelessness” as overstretched neighboring countries make it a lot more difficult to escape and developed nations like the US only resettle a small number of refugees. According …

Arab leaders from Gulf countries may hold a special meeting to agree on differences among themselves ahead of an annual summit in Qatar in December. Kuwaiti daily Al-Anbaa reported that consultations are underway for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders to gather informally before the summit at Doha on December 9th-10th. The gathering will go ahead as scheduled after a “special …

Israel on Wednesday approved new settlement blocs in east Jerusalem despite mounting unrest over the issue, as US Secretary of State John Kerry gets ready to meet with Palestinian leaders over tensions in the occupied territory. The construction of the new settlement were announced only hours after Jewish extremists torched a mosque in West Bank, in a development that will …

Egyptian Internet startup ElWafeyat.com is part of a looming pan-Arab tech renaissance with incubators and start-up funders spanning from Abu Dhabi to Cairo. Cairo-based ElWafeyat.com, which roughly translates to “deaths” in Arabic, is an online alternative to traditional paid newspaper obituaries, is creating a social-network-type website with pictures, posts and pages for friends and family to memorialize their deceased loved …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday to discuss the increase in violence in East Jerusalem. The meeting will occur in Jordanian capital Amman at 11:00 GMT, Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said. Kerry is set to arrive in Jordan on Wednesday to speak with King Abdullah II on tensions boiling over …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Hamas of trying “to destroy” efforts to mediate national unity, alleging that the Palestinian movement was responsible for the bomb blasts in Gaza this past week. Speaking at the 10th death anniversary of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday, Abbas said that Hamas was responsible for the Gaza attacks which targeted leaders of …

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian on Tuesday during clashes in the West Bank as a wave of unrest is gripped the country, prompting thoughts of a fresh Palestinian uprising. A 22-year-old Palestinian was killed near Hebron as soldiers and around 150 Palestinians clashed near the Kiryat Arba. Since the new round of violence began five months ago, at …

The Iranian judiciary on Tuesday said that Iranian-British woman Ghoncheh Ghavami, who was arrested in June after trying to see a men’s volleyball game, is currently being held for security reasons and over “links with foreigners”. The 25-year-old law graduate’s lawyer had earlier in the month said she was given a one-year-jail sentence at the start of November, but the …

United Nations refugee agency UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday said that it has been forced to reduce the number of people in Iraq and Syria it provides aid to in Syria during the winter due to a lack of funds. “The whole humanitarian community is facing shortfalls. People are becoming numb”, Amin Awad, the head of the …

Syria has released around 11,000 detainees since the declaration of a general amnesty in June, Syria’s National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said. However, several rights groups claim that over 200,000 people are still withering away in government jails. Haider on Monday told AFP that “11,000 people have benefited from the amnesty and been released from prison”, referring to the “general …