Africa’s first democratically elected female president, a Liberian campaigner against rape and a woman who stood up to Yemen’s autocratic regime won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 8 in recognition of the importance of women’s rights in the spread of global peace. The 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award was split three ways between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, women’s rights activist Leymah Gbowee from the same African country and demo...

Turkey is piling pressure on Syria with border military exercises, economic sanctions and the harbouring of Syrian opposition groups and army defectors. Turkey has shifted, in the space of six months, from being Syria’s new best friend to a centre of gravity for opposition to President Bashar Assad outside the country. Having started out by advising Assad to exercise restraint and make reforms when pro-democracy unrest first erupted in March, Turkey is now on the verge ...

The director of Myanmar’s state censorship board has said his own department should be abolished to allow greater press freedom in the Southeast Asian nation. US-funded Radio Free Asia cited Tint Swe, the director of the country’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Department, as saying in an interview that censoring the media is not consistent with democratic values. Tint Swe said on October 7 that a new media law would allow the country’s press to be free of ...

While the hunger strike of the Palestinians prisoners entered its 12th day on October 7, thousands of Gaza residents took to streets after Friday prayers across the coastal enclave in solidarity with the prisoners. The demonstrations were called by Hamas, Islamic Jihad movement and other Palestinian political factions.

During the protest before the Red Cross headquarters where participants attended Friday’s prayers, Mohammed Al-Hindi, senior Islamic Jihad leader...

In its troubled peace talks with the Palestinians, Israel has demanded that it should be recognised as a Jewish state, but there is deep domestic division on what that means. Yoram Kaniuk, a rambunctious 81-year-old author, was hailed by Israeli secularists this week for winning a court victory that compelled the state to stop listing Judaism as his “religion” while keeping “Jewish” as his “ethnicity.” He is the first Israeli Jew to have do...

Israeli bombardment killed two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah began a war in 2006 and whose bodies were returned to Israel two years later, a Lebanese minister said on October 5. Hezbollah handed over the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a prisoner exchange. Israeli officials have said they were badly wounded, one of them fatally, when they were captured by the Shiite militant group in a cross-border raid in July 2006.

Health Minister Ali Hass...

Mideast negotiators will seek ways to restart the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process during a meeting planned for this weekend, the European Union said on October 7.  The meeting on October 9 will be held amid international pressure to reach a peace deal, fuelled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ request two weeks ago that the UN recognise an independent Palestinian state. The gathering will include envoys from US, European Union, United Nations and R...