Syrian issue heading for Security Council
An Arab League team is to take the 10-month-old crisis in Syria to the UN Security Council, as activists said almost 50 people were killed in unrest on Thursday, including 10 children. | UN human righ...

No end to trafficking of women
| New Delhi: There seems to be no end to a woman's miseries, especially if she is uneducated and poor. | The conclusion was drawn after a study undertaken by the Delhi-based Centre for Social Res...

Write, wrong
| Here is a fundamental question to friends and supporters of Salman Rushdie: Is the right to speech and expression absolute, without any restrictions, in any democratic society? The right to freedom ...

Syria killings spike as diplomacy heats up
Syrian security forces stepped up a crackdown on Friday as activists said almost 110 people were killed in a two-day spike in violence ahead of a bid to condemn Damascus at the UN Security Council. | ...

Violence Rises Sharply in Syria, Flustering Arab League Monitors
| DAMASCUS, Syria — Violence in Syria has escalated sharply over the past two days, with heavy bloodshed reported Friday in at least three flashpoint areas, as Arab League monitors expressed exa...

Syria ramps up brutal crackdown
| SYRIA has stepped up a deadly crackdown on dissent, as activists said almost 100 people died in two days of violence. | The brutal crackdown came ahead of a bid to condemn Damascus at the UN Securit...

Wounds in village of the damned are slowly healing
| The shantytown called Vingerkraal seems trapped in South Africa's apartheid past. | Tin shacks resemble those hurriedly built by black people evicted from white territory. Women and children are lef...

Syria violence kills 37, U.N. Security Council to meet
| AMMAN (Reuters) - Security forces killed 37 people in Syria Friday, activists and residents said, as people in Homs mourned 14 members of a family they said were slain by militiamen in one of the wo...

Reclaiming a voice in their future
| A year ago, Egyptians of all ages and religions took to the streets and, in just 18 days of relatively peaceful protests, removed a regime that had ruled over them with an iron fist for 30 years. Em...

Resistance movements are unlikely to die down soon
| When people took to Egypt's streets in January last year, they were bound together by a deep hatred of Hosni Mubarak's regime rather than a common vision of what demands for "bread, freedom and...

Libya grappling with discontent
| The perceived inability of Libya's transitional government to address serious economic and security problems is causing a groundswell of discontent that threatens national stability, officials and d...

Putting a halt to sectarian attacks
| The foundation that binds Pakistani society together cannot be torn apart by elements seeking to stoke sectarian tensions. The recent senseless killings of lawyers in Karachi serves as a case in poi...

Islamists poised to redefine society in the Arab world
| The success at the polls of Islamists (as political activists who draw on the Quran as inspiration for their social ideology have come, willy-nilly, to be known) tells us little about Islam and much...

Syrians must work towards ending violence
| The recent developments in Syria as well as the positions adopted by various parties call for an immediate rethink of where the country is heading. Moving forward means that all the parties concerne...

Making iconic plans a reality
| After a temporary delay of some months, the cultural projects intended for Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi are back on track. The iconic Louvre, Zayed National Museum and the Guggenheim will now open i...

The wonder of being young
| The eyes and ears of the reading public were focused on the Jaipur Literature Festival that was held between January 20 and 24 this year. Big names from all over the world attended, controversies we...

Syria violence spikes as diplomacy heats up
| SYRIAN forces yesterday stepped up their deadly crackdown on dissent, with activists reporting almost 100 dead in two days, as violence spiked ahead of a bid to condemn Damascus at the UN Security C...