Today marked the second anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden – instigator and mastermind of the 9-11 attacks in the United States in 2001.  Nearly 3,000 people were killed when al-Qaida hijackers crashed two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the More »

Dr. Zaher Sahloul, an American physician and president of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS),  has just returned from his sixth mission to Syria. While there, he visited half a dozen hospitals where doctors claim they have treated patients for exposure to chemical nerve agents. VOA reporter Cecily Hilleary reached him by phone in More »

Syrian American Shiyam Galyon lives in Houston, Texas. She recently traveled to Syria as part of a humanitarian relief project distributing food and medical supplies in rebel-controlled Aleppo and its suburbs. Galyon is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where she had been active in several campaigns to help the needy. More »

Sami of Qusayr, by his own account an English lecturer, gave up teaching at his university to support Syria’s revolution. When government forces began to vacate local schools they had seized he agreed to resume teaching, not to university students but to 11th-graders. Read his story below. Middle East Voices’ “Syria Witness” series features personal More »

Egypt’s street children had a lot to gain from the country’s revolution. However, change has come slowly if at all, and in many ways, their cause has been pushed off course. Increasing poverty, a growing shadow economy, and continued political instability, have proven challenges to the safety of these children. The issue of street children More »

Extraordinary contributions to mankind and professional excellence were recognized this week in Washington, D.C., at the 15th annual Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards Gala, sponsored by the Arab American Institute (AAI). Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese-American poet, painter and philosopher, in whose honor the award is named, lived and wrote in the United States in More »

Dressed in floral print clothing, he needs cinnamon chewing-gum to fight against his foes and a long rest after his encounters – it’s Super Makh! Reappearing this year in the Egyptian comic publication Tok-Tok, Super Makh is the Egyptian version of Superman in a popular cartoon where his main mission is to the help More »

As the conflict in Syria continues to escalate, there are increasing calls for the international community to step up its involvement. Ambassador Frederic Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and the Obama administration’s special advisor for the Syrian transition in 2012, spoke with VOA’s Carol More »

The International Committee of the Red Cross reports an increase in indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Damascus and says people are fleeing the Syrian capital in greater numbers. Reuters separately reports that March was the most violent month in Syria’s now more than two-year-old conflict, with 6,000 people killed, The total estimated death toll More »

As French-backed Malian forces continue to battle an Islamist insurgency, the former U.S. ambassador to the North African country, Vicki Huddleston, spoke with VOA’s Carol Castiel on Press Conference USA about the challenges facing the divided nation and what concrete steps should be taken to prevent it from becoming a breeding ground for al-Qaida More »

A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, Tammam Azzam, abandoned a successful decade as a promising painter to escape the dangers of the Syrian war. He settled into a small apartment in Dubai with a computer and some PhotoShop software to embark on a new artistic mission: to vividly convey More »

Four days before the opposition Syrian National Coalition elected Ghassan Hitto interim prime minister, he was directing humanitarian aid to areas of Syria now under the control of rebel forces. Prior to his election, Hitto, a 50-year-old U.S.-educated technocrat, spoke to senior reporter David Arnold about the dire situation inside Syria. He said that most  More »

Twenty-seven European Union foreign ministers left a meeting in Brussels this week bitterly divided on whether forces trying to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should receive outside military assistance. VOA’s Susan Yackee spoke on the subject with Chatham House Syria expert Christopher Phillips (audio below). Susan Yackee: The European Union has come More »

In a powerful scene from the 2010 Egyptian film “678,” a veiled woman boards a crowded public bus on her way to work, squeezing through a mass of passengers in search of a space where she will feel least vulnerable to attack. Inevitably, though, groping hands reach her and she has no choice but More »

Sami, by his own account, is an activist-turned-school teacher who writes about changes that have taken place in his hometown of Qusayr since the uprising against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad began nearly two years ago. In the midst of the conflict that has destroyed much of Quasayr, Sami recently visited its newly-elected city council More »

New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in the Middle East; President Barack Obama is scheduled to make his own trip to the region soon. Syria and Iran are high on the U.S. agenda but the Middle East peace process is not off the table. Kerry would even want to move it higher More »

The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has openly affirmed his commitment to achieving peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Iran and the Syrian crisis may be topping the agenda his current visit to the region, but most analysts believe he will use his first trip as America’s top diplomat to signal his More »

Ahmed Da is, by his own account, a citizen photojournalist. He shared with us his story of how he organized Lens Young Homsi, a group of like-minded photojournalists, who set out to use a Facebook page to tell the world about life, death and destruction in Homs, their hometown. To date, their Facebook page, More »

I’ve been in hiding for the past two years. The Bahraini government imprisoned me from August 2010 to February 2011, and it was obvious I would be rearrested; so I went underground. It’s not easy – I’m married with a 10-year-old son, and the risk of capture is always there – but I carry More »