IPS correspondents bring you independent perspectives on what is happening in Iran, Iraq and across the Middle East.

EYE ON GAZA
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Anything for a Bath, Anything for Fuel
Mohammed Omer
GAZA CITY – The girl, about 16, is wandering about Jebaliya refugee camp, picking up anything she thinks can burn. She cannot find enough bits of wood, so she gathers plastic bags, old notebooks and even a pair of broken plastic sandals.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42866

Net Tightens Around Gaza Fishermen – By Nora Barrows-Friedman
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42818

Kites Rise Above Divisions – By Mohammed Omer
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42812

Hospitals in Need of Care – By Nora Barrows-Friedman
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42751

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IRAN: List Sheds Light on Death Row Children
Omid Memarian
UNITED NATIONS – A human rights group has published the first detailed list of juvenile offenders on Iran’s death row, finding that at least 114 children under the age of 18 are awaiting the ultimate penalty.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42871

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Q&A: ‘Occupiers Cannot Also Be Liberal’
Interview with Israeli academic Ilan Pappe
ATHENS – Support for an academic boycott of Israeli universities exposed Ilan Pappe to death threats last year, forced him to resign as senior lecturer of political science at the University of Haifa, and leave the country.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42865

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Egypt Forced to Bend on Israel Gas Deal
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO – In the last two months, popular and parliamentary opposition to the sale of Egyptian natural gas to Israel — at undisclosed prices — has mounted. As a result, in a rare nod to public opinion, the government recently announced it was “revising” the terms of the sale agreement.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42857

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Iraq Is Home to Too Many Widows
Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail
BAQUBA – Just about everyone in Iraq is a loser as a result of the occupation, but none more than women. One of the more obvious signs of that is the very large number of widows.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42858

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LEBANON: Newsrooms Fall Prey to Seven Deadly Sins
Mona Alami
BEIRUT – Prejudiced reporting is not uncommon anywhere, but in Lebanon the level of news distortion has taken on a new dimension as a result of assassinations, physical threats, political pressure, biased reporting, lack of professionalism, rampant corruption and self-censorship. These are the seven deadly sins that have increasingly been plaguing the Lebanese media over the years.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42855

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Q&A: “Grand Bargain With Iran Was a Missed Opportunity”
Interview with U.S. Representative Henry A. Waxman
WASHINGTON – Last week, the European Union offered Iran an incentives package to stop enriching uranium in order to initiate negotiations with the West. Mere days later, and before Tehran had responded, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the Europeans planned to freeze the assets of Iran’s largest bank in a bid to discourage Tehran from developing “nuclear weapons”.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42844

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IRAQ: The Love Stories Are Gone
Ali al-Fadhily
BAGHDAD – As statistics go, at least 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the occupation, now in its fifth year. Every one of them has left behind once loved ones to mourn the loss and to think of what might have been.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42808

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International Community Failing Iraqi Refugees
Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON – The international community, especially the United States, has depicted a “false picture of the security situation” in Iraq in order to encourage refugees to return to a country where the situation is still “too dire”, said Amnesty International.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42804

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U.S. Coercive Diplomacy Disputed at Centrist Meet
Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – The assumption that the U.S. should exploit its military dominance to exert pressure on adversaries has long dominated the thinking of the U.S. national security and political elite in the past. But this central tenet of conventional security doctrine was sharply rejected this week by a senior practitioner of crisis diplomacy at the debut of a new centrist foreign policy think tank, the Centre for a New American Security.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42801

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IRAN: Corruption Scandal Could Become a “Gladiator’s Game”
Omid Memarian
NEW YORK – An Iranian official who accused more than 40 high-ranking officials and grand ayatollahs of financial corruption in a speech to a student group early last month in the city of Hamadan was arrested in Tehran.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42797

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Q&A: ‘One Hundred Reasons To Be Punished With Death in Egypt’
Interview with Ayman Okail, Maat Centre for Juridical Studies
CAIRO – A death sentence in Egypt appears easy to receive — in fact there are 59 laws enabling judges to deprive a citizen of life, covering 105 crimes.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42796

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U.S. High Court Sides with Guantanamo Detainees
Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON – Rights groups lauded a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reinstated the principle of habeas corpus for detainees at the prison for terrorism suspects in the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42776

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Bush Pledges on Iraq Bases Pact Were a Ruse
Analysis by Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – Two key pledges made by the Bush administration on military bases in its negotiations with the government of Iraq have now been revealed as carefully-worded ruses aimed at concealing U.S. negotiating aims from both U.S. citizens and Iraqis who would object to them if they were made clear.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42773

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Was Obama’s Rhetoric on Israel for Real?
Analysis by Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS – When Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate for the November U.S. presidential elections, addressed one of the most influential pro-Israeli lobbying groups last week, he offered himself as a more trusted ally of Israel than his rival, Republican candidate John McCain.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42755

TerraViva – Civicus World Assembly: Jun. 18-21, Glasgow

IPS-TerraViva’s team of journalists from Brazil, Chile, England, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Scotland, South Africa, Turkey and Zambia will cover this major civil society event, in partnership with Civicus and SCVO, the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations. A printed daily TerraViva newspaper will be distributed amongst participants and will also be available online.
Click on ipsterraviva.net/tv/civicus2008/ for front-row reporting!

The theme of the World Assembly this year is “People, Participation and Power”.
What is the role of civil society? Why is its participation in the halls of power so strongly resisted? What is the importance of civil society involvement?

For more IPS reporting on the Middle East – www.ipsnews.net/middle.asp

Iraq: Beyond the Green Zone – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iraq/index.asp

Iran: The Parthian Shot – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iran/index.asp

Holy Land/Unholy War – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/israel_palestina/index.asp

Afghan Divide – www.ipsnews.net/afghanistan/index.asp

View From the U.S.: Bush at War – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/warII/index.asp

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