Every December, people worldwide take the opportunity to reflect on the year that has past, as well as the year ahead. For many, the new year represents a fresh start to get rid of bad habits or start something new. Making a new year’s resolution has become a long-lived tradition to welcome in this new beginning and time of renewal. The habit dates back to the ancient Babylonians. While folks of the past made promises of paying debts and returning objects, today's generation often makes a mix of funny, weird ...

Renewed movement towards peace and change has continued to lend hope to the Middle East in 2013. Through protest, violence, as well as dialogues and peace negotiations, people throughout the region have been mobilizing to change the status quo in their respective countries. Egypt and Syria dominated headlines. The ousting of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi in July and the army’s bloody crackdown on Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood placed the north African country in the spotlight globally throughout the year. Chemical attacks , proposed peace negotiations, 33-months of bloodshed and ...

With kickin’ concerts scheduled all across Arabia, there are ample opportunities to rock your way into 2014! Whether you want a little “Ice, Ice, Baby” or prefer a hot and steamy night, you can decide if you should aim for Amman, escape to the Emirates , or bust over to Beirut this December 31st, based on this mega-packed list of gigs. You’re spoilt for choice this year, as you’ll get to select which of your fave stars to spend New Year’s Eve with. This celeb crew come from all over ...

There might not have been much peace and goodwill in the Middle East this year, but Christmas 2013 was still celebrated with gusto in the Orient. With Christians being increasingly targeted by extremist groups, some festive cheer was much needed - and Santa delivered! 2013 has been a tough year for all the Middle Eastern states - if they are not rocked by all-out sectarian conflict (a la Syria), then there's a chance they've been impacted by dodgy governments, weak economies or settlement strife. Despite all this, Christmas 2013 went ...

If you’ve ever heard the saying “breakdown before the breakthrough”, then you have some idea of what the women’s movement in the Middle East looks like. Rarely, on good faith and kind gestures, do women in the region get anything handed to them in terms of equality and rights . It’s almost always a fight. Every advance for women can be linked back to a significant event which triggered outrage or brought global attention to the issue. In 2013, many women activists and woman-specific issues dominated trending media and news ...

Three years ago, a fruit seller in Tunisia set himself on fire to protest against the corruption prevalent among the Tunisian police and the government. His act of defiance sparked off a series of protests that shook monarchs and authoritative governments across the Middle East, a region home to over 380 million people. When the protests first erupted, they inspired a sense of hope in the Middle East. People believed that their collective action could inspire change in a region dominated by calcified and oppressive power structures. The sense of ...

Ahhhh, the Middle East. 2013's been a big year in Arabia - the region's politics (not to mention dirty laundry) have been splashed across global newsheadlines and with lurking fears of an all-out international war played out on Syrian soil, the revival of peace talks between Palestine and Israel and Mohammad Assaf winning Arab Idol, there’s been enough to talk about. The Middle East is certainly never devoid of news - something is always rumbling and threatening to kick off. And although when you read BBC or CNN it may ...

Since the tragedy of 9/11, the Middle East makes the headlines of Western newspapers at a far greater frequency than ever before. And yet, people in the West fail to understand the workings of the Arab mind. They frequently misinterpret what they see and hear. They perceive the Arab world to be mysterious and incomprehensible, and so different from the West so as to rule out any hopes of future reconciliation between the two people a la Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilisations" . The misunderstandings caused by the cultural differences ...

For the last three days, historical snowfall Alexa has battered the Middle East blanketing the region in frosty layers of white. Areas in higher altitudes, such as Jordan’s capital Amman, have been covered with almost a meter of snow, and in Cairo, Egyptians received their first dose of the cold, white stuff since 1901! To put things in perspective, the last time there was snow in Cairo 112 years ago, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia-as we know them today-were not yet even established as countries! Other parts of the ...

When Mike Myers asked, Who throws a shoe? Honestly! … he had obviously forgotten the whole Arab quarter of the globe where any respectable angry Arab has thrown a few pairs by the time he’s grown a pair (and some stubble - and that’s sooner than in the non-Arab world). A vulgar habit, probably but common practice on the Arab street and behind closed doors, definitely. Austin Powers International Man Of Mystery Part 1 brought the cool to shoe-throwing courtesy of Random Task long before the man who tried to ...

Throughout his life, Mandela was a dedicated champion of the cause of Palestinian freedom. He famously remarked, “We know too well that our freedom will be incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” Indeed Israel (a supporter of the apartheid regime in South Africa ) was one of the few countries that didn’t invite Mandela to visit when he was released from prison in 1990. Mandela wasn’t the lone figure from South Africa who drew parallels between the way the whites treated the blacks in South Africa and how the ...