Behind The News

Al Akhbar news, a Lebanese daily newspaper, reported in January that Lebanon's Spinneys franchise CEO Michael Wright had been sacked; however the truth is stranger than fiction and Al Bawaba sets the record straight.

What happens when Israeli “Absentee Property” law deprives the Ayyad Family of a Home-cum-Hotel: a family's struggle to keep hold of the Cliff Hotel -incidentally built on land owned pre-dating the State of Israel's conception- in the face of arbitrary state laws. This is the case of the Cliff Hotel and the 'disappearing' Palestinian birthright.

Promising to quit politics if convicted by the court, Avigdor Lieberman finally answers for his alleged crimes.

In late January the United Nations raised more than $1.5 billion in just one day’s worth of pledges at their conference in Kuwait. The money was intended for the suffering masses of Syria’s civil war but critics say most of the aid will never reach the rubble-strewn streets of Aleppo, Idlib and Homs.

Pope Benedict said in a historic announcement he no longer had the mental and physical strength to run the Roman Catholic Church.

How the U.S. determines whom drones target became a public question after a drone killed U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, who was a member of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

A group accused of trying to overthrow the UAE government meet with the judge before the start of the public hearing.

Badria al-Bishr argues that Saudi society is turning into a Kingdom full of amateur paparazzis.

The good news is that change mostly occurs nonviolently and will keep moving some Arab countries on the slow path to stable democratic republics.

Two years on from the last time this taboo subject was addressed, East Africans looking for better job opportunities are still being lured into the Gulf and then trapped as sex slaves.

An international human rights group is appealing to Jordan's to amend the Citizenship Law, which prevents Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians from passing on their nationality to their spouses and children.

Yemen has chosen to tackle its political quagmire and potential ongoing turbulence by going to the table for talks. They are due to take up the diplomatic option to cure their ails at their National Dialogue, whose date is still to be determined.

Depressed and ill, Saddam Hussein’s former right-hand man has had enough.

On the eve of the elections in Jordan, the government's main opposition makes their claim of voter fraud.

Ashkenazi had been widely touted as a leader for Israel’s left. But what appears to be a concerted campaign against him by the political elite may stymie any chance of his running for office.