Slideshows

A year on from the (Twitter hash-tagged, aptly named) "March 15" 2011 official start of the Syrian round of the wider Arab crisis, Syria's endgame looks nowhere in sight. One year anniversary, and counting. The future for Syria at least upon the anniversary of the Syria Spring looks wide open or tightly sealed and deadlocked. A year in pictures and text.

Does Greece belong more to the Middle East than Europe? While Euro-ministers are set to meet tomorrow to officially sign off on Greece's second bailout, we entertain the idea that Greece not be more at home in the Arab lands, trading Europe for the Middle East?

After the heady feeling left over from 2011 of Arab revolutionary achievement, was soon replaced by a more disappointing reality, we’re sure the Arabs could do with a pick-me-up. Here is Arab Idol. After a much-fan-fared buildup, Arab Idol has well and truly-arrived, with no shortage of drama to add to an ordinarily heated region.

While co-Arab nations are undergoing turmoil and labor pangs of 'change', in Iraq it's business as usual. Suicide bombings, accusations and counter-accusations flying around to name perpetrators, unemployment, power cuts, repression and revolution in equal measure. Al Bawaba catches up with daily life in this often forgotten conflict zone.

As the results of President Bashar al-Assad's referendum are in, and a whopping 90% bestow their support, we take a look at the Syrian Super-Star vote: A yes it is.

While Jordan's 'corruption' files have been on the radar now arguably since the 1980's, the renewed interest has no-doubt had something to do with the ever-threatening Arab Spring that Jordan has coyly kept at bay. Today, with each arrest comes a considerable to-do that sends ripples of alarm in the country's 'reading' of its status in Arab revolution terms. The net has widened in the last couple of months to include the investigation of several leading businessmen and a former mayor of Amman. The people culled so far with their charges and cases.

Celebrities in the Arab world, as elsewhere are premium, hot stuff. They are stalked, chased, and hunted down by anything from paparazzi to people with snazzy phone cameras. Their's is a life of pressure and oftentimes distress, as they live every moment in the public gaze, devoid of privacy and the space to keep anything, let alone private marriages, from the media lens. Al Bawaba's picks of some the stars 'caught in the act' in this 'shame-show' include, possibly the usual suspects: Haifa Wehbe, Nancy Ajram, Marwa, Dina, Dunya Abdel Aziz, "Na Na" and more.

Firmly into 2012, how are the Arab revolutions developing? We check in with some of the Arab protest pictures to gauge to what extent they have reached revolution saturation, or on the contrary are just getting started.

Where is the love in the Middle East this Valentine's Day? With leaders still at militant logger-heads with their own people, and broken hearts left over from war torn regions, Valentine's Day for Arabs at home might be as conflicted an occasion as love affairs universally can be.

As we take a look at Egypt's long-leading family, the Mubaraks, since the dramatic ouster, a year ago, we can barely conceal the apathy and disinterest felt toward this dictator clan as the world speculates over another dictator family still bent on beating down its people; Syria's Assads.