The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday pledged to give up to $1 million to help equip high school students in the tornado-ravaged city of Joplin with laptop computers for the coming school year. The gift materialized after United Arab Emirates officials read an Associated Press story in late June about the school system's struggles.

Al Jazeera English has squashed several planned rebroadcasts of “Shouting in the Dark,” an hourlong documentary about Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that abrought complaints from Bahraini authorities. The episode illustrates the thorny issue of independence for Al Jazeera, which is financed by the emir of Qatar and is perceived by some people to be a diplomatic tool of the country.

Oman is to host the internationally-acclaimed American Ballet Troupe, one of its kind and for the first time in the national history...The troupe will travel to the Sultanate in October for as many as three stunning performances by its much sought-after artistes on the sidelines of the grand opening of the Royal Opera House,

In putting the Palestinian demand for statehood to a vote, Abbas will end up subverting the international organization's longstanding solution to the Arab Israeli-conflict—U.N. Security Council Resolution 242—with unpredictable results.

The US is making a mistake in demonising Iran, says Patrick Seale. Obama should have seized the chance to engage. It’s now widely accepted – and lamented – that US President Barack Obama failed dismally in attempting to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Tens of thousands of people marched across Syria on the first Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan....Clinton repeated that the United States believed Assad had lost legitimacy in Syria...The European Union also agreed to further extend sanctions on Syria.

The new Middle East is very much a work in progress, but... the latest developments...are making the stirring picture of freedom, democracy and secularism that so many had envisioned in the early days of the Arab Spring look more like a glassy mirage masking anti-liberal, anti-Western sentiment.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera has not gained distribution on any major cable or satellite systems in the United States. On Monday, the channel will be carried in New York City for the first time, though only by subletting space from a channel owner...it is finding out that cable and satellite distributors wield an enormous amount of control over the channels that viewers in the United States can and cannot see.