Agence France-Presse AFP – December 27th, 2009.

Photo: Smoke over Gaza rises during Israeli bombing last winter.

French protesters camped out in front of the their embassy in Cairo to protest a ban on them from travelling from Egypt to Gaza for a march in support of the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

About 300 protesters set up tents and blocked a road in front of the mission after buses they had rented to take them to El-Arish, a town close to the border with Gaza, never came.

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Confederation Nationale du Travail joins BDS campaign – press release

Photo: ActiveStills Palestinian youth hurls stone during a protest against the wall.

November 2009 – Through the intermediary of its international Secretary, the National Work Confederation (Confederation Nationale du Travail or CNT), a French anti-capitalist internationalist union involved in social class struggles, has joined the campaign labeled “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the State of Israel”, an international campaign launched by more than 170 grass-root Palestinian organizations, including our partnering independent Palestinian independent unions.

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Beirut, Lebanon, August, 2009 Menassat.

Photo: Markus Moning. Reading the newspaper at La Grande Arche, La Défense, Paris.

BEIRUT—On Tuesday, on the third anniversary of al-Akhbar, the Lebanese daily signed a partnership with the Arabic version of Le Monde Diplomatique, a major international newspapers that has more than 70 foreign editions in 25 languages.

At a conference at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Verdun, Beirut, attended by journalists, media persons, and politicians, it was announced that the partnership gives al-Akhbar the exclusive right to distribute a monthly issue of the Arabic language Le Monde Diplomatique in Lebanon and Syria.

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guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 July 2009.

Photo: Palestinian stands at Israeli military check-point.

Israel was yesterday criticised after it refused to allow a group of doctors on a humanitarian mission organised by the French government to enter Gaza.

The team, including three British medics, was turned back by Israeli border guards on Sunday and Monday. They say their mission is purely humanitarian, aimed to helping those in medical need, and some of whom were left injured and in need of surgery after Israel’s attack on Gaza earlier this year.

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Photo essay by photojournalist Carole Kerbage, January 2009.

Photo: Carole Kerbage. Thousands in the Barbès district Paris in solidarity with Gaza.

Protests have swept the globe in response to the current Israeli attack on Gaza and thousands have taken to the streets in France this past week, including multiple demonstrations in Paris. Thousands gathered in the Barbès district Paris for a demonstration, while a major protest was staged in downtown Paris to protest the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week.

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World Skip the Beat, Monday June 30th, 2008.

Tadamon! special edition: entire program is on-line for download.

A special edition of World Skip the Beat, on CKUT Radio in Montreal, which explores music and song from around the world inspired by immigration, Diaspora and migration. Featuring music from all corners of the world, this special program offers unique and rare musical selections from diverse artists from Algeria, Canada, Cap Verde, Egypt, France, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Lebanon, Peru, Slovakia and Spain. A special edition of World Skip the Beat produced by Dror Warschawski.

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Al-Ahram: Mohamed Salmawy, Secretary-General of the Union of Arab Writers.

Photo: Paris metro.

Representatives of 25 Egyptian and Arab syndicates, led by Mohamed Salmawy and Ibrahim El-Moalem, chairman of the Arab Publishers Union, submitted a memorandum to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 24 February explaining the reasons behind the Arab protest at Israel’s invitation as guest of honour at this year’s Paris Book Fair, which opened in the French capital last week.

“Honouring Israel, and celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Israel’s independence, a state which constantly violates international peace and the basic human rights of the Palestinian people, can only be seen as an unjustified provocation for Arab and international public opinion,” the memorandum read.

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Lucy Fielder Reports for Al-Ahram.

Photo: In Beirut a worker sweeps the street in front of the parliament

Lebanon ended the year much as it had begun, in political limbo. In November 2006, six ministers’ resignations paralysed the government and crystallised the two-year-old split between government loyalists and the opposition. A year later, president Emile Lahoud’s term ended without a successor, leaving a dangerous vacuum at the top. As the year drew to a close, it looked as though Lebanon would drift rudderless until either fractious politicians resolved their power struggle, or frustrations spread to the streets.

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The Nation. by Laila Lalami

Photo: Paris Mosque.

“A kind of aggression.” “A successor to the Berlin Wall.” “A lever in the long power struggle between democratic values and fundamentalism.” “An insult to education.” “A terrorist operation.” These descriptions–by former French President Jacques Chirac; economist Jacques Attali; and philosophers Bernard-Henri Lévy, Alain Finkielkraut and André Glucksmann–do not refer to the next great menace to human civilization but rather to the Muslim woman’s headscarf, which covers the hair and neck, or, as it is known in France, the foulard islamique.

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