Syria Feature: Isolation in Damascus (Roman)

The process of applying for a visa to visit another country has become more costly and more risky. It can involve several trips across borders to visit embassies in Amman or Beirut.

The main road to Jordan has become dangerous with frequent assaults and the destruction of the bridge on the Deraa motorway that connects Damascus to Amman. Many Syrian men have reported that they have been turned back at the border for no specific reason. Travelling to Beirut is a bit safer for now, but also involves uncertainties because the roads can be blocked at any time.

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Iran Update: The Djinns Are Back! Ahmadinejad's Men Go On the Offensive (Sinaiee)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government is seeking to divert attention from hardline rivals' allegations that some of the Iranian president's allies, including his chief of staff, are involved in black magic and exorcism.

The government is doing so by assuming the leading role in the battle against occult practices and nonconformist ideologies.

Alireza Afshar, acting interior minister in executive affairs, told Nasim Online, a news website, that the ministry had commissioned a non-governmental organisation to identify those engaged in divination and exorcism as well as "deviant schools of thought and false Gnosticism".

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Iran Feature: Revolutionary Guards Speak Out Against Ahmadinejad (Theodoulou)

Analysts suspect the [Revolutionary Guards'] magazine was encouraged to publish the [critical] article by the office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If so, however, this does not mean there is a major rift between the ayatollah and the president: it is more likely to be a warning shot aimed at reining in Mr Ahmadinejad, analysts said.

"It [the article] should not be turned into a narrative of withdrawal of support for Ahmadinejad and a sign of his imminent downfall," said Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii. "But it should give pause to those who keep explaining Ahmadinejad's success in maintaining power in terms of his base of support in the Guards."

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Palestine: Life in Hamas's Gaza (Prothero)

If the humiliation of chronic unemployment, or being paid to not work, isn’t enough, with a widespread travel ban on Palestinians except in rare medical cases requiring Israeli help, no one ever gets to leave this tiny patch of sand along the sea. And with meager wages supplemented by humanitarian rations, people aren’t starving. Instead they seem to be losing any sense of hope and increasingly, according to social workers, smugglers and even the police, turning in massive numbers to cheap narcotic tablets smuggled through tunnels from Egypt. A sense of lethargy and hopelessness now pervades almost every aspect of life here.

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