Issue 34, December 2005

IN THIS ISSUE

EVENTS
DEVELOPMENT
NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq: NGO Workshop and Conference, Amman/Jordan, 2005  
Prince Sultan Bin AbdulAziz International Prize for Water; Deadline December 31, 2005
HEALTH
Global forum for health research: Forum 10 – Combating disease and promoting health: call for abstracts, deadline 31 January 2006
NEWS
ENVIRONMENT
Quarries continue to damage the environment in Lebanon

DEVELOPMENT
Two-thirds of Palestinians living in poverty
EACID Case Study: Eight Years of Lending in Upper Egypt

CULTURE
Dusting off the National Library plan in Lebanon
American University of Beirut AIDS Run in Lebanon seeks to shatter taboos, create awareness
Rare Islamic Texts To Go Online

GENDER
The hijab is a swastika-type symbol
Gender Issues in E-Society
Egyptian women fear an Islamist come to power
Iraqi Women Seek Rights Pledge from Politicians (IWPR)

ECONOMY & TRADE
USAID pledges support for Lebanon's WTO entry bid
ARAB COUNTRIES: "Corruption costing Arabs $300bn a year"
World Bank prods Lebanon on backlogged loans
Spending surplus oil revenues will boost regional economic growth
IMF warns Lebanon can no longer afford fuel subsidy

ICT
Lebanon to finally enter DSL era
Country Development Gateways showcase local capacity building at WSIS  -
Lebanon works with Development Gateway on E-Procurement
Iraq and the internet - appreciating its role
Global civil society refuses to embrace WSIS outcome wholeheartedly
Tunisia to host African online academy
Don't Bomb Us - A blog by Al Jazeera Staffers

HUMAN RIGHTS
'Lebanon must commit to ICC human rights legislation'
Activists draw up rights plan
Despite stereotypes, Armenians are very much Lebanese
IFRC emergency appeal to provide assistance to 60,000 families in Iraq (November 2005)
Egyptian Couple Awarded for Best Free Expression Blog

POLICIES
Lebanese Parliament lacks capable lawmakers

EDUCATION
Canadian university's new Qatar campus to boost quality of education in the region
Arabic Program Accepting Institutional Partners

REPORTS & BOOKS & ARTICLES
DEVELOPMENT
Crude designs: the rip off of Iraq's oil wealth

GENDER
Researching women's ICT-Based Enterprise for Development: methods, tools and lessons from fieldwork
Anatomy of a backlash: sexuality and the cultural war on human rights
Gender Equality and Trade-Related Capacity Building: A Resource Tool for Practitioners - Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), 2005
Gender equality and empowerment of women through ICT
Maid to Order: Ending Abuses against Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore: Report by Human Rights Watch.

ICT
An Alternative Measure of the Digital Divide Between Arab Countries
NGO-in-a-box

EDUCATION
The effect of child work on schooling: evidence from Egypt