There are currently over 300 Palestinians in administrative detention. This means that prisoners are being held with no charge and without being tried. Hana al-Shalabi, a 29 year old from a village near Jenin enters her 15th consecutive day of hunger strike, protesting her administrative detention in the Hasharon Israeli prison. Hana took on the same method to peacefully protest her unjustified detention; similar to Khader Adnan, who successfully drew international attention to his case, and the case of many other Palestinian administrative prisoners. Adnan recently ended his hunger strike, which lasted for 66 days, after Israel agreed to release him on April 17th. 

Although she was previously arrested in 2009, with no charge or trial and was freed in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011, after 30 months in captivity, she was not exempt from being rearrested. She is currently sentenced to six months in prison, and her sentence can be renewed indefinitely.

Many former female detainees gathered outside the Red Cross in Tulkarm this week to stand in solidarity with Hana and other administrative detainees, inside Israeli prisons. Solidarity campaigns and sit-ins in front of the Red Cross are continuing amid warnings of her deteriorating health condition, and the escalating situations inside the occupation prisons. 

Israeli court officials say that Hana is a threat to Israeli security and they claim that she participated in planning actions after her release. The defense called for Hana's prompt release and held Israel accountable for her health.

On Thursday Hana al-Shalabi said that she will continue her hunger strike and that she will remain patient and steadfast despite her detention in the cold, her fatigue and weakness. Hana maintains high spirits and thanked people who support her and she assured that her hunger strike is open until her demands are met.

Photo: Badeeah Shalabi holds a placard depicting her daughter, Palestinian detainee Hana Shalabi, in the West Bank village of Birqin, near Jenin February 27, 2012. REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

Millions of Egyptians came out to Tahrir Square today for the "Day of Departure," according to Al Jazeera's Arabic channel. Demonstrators said all Egyptians were participating and that they would not leave until their demands were met.

BBC Arabic reported that both pro and anti-Mubarak protesters turned out in Alexandria. They also said that the Egyptian Attorney General banned several officials from leaving the country as a precautionary measure against them.

One of the banned ministers, former Minister of Commerce and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid, called into Nile TV, Egyptian state television. Rachid said he was in Dubai with the permission of authorities and did not know why he had been banned from traveling.

Al Alam, the Arabic language channel from Iran, reported that an European Union summit issued a statement today condemning the attacks on Egyptian demonstrators and calling for an immediate peaceful transition of power. They also said three demonstrations supporting the pro-democracy protesters took place in Brussels today.

Iran's English language channel, Press TV, showed demonstrations around the world in support of the anti-Mubarak protesters, including in Malaysia where protesters clashed with police.

Lebanon's New TV featured the newly appointed Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman. The soft-spoken Suleiman rose through the armed forces and military intelligence to become head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service.

As protests continue in Egypt, Dubai TV reports on how the unrest is affecting the Gaza Strip. Egypt is the main source of supplies for the people of Gaza. Transportation tunnels at the Rafah border crossing have been cut off since the protests erupted, leading to fears of a food shortage.

I arrived in Tunis on January 1, only a few days after a wave of rallies had erupted due to the suicide of an unemployed college graduate, who torched himself after police confiscated his fruit cart, cutting off his only source of income. Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, sold fruit and vegetables without the necessary vendor's permit in the town of Sidi Bouzid, located 160 miles from the country's capital Tunis.

At the time, Tunisians had been protesting for a couple of weeks over poor living conditions, high unemployment, government corruption and repression. Three people had been killed in the protests by the time of my arrival. The atmosphere was tense, public protests were rare in Tunisia where dissent was usually repressed; however, no one I spoke to in Tunis believed then that these demonstrations would lead to the ouster of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali who eventually fled the country to Saudi Arabia after ruling Tunisia for 23 years.

The Jasmine Revolution, as it is dubbed now, was not televised on Tunisia's main television station, Tunisie7, nor did it make headlines in the local press, but the news spread like wildfire on Facebook, YouTube, mobile phone, and to a lesser extent on Twitter (most of the tweets were from outside Tunisia).

Prior to my arrival to Tunis, I had spent the past five weeks in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories debating social media, its impact on youth, and its relationship with journalism in the Arab world with my interlocutors.

It is very easy, but over-simplistic and naive to decide on a social media interpretation for the Jasmine Revolution, as we have been witnessing by many bloggers and self-appointed Middle East experts, many of whom neither speak Arabic nor have spent an extended period of time in the Middle East. They desperately want to convince us that Tunisians needed an external technological Western invention in order to succeed. A Twitter revolution of some sorts, as they previously labeled the Iranian Velvet Revolution, as though Arab masses were not capable on their own of saying "enough is enough."

Certainly social media was used as a communication tool for Tunisians to air their frustrations with the economy, unemployment, censorship, and corruption. But many factors lead to its success, such as a well organized trade unions movement, and the most potent weapon in the Arab world, the youth.

Population ageing is widespread across the world, but most Arab countries have been experiencing a youth explosion. More than one third of them are now unemployed. Tunisia is a bit different since it is one of the few Arab countries that opted for a family planning policy initiated during the rule of its first president, Habib Bourguiba. Tunisia, however, has also adopted a development plan with a focus on higher education, leaving a large number of young college graduates unemployed.

When I was driving around in Tunis, posters of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali were sprinkled throughout the city with the slogan, "Together We Meet Challenges," a slogan meant to tout his plan of development by focusing on job creation, increasing revenue and enhancing Tunisia's positioning and influence on the regional and international scales. This obviously has failed, leaving a country of over- educated youth, many of whom are unemployed or doing menial jobs. Mohammed Bouazizi was the catalyst for their revolution.

Today, millions of Arab youth are disenchanted with politics and live a dramatic rupture with the state. Restrictions on freedom of expression, though improving in several countries, dominate the mass media in the Arab world. Social media has in many instances opened the door for them not only to share ideas, but also to take action. We've seen a vivid example of this during the Jeddah floods when the Saudi government tried to suppress the news about the devastation caused by nature due to poor infrastructure in the Arab world's richest country, but the news quickly spread on Facebook and the internet by concerned young Saudis. We've witnessed a bread revolution in Egypt, also driven by high unemployment and poverty; again initially transmitted to the outside world by young bloggers before it became international headlines.

Throughout history, when social discontent can no longer be contained, people have taken to the street to demand change. Having the most rudimentary technology, or none at all have not prevented these movements, a case in point being hand printed pamphlets distributed prior to the French Revolution, Gandhi's ability to inspire and mobilize through the exponential power of word of mouth, and the leaflets and tape recordings of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini speeches that were smuggled into the country prior to the Iranian Revolution.

Mohammed Bouazizi's self immolation was the expression not only of his despair, but that of youth throughout Tunisia ready to explode. Although they are an educated tech-savvy generation who were able to use social media as a tool, the underlying force was not a byproduct of this and the current situation would have come to pass with or without it.

Crediting social media with these revolutions however, trivializes them and does a disservice to the deep rooted issues that cause them.

As I was leaving Tunis on January 4, news spread again like wildfire of Mohammed Bouazizi's death at a hospital in the town of Ben Arous. Today, Mohsen Bouterfif died. Mohsen doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire on Thursday after a meeting with the mayor of the small city of Boukhadra who was unable to provide him with a job and housing. Boukhadra is in Algeria.

Article first published on the Huffington Post

This week gunmen overran a Christian church in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad during Sunday services, instantly murdering a priest and an acolyte. In the hostage siege that ensued, more than 50 people were killed and dozens were wounded when attackers sprayed bullets and set off suicide vests. The Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility and released a statement warning of more attacks to come against Christians.

During the rule of Saddam Hussein, there were an estimated 1.4 million Christians living in Iraq -- many of them Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, but also a smaller number of Roman Catholics.

Two-thirds of Iraq's Christians have left the country since 2003, according to some estimates -- leaving fewer than 450,000 Iraqi Christians there today. Tragically, more Iraqi Christians may now join the exodus as a result of Sunday’s massacre. They know that without a government to enforce law and order and with the Americans on the way out, there will probably be more attacks.

Al Qaeda militants want the exodus to continue. Al Qaeda in Iraq has declared war on half a million Iraqi Christians because two Egyptian women, who supposedly converted from Coptic Christianity to Islam, are rumored to be held prisoner by Coptic monks somewhere in Egypt. Al Qaeda in Iraq posted an internet statement saying "the killing sword will not be lifted" from the necks of Christians, in Iraq and across the region.

The speaker said his group will go after "your children" in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, adding there are hundreds of thousands of Christians and hundreds of churches on Islamic soil.  He said they will be targeted if Christians do not submit to his group's demands.

Leaders of the Coptic Church deny the women are being held anywhere, calling the assertion "an illusion in the minds of sick people.” Even if this story about the Coptic monks is true, it is utterly mind boggling why Iraqi Christians are held responsible for something done in Egypt? However, there has not been any logic behind all the death and destruction that have become a part of Iraqi daily lives.

Two days after the Sunday massacre, more than 70 people were killed and 250 wounded as sixteen car bombs and roadside bombs detonated across the city on Tuesday. The coordinated bombings seemed designed to demonstrate that Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups still have a significant presence in the capital.

"For the last four months we have seen attacks around Baghdad, but now they are inside (the city)," Mohamed al-Rubeiy, a Baghdad provincial council member for Karrada was quoted saying by the Associated Press. "Karrada is the center of Baghdad and Baghdad is the center of the government. That means the terrorists are sending a message to the world: 'We are back and we are here'."

Religious leaders from around the world condemned the attacks, including Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani. 

Condemnation, however, is not enough. Iraqi leaders and security forces must do more to protect a Christian population whose roots in the country reach back in history. Moreover Iraq's current security and political dysfunction could prove a liability to the entire region, becoming a deadly breeding ground for terrorist groups with global aspirations.

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Relations between the United States and Pakistan have quickly soured following a helicopter strike on a border post that killed three Pakistani soldiers last week. The incident prompted Pakistan to close an important border crossing for NATO supplies into Afghanistan. Criticism of the U.S. and NATO has dominated the news in Pakistani media even after the U.S. apologized for the incident.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has recently accused some elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting the terrorist networks in the country, thus undermining the war against terrorism by the U.S.-led international forces in the region. Recently, militants attacked 50 NATO supply trucks in Pakistan's northwestern town of Nowshera, the seventh attack in a short period of time. The U.S. has dramatically ramped up strikes with unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan's tribal areas in recent weeks.

But these are not the only stories that dominate Pakistani news. Reports about the human suffering due to the recent devastating floods, though they have all but vanished from Western newspapers, remain in the headlines in Pakistani ones. Terrorism acts are constant reminders of instability and insecurity for the average citizen, most recently punctuated by two blasts at a shrine in Karachi which left 9 dead and scores injured. The economy has tanked, inflation is at 18-20 percent, and the government seems to be helpless to do anything about it.

Pakistan is a troubled nation with deeply divided loyalties.

Even the once prestigious military establishment is now in trouble. A video purporting to show a group of Pakistani soldiers gunning down six blindfolded men in the country's troubled northwest has been circulating on the Internet for weeks. The troubling video has renewed long-standing concerns about military human rights violations during operations against the Taliban.

The war in Afghanistan has entered its tenth year. Many Pakistanis believe that “America’s War” has become their war. Fears are growing in Pakistan that the U.S. could bolster its drone attacks with a bombing campaign using fixed-wing aircrafts. This would most certainly increase Pakistani anger that could spill over into violence aimed at the thousands of Americans who are currently stationed in the country.

“The U.S. is trying to win its war in Afghanistan, through Pakistan,” says journalist Imtiyaz Mohammed.

He added that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is in a major predicament of trying to appease the United States while also trying to calm down an angry population.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is currently ranked the 10th most failed state in the 2010 Failed State Index released by Foreign Policy magazine this summer. Just three places below Afghanistan.

But former President Pervez Musharraf attributes Pakistan’s woes to "failure" of governance.

"I would say failure of governance is the greatest threat today," said Musharraf, who has announced his return to active Pakistani politics from London where he has been living in self-imposed exile since the general election of 2008.

However, many Pakistani pundits believe that this announcement is no coincidence, and has the United States' markings all over it.

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