TEHERAN - Women marched alongside men in the protests that helped topple Iran’s monarchy in 1979’s Islamic revolution, and three decades later are continuing to struggle for more rights.

 

As students filed into the courtyard of Asma elementary school in Gaza City for the first time since the Israeli offensive began, they were greeted by a bleak reminder of the violence that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and thousands injured.

 

Mouin Rabbani, a contributing editor to the Middle East Report magazine, talks to Al Jazeera about what Israel's war on Gaza means for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his Fatah faction, and what its wider repercussions may be.

 

Was it the iconic image of the Bush presidency - or simply a footnote?The whole world watched the video of an Iraqi journalist flinging his shoes at George Bush - his size 10 footwear narrowly missing the presidential head.

 

There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza. In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas - 'Islamic terrorists' backed by Iran - have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state.

 

Amal Mahmoud, 44, cringed as she recalled the ceremony which took place after her circumcision in a small town south of Cairo 32 years ago. 

 

One of the most popular television programmes in Russia this winter has been a series which asks viewers to vote for who they believe to be the country's most celebrated historical figure.

 

Every Saturday for the past few weeks, thousands of people have braved the harsh cold weather to protest in the square outside Iceland's parliament in Reykjavik, the capital.

 

Leaders from the world's Group of 20 most powerful economies are meeting in Washington DC amid what they say is a desire to forge a common response to what could be the worst global economic crisis for nearly a century.

 

The emnity between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah seems yet further entrenched, after Cairo-brokered reconciliation talks between the two groups broke down before they had even officially begun.

 

On the heels of the Toronto International Film Festival comes another motion picture fete about a people trying to carve out a state in a war-torn region.

 

I have some questions to throw out there: some things to ponder after the games of the 29th Olympiad. Games that were in so many ways, unlike anything we'd seen before.

 

Tbilisi has desperately sought international support since Russian forces moved into Georgia after the Georgian army launched an offensive to bring separatist South Ossetia, which broke away in the early 1990s, back under government control.

 

With five million refugees repatriated since 2001 and three million still harboured mainly in Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan continues to face formidable challenges in addressing the needs of its refugee population.

 

The presidential candidates will pick their running-mate's before the party conventions which begin in one month. 

 

Every day at 6pm Luka makes his way to the centre of Belgrade to join hundreds of others to march through the streets of the Serbian capital to demand the release of Radovan Karadzic.

   

A week after his spectacular arrest, the public in much of Serbia, and in particular Belgrade, the capital, has been swept away by the strange story of Radovan Karadzic and his alter ego, Dragan David Dabic.