Few Palestinians can imagine a future without Yasser Arafat. Graham Usher writes from Ramallah (see Yasser Arafat focus)

The Islamist resistance is set to become more mainstream in any post-Arafat dispensation, reports Khaled Amayreh

Last month Graham Usher had lunch with Yasser Arafat and the only horizon was the past

Bush wins the popular vote, as well as a second term in the White House, reports, Khaled Dawoud from Washington (see full coverage)

A triangle to the immediate south of Baghdad has emerged as a hotbed of resistance to US occupation forces and a centre for Islamic sectarian conflict. Ahmed Mukhtar reports

The revelation that 100,000 Iraqis have died in the course of the US-led invasion and occupation of the country seems set to haunt the new American president, writes Amira Howeidy

When the People's Assembly begins its final session next week, the mood will be ripe for lively debates. Gamal Essam El-Din reports

With an official licence finally in hand, the new Al-Ghad Party will be electing its chairman tomorrow. Mona El-Nahhas reports on the party's struggle for legitimacy and interviews its founder, Ayman Nour

The editor of Nasserist mouthpiece Al-Arabi was kidnapped, beaten and dumped, naked, on the Suez Desert Road early Tueday, Shaden Shehab reports

Voting, according to Iraq's most venerable Shia cleric, has become a religious obligation. Abbas Kadhim comments

The northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk sits atop vast oil reserves, but it also seethes with ethnic tensions, writes Nermeen Al-Mufti from Baghdad

The recent increase in potable water prices have ignited a serious debate about the flaws in the water utility system as a whole, reports Sherine Nasr

Gamal Essam El-Din spoke with Mary Ott, USAID-Egypt's deputy director, on the agency's present and future roles

Wael Gamal investigates the effects of the US dollar's slump on the local economy

He reads with a sublimity born of love