As Spain celebrates its hard-earned victory, Serene Assir takes part in the fun
Within minutes of the end of the Spanish national team's unprecedented World Cup victory, the streets of towns, villages and major cities across the country were filled (...)
Serene Assir in Madrid interviewed Mohamed Al-Faidhi, spokesman of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, on the future of the Iraqi resistance and the inevitability of US withdrawal
As one of the intellectual foundations of the Iraqi (...)
In Spain, Serene Assir spends time with the country's Muslims, wondering how modern immigration and the legacy of Islam overlap
Situated in the heart of the Spanish capital, Tetuàn district has become over the past two decades the first port of call (...)
One full year into the siege, Israel -- in full view of the world -- continues to illegally starve and collectively punish Gaza's civilian population, ostensibly to avenge the democratic expression of the Gazan people who continue to choose (...)
Serene Assir reports on the struggle for justice of the family of Spanish journalist José Couso, killed in a US attack on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel in 2003
The Couso family were watching a television news bulletin when they first became aware of the (...)
Egypt opens the Rafah terminal for three days but the siege of Gaza persists, reports Serene Assir
While Egypt's General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman was in Jerusalem meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an apparent bid to secure a (...)
Serene Assir talks love, relationships and children with Cairo's young women
With the release in Egypt of Hollywood film Juno, which centres on the unwanted pregnancy of a 16- year-old girl, the topic of relationships and having children at a young (...)
Serene Assir attended 's concert in Cairo
By his own admission in Cairo on Tuesday night, composer, oud player and singer 's timing is perfect. His concert, after all, was being performed as Egypt witnessed multi-faceted acts of protest and against (...)
The AUC's Al-Quds Club celebrated Palestinian Land Day with an evening of cultural events and a display of the famous Palestinian dabke dance. Serene Assir was there
The American University in Cairo's Al-Quds Club celebrated Palestinian Land Day on (...)
As the world celebrates Water Day on 20 March, Serene Assir sees children work with UNICEF and local government to put a stop to pollution of the River Nile and their own lives in Upper Egypt
Poverty takes many forms in Upper Egypt, where people (...)
The Socialists' victory in Spain guarantees some security from social and ideological dictatorship, reports Serene Assir
Spain's Socialist party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), secured a second term in office in Sunday's general and (...)
Students take the lead in protests denouncing Israel's carnage in Gaza, with demonstrators demanding Egypt unilaterally open the Rafah border, reports Serene Assir
In response to Israel's brutal incursion into the occupied Gaza Strip which began (...)
Far from the frontline of capital and pain, Quft escapes the architecture of time. Serene Assir explores the desire to run
Where symbol and reality meet, and the present comes to life, time ceases to run through my fingers. Not only am I out of the (...)
Serene Assir reports on Egypt's role in the siege of Gaza
With Egypt hosting separate talks with Hamas and Palestinian Authority (PA) representatives over the course of the past week, the possibility of Cairo defying the renewed siege of Gaza by (...)
As rape and sexual harassment become staples of public debate, Serene Assir tunes in to street attitudes towards two disconcerting phenomena
A few weeks after Dar Al-Ifta's issuing of a fatwa (edict) ruling that Islam sanctions abortions for female (...)
Serene Assir reports from Arish on measures to repatriate Palestinians who flooded across the border with Gaza
Two weeks after the surprise opening of the Egypt-Gaza border 1,500 Gaza residents were forcefully repatriated on Tuesday alone and up to (...)
Spontaneous popular action on the part of Palestinians in Gaza left all political players reeling last week, sparking an influx of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians -- near half of the Gaza Strip population -- into the Egyptian Sinai, desperate for (...)
Restaurant review:
Downtown refuge
The forbidding winter precludes spending long hours outside, but Serene Assir finds a safe haven in the centre of the city
Downtown Cairo, among the city's most vibrant areas, has remained for the most part immune (...)
Serene Assir investigates the negative effects of globalisation and agrarian reform on Egypt's rural population and the agricultural sector
Abdel-Samie Amin, a farmer from Al-Hurriya village in the Dikirmis district of Daqahliya governorate, sits (...)
Only by understanding the Nakba as a unified continuing strategy can we hope to reverse it, writes Serene Assir
Jamila Moussa was 19 when she and her husband fled Kfur Yassin, her village in Akka, north Palestine. They had just had their first (...)
Property tax workers halt their protests, for now at least, reports Serene Assir
Ten days after a round-the-clock sit-in in the heart of Cairo, and more than three months after launching a nationwide work to rule, property tax workers have brokered (...)
Disaffected property tax workers are persisting in their round-the-clock sit-in in downtown Cairo, reports Serene Assir
Thousands of property tax workers from all over the country have converged in Cairo to stage a round-the-clock sit-in in a (...)
Property tax workers are increasingly optimistic that their strike will succeed, reports Serene Assir
An estimated 9,000 property tax workers from across the country gathered in Cairo on Monday for their fourth protest in their campaign to secure (...)
Arab and global efforts to boycott Israel keep Serene Assir hopeful
For decades now Israel has sought to portray itself and been portrayed in the West as an "enlightened democracy". Part of the way this works is through normalisation -- a strategy (...)
In the wake of fresh clashes between North Sinai security forces and Bedouin families, relations between locals and the authorities are tense, reports Serene Assir
According to locals, 10 Bedouins imprisoned without trial in October 2004 following (...)