Ray Smith

In the occupied West Bank, dissident voices questioning the Palestinian Authority’s increasingly authoritarian rule have become rare. But a young musician in Ramallah refuses to hold his tongue.

Few visitors make it to the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, causing the city’s tourism sector to suffer.

The Electronic Intifada contributor Ray Smith interviews Raja Khalidi, a senior economist with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, about the PA’s economic policies and its implications for statehood.

The Palestinian Authority is preparing to establish a state in the near future. But the Palestinian economy remains strongly tied to Israel, and manufacturers are struggling to recover from the second Palestinian intifada.

More than three years after Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in the north of Lebanon was destroyed, its reconstruction is finally under way. However, the process runs at a slow pace and remains only partially funded as further political obstacles appear on the horizon.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (IPS) - Abu Yussif doesn’t want to talk about his work anymore. “It’s not going to help and nothing will change anyway,” he says. The tall, white-haired Palestinian has just returned from work and relaxes in his little garden in the Burj al-Shamali refugee camp near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (IPS) - Recent inter-factional clashes in Lebanon’s Ein al-Hilwe refugee camp once more illustrated the fragile security situation in some of its Palestinian camps. Lebanese plans to take over security within the camps are rejected by the Palestinians. Ein al-Hilwe and other refugee camps are home to various Palestinian nationalist groups, but also host different Islamist forces that the Lebanese government considers a threat to the state’s security and stability.

More than two years after the end of the fighting, the war-torn Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, located in northern Lebanon, is far from the model the Lebanese government has promised the camp would become. Instead, reconstruction of the camp is delayed, the area is a military zone with restricted access, and the camp’s economy is stalled and residents are largely unemployed. Ray Smith reports for Electronic Lebanon.

NAHR AL-BARED (North Lebanon) (IPS) - The hip-hop beats ringing through the muddy, unlit streets of this burnt-out Palestinian refugee camp seem incongruous. But the rhymes are camp-grown — and courageous. Farhan Abu Siyam, 21, is Nahr al-Bared’s first and only rapper. Going by the name of MC Tamarrod, he grew up in the Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr al-Bared and Burj al-Barajne.

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (IPS) - More than two years after their refugee camp was destroyed in a war between the Lebanese army and the Islamist militant group Fatah al-Islam, Nahr al-Bared refugees Wednesday witnessed the start of the camp’s reconstruction. Their relief is mixed with skepticism, however. Established in 1949, the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon’s Akkar region has become home to more than 30,000 residents.