2011 was an unforgettable year with the rise of the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movements challenging the corporate world and a general overall social consciousness. Architects , too, learned that it is our responsibility to design in such a way to enhance and impact some of the world’s urgent concerns: poverty, climate change, unemployment, energy crises and education. With community’s no longer willing to accept the status quo, as we’ve seen in many parts of the world with successful protests, education is a key component for the mass majority. Education has always been a right and architecture has played a vital role in creating school buildings, which have become a teaching tool for urban sprawl in a poverty setting, have responded to climate change, sustainability, energy crises and preservation of culture and heritage. For example, the Children Academy in Haiti, the Boarding School for Girls in India, the Bamboo School in Liberia and The United Nations Relief and Works Agency Zero Carbon Gas Schools in Gaza Palestine, are all exemplary projects that can be set a new standard for architectural education.

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2011: A Year of Change

An Israeli air strike to the east of Gaza City killed the leader of an Islamic militant group, the Israeli military says.

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Israeli raid kills Gaza militant

Converts to the urban sport of parkour, young Palestinians practice how to run for their lives in a Gaza cemetery.

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T Magazine: The Graveyard Shift

JERUSALEM — At a museum just off the desert road from Jerusalem to Jericho in the West Bank, the artifacts of a contested heritage are on display. Colorful mosaic floors from Byzantine-era churches and synagogues, inscriptions, Roman capitals and stone burial boxes — all dug up by Israeli archaeologists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — are shown at the site, developed by Israel’s West Bank military administration with the Israeli antiquities authority. Read full article > >

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In the West Bank, a contested heritage

JERUSALEM — Israel’s navy boarded two small protest boats trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip on Friday and towed them to an Israeli port just north of the Palestinian territory, officials said. The military said no one was hurt. Troops boarded the boats without incident after repeated calls for them to turn around were ignored, the military said. Read full article > >

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Israeli navy boards 2 protest boats approaching blockaded Gaza, tows them to Israeli port

The Israeli navy intercepts and boards two boats carrying activists and medical supplies as they attempt to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

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Israel boards Gaza protest boats

There are hopes of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza after 10 people died in rocket and airstrikes on Saturday.

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Ceasefire hopes after Gaza deaths

An Israeli man has been killed by a rocket attack from Gaza after nine Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli air strikes on the south of the Gaza Strip.

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Ten killed in Israel-Gaza attacks

At least five Palestinians at an Islamic Jihad training site in southern Gaza were killed, according to witnesses and the militant group, and militants responded with rocket fire.

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Israeli Drone Strike Kills Militants in Gaza

GAZA CITY — A week ago, Yahya Dabassa Ibrahim was on a hunger strike, rotting away in an Israeli prison where he expected to spend the rest of his life. But the Oct. 18 prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas landed the Bethlehem native in a surreal place: the Gaza Strip’s brand-new luxury hotel . Read full article > >

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In Gaza, former prisoners pampered in luxury hotel

EL ARISH, Egypt — Large caches of weapons from Libya are making their way across the Egyptian border and flooding black markets in Egypt’s already unstable Sinai Peninsula, according to current and former Egyptian military officials and arms traders in the Sinai. Egyptian security officials have intercepted surface-to-air missiles, most of them shoulder-launched, on the road to Sinai and in the smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt to the Gaza Strip since Moammar Gaddafi fell from power in Libya in August, a military official in Cairo said. Arms traders said the weapons available on Sinai’s clandestine market include rockets and antiaircraft guns. Read full article > >

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Smuggled Libyan weapons flood into Egypt

MAHMOUD ABBAS acknowledged Monday what many Palestinians and Arab leaders concluded long ago: The result of his plan to pursue U.N. ratification of Palestinian statehood will be more hardship for the people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Congress may terminate U.S. aid , causing an instant economic crisis; Israel is hinting at retaliation, ranging from the withholding of tax funds to the annexation of its West Bank settlements. At worst, demonstrations being orchestrated by Mr. Abbas to support the statehood initiative will get out of hand, producing a violent confrontation with Israel. Read full article > >

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A heedless rush for Palestinian statehood

Turkey says it is ‘totally suspending’ all defence ties with Israel after its refusal to apologise for last year’s deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.

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Turkey vows new Israel sanctions

An Israeli air strike kills a Palestinian militant commander from Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

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Israel kills Gaza militant leader

JERUSALEM — An Egyptian-brokered cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip took hold Monday, as airstrikes and rocket salvos triggered by a deadly attack by gunmen in southern Israel tapered off after five days of fighting. Israel’s relations with Cairo were strained last week after three Egyptian security officers were killed as Israeli forces pursued the gunmen responsible for the attack on Thursday. The killings led to furious protests outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and a threat by Egypt to recall its ambassador to Israel. Read full article > >

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Gaza cease-fire takes hold