The dictator's choice of voting location sent "a message telling the opposition that we are celebrating through your demise," one Syrian analyst tells NPR. The government said Thursday that Assad won.

Syria holds elections on Wednesday, demonstrating that the regime of Bashar Assad is firmly in power after 10 year of civil war.

Parents on both sides had to find ways to protect their children. "Yes, the cease-fire has been enforced. But how are we going to deal with children traumatized by this?" asks a mother in Gaza.

Yemenis who won the diversity visa lottery were stopped by the Trump administration's travel ban. Now they've had to start applying all over again. "Our lives have been destroyed," says one man.

During the 11 days of fighting between Hamas and Israel, parents used special toys, breathing exercises and promises to calm their children's fears.

For a week and a half, Gazans have taken cover in their stairwells and other parts of the house, eating canned foods and hoping they can run out in time — if an airstrike warning comes.

People in Gaza talk about what life is like as Israeli airstrikes continue, taking lives and degrading infrastructure.

"This is an embarrassing time for Gulf countries," says political scientist Bessma Momani. "Ultimately, they gave Israel a normalization deal, but didn't really extract anything for the Palestinians."

Arab countries that were opening relations with Israel are watching its air strikes in Gaza anxiously worrying they'll be seen as abandoning the Palestinians.

An activist for women driving recently released from Saudi prison was summoned back to security forces and told her conviction on terrorism charges was upheld. She remains under watch.

Until recently, Marib was under Saudi control. The U.S. has ended support for the Saudi Arabian military intervention in Yemen — which contributed to civilian casualties, famine and displacement.

Misinformation about the coronavirus has been catching on easily in Lebanon, where sectarian rivalries leave groups searching for answers that back their world view.

Some of the country's last beaches spared from development are now carpeted in globs of tar from an oil spill in the Mediterranean, damaging beaches that are nesting grounds for endangered turtles.

Lebanese volunteers are trying to save one of the country's favorite beaches and the nesting places it provides for endangered sea turtles after a February oil spill from an oil tanker.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the unrest leading to the Syrian civil war. A check-in shows that it's tough for people on both government and rebel sides.

The conflict has not only pitted the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad against a band of rebels, but drawn the U.S., Iran, Russia and Turkey, among others, into a complex proxy war.

A decade since the start of Syria's civil war, hundreds of thousands have died, millions have been displaced, and the war still isn't over — although the Syrian regime has the clear upper hand.

Mistrust towards China-produced vaccines, general vaccine hesitancy and distribution complications have all been obstacles in getting the vaccine out in some countries.

The dismissal of the lead judge investigating last year's massive blast in Beirut is raising fears of political interference to protect the country's leaders. The blast killed dozens of people.

Getting COVID-19 vaccines to Middle Eastern war zones like Libya, Yemen, and Syria is going to be a daunting task.