Nazih Osseiran

When a bomb exploded in the heart of Istanbul last year, killing six and wounding more than 80 people, Selcuk Ada did what journalists usually do in a crises: he started tweeting.

"They started the election campaign," he tweeted, referring to the Turkish government blaming the attack on Kurdish militants. The PKK and YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied involvement.

Meals or meds? It is a painful choice that 26-year-old Rayan often faces as a Lebanese trans man who struggles to afford food on top of his hormone therapy.

The drugs usually win.

Houssam Azzam was 17 when the U.S. military took over his hometown of Fallujah in 2004 and detained him as part of a roundup of young men in western Iraq.

His photo, fingerprints, and iris scans were entered into a database, alongside a trove of information about him and his family, even though he said he was only ever involved in peaceful protests against the U.S. presence.

Mouayad Mohsen is appalled by the ways of the modern world, and the 58-year-old Iraqi soldier-turned-painter is on a mission to teach his neighbours some manners.

"No one says hello anymore, especially the youth," he said, enjoying a tea at a cafe near his home in Baghdad Gate, a walled-off complex in the heart of Iraq's capital.

As Iraq marks 20 years since the United States invaded, many young people want to build a brighter future after years of conflict and chaos.

Among them is Amina Sabbar, 26, an emergency ward doctor who began training in a public hospital in Sadr City, a Baghdad suburb of 3 million people.

As Iraq marks 20 years since the United States invaded, many young people want to build a brighter future after years of conflict and chaos.

Among them is Leezan Salam, 26, a ballet teacher, who trained at the famed Baghdad Music and Ballet School and is now teaching a new generation of dancers despite opposition from conservatives and hard-liners.

As Iraq marks 20 years since the United States invaded, many young people want to build a brighter future after years of conflict and chaos.

Among them is Shana Shamal Mahmoud, 29, whose family fled due to threats of violence and returned in 2012, after U.S. troops withdrew.

As Iraq marks 20 years since the United States invaded, many young people want to build a brighter future after years of conflict and chaos.

Among them is Ali al-Mikdam, 22, a journalist and political activist who grew up in Baghdad, where his father and three other family members were killed in sectarian conflict between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

Unemployed and hit by rising fuel and electricity prices, some Syrian refugees in Jordan are making a painful choice: moving to the refugee camps they thought they had left behind.

Abdallah Hasan al-Jaseem, a father of an almost 2-year-old child, gave up on living and working outside the Zaatari camp and has now applied to relocate there permanently.

Rights groups have accused the Saudi Arabian government of "infiltrating" and seeking to control Wikipedia, after the Wikimedia Foundation banned 16 users for engaging in "conflict of interest editing" in the Middle East and North Africa.

The ban late last year came after an almost year-long investigation that concluded that the users had close connections to "external parties", and that these links were a source of "serious concern for the safety" of users, said the Wikimedia Foundation.