In the heat of the afternoon, especially this past month of Ramadan, downtown Tunis plays dead. Offices and shops close at 2 p.m. and life is suspended as everyone, parched and hungry, waits for sunset and the breaking of the fast. On a side street behind the Interior Ministry, the only movement is the occasional rumble of a tram, the only sound the trill of its bell warning pedestrians to step off the tracks.

This year, the YES alumni in Pakistan are working to help over 1,000 Pakistani people in 10 different cities over the course of a month. The alumni are working to provide these 1,000 people with ration packages for the month. This event is taking place over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and is divided into three phases. The first phase is fund raising and distribution, the second phase is to work with orphanages and slums, and the third phase is the distribution of Eid gifts to sick children in hospitals in Pakistan.

But as the month of Ramadan draws to a close, the main rebel group, MILF, and their followers, said they are praying that the talks, already reportedly at an advanced stage, would result in a final agreement by 2014. That deal could give the area a homeland and a separate government, and would end a conflict that has killed 120,000 people over the past four decades. Negotiations will resume in mid-August in Malaysia after Eid al-Fitr, the celebration of the end of Ramadan.

The United States extended embassy closures by a week in the Middle East and Africa as a precaution on Sunday after an al Qaeda threat that U.S. lawmakers said was the most serious in years. The State Department said 19 U.S. embassies and consulates would be closed through Saturday "out of an abundance of caution" and that a number of them would have been closed anyway for most of the week due to the Eid celebration at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

This year, scenes from popular Egyptian ad campaigns during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan have provided the viewing public with more than just catchy jingles. Their messages carry a motif. Against a backdrop of political instability, deadly violence and rival factions explicitly voicing their differences, Egypt’s top TV Ramadan advertisers are attempting to encourage social integration in the country.

For two weeks, American Voices offered performing arts lessons to 300 Iraqis from across the country. Classes were taught in the areas of jazz, piano, classical symphony, theater and hip hop & breakdance. I was essentially the Assistant Director of the YES Academy, and a veritable public diplomacy camp counselor. We also held smaller mini-YES Academies for close to a week in both Baghdad and Kirkuk -- the latter of which I ran as well.