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22nd December 2009
A record number of people fleeing conflict, poverty and drought in the Horn of Africa have risked their lives crossing the Red Sea into Yemen this year. The total of more than 74,000 is a 50% increase on last year, according to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
“The mixed migration route… Read more
22nd December 2009
The results of elections to the Muslim Brotherhood's 16-member Guidance Bureau in Egypt are being interpreted as a victory for the conservative camp amid a growing rift with reformist elements.
The wing now dominating the movement is more focused on the religious aspects and is not in touch with… Read more
21st December 2009
Yemen's parliament yesterday urged the government "to enhance the accuracy of its targets and avoid any error" when carrying out operations against "terrorists, insurgents and outlaw elements", the official news agency says.
The defence minister and the deputy prime minister responsible for… Read more
21st December 2009
Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri sat face-to-face at a state banquet on Saturday with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad – whose regime has been widely suspected of assassinating his father.
Hariri's bridge-building visit to Damascus seems to have cautious support from a range of Lebanese… Read more
21st December 2009
Supporters of the niqab (face veil) have won the latest round in their long-running battle with the Egyptian authorities.
Yesterday, the Administrative Court annulled a decree by the education minister that banned students wearing the niqab from entering dormitories at Cairo's Ain Shams University… Read more
20th December 2009
Algeria is planning to introduce a centralised system for filtering (i.e. censoring) the internet. It is also proposing stiff penalties for anyone who circumvents the government's filtering, according to the Magharebia news website.
Algeria is one of the few Arab countries (along with Egypt and … Read more
19th December 2009
Last Thursday the Yemeni government congratulated itself on a series of raids which reportedly killed 34 al-Qaida terrorists and led to the arrests of 17 more. The raids were said to have foiled a series of suicide attacks.
President Obama even phoned President Salih and praisedYemen's efforts in… Read more
19th December 2009
An Egyptian member of parliament has filed a lawsuit against a female journalist over a newspaper article headed “My four husbands and I”.
Writing in the independent daily, al-Masri al-Youm (here, in Arabic), Nadine al-Bedair asked why Muslim men are allowed to have more than one wife, while women… Read more
18th December 2009
Decision-making in authoritarian regimes can be a lot more complicated than it looks. The idea that dictators simply dictate is often wide of the mark: they may not care much about public opinion but they do have to juggle with conflicting demands inside their own power base, and sometimes they can… Read more
18th December 2009
The problem of Arabic literature is a lack of readers rather than writers, Rasheed el-Enany, professor of modern Arabic literature at Exeter university, says in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper, al-Masri al-Youm.
Fiction is flourishing, often in unexpected places like Iraq and Saudi Arabia… Read more
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
