At least 10 people have died in a two-day battle between Shias and Sunnis for control of a mosque in northern Yemen. Although tribal fighting in the country is common, the sectarian dimension in this case is new and alarming.
It appears to have started with both sides insisting on their ownchoice… Read more
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Writing about the Arab Human Development Report yesterday, Inoted with pleasure that Capmas had not been involved in the research, and promised to explain more about this dreadful Egyptian institution.
Capmas, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, is a hangover from the… Read more
Hot on the heels of the Egyptian poet who was jailed – and then released – for unpublished verses that “insulted” President Mubarak, the latest head of state to be attacked is Mohammed VI, king of Morocco, lover of water sports and Commander of the Faithful.
The Arabist reports… Read more
The fifth Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) sponsored by the UN has just been published and, once again, it looks set to stir up controversy. This time the report is about security in the Arab countries: not the war-on-terror kind of security as defined by Bush and the… Read more
I’ve been talking rather a lot about Yemen since this blog started – partly because the situation there is worrying and partly because it’s getting so little attention from outside. Put simply, the fear is that Yemen could turn into another Somalia or Afghanistan.
An article in the Yemen Times… Read more
I was taken to task by a friend the other day for mentioning the “murder” of Yasser Arafat in the same breath as conspiracy theories about the death of Princess Diana and the Kennedy assassination. The idea that Arafat was murdered is far more plausible, my friend said.
The murder… Read more
The amateur Egyptian poet who was sentenced to three years in jail and fined $18,000 for “insulting” President Mubarak in unpublished verses has had his sentence quashed by an appeal court.
That is good news. But why do these ludicrous cases keep cropping up in Egypt and other Arab… Read more
Contrary to popular belief, women are not banned from driving in Saudi Arabia. There’s no law that says they can’t drive. It’s just that, er … they have a lot of trouble getting a licence.
The same can be said of the Jeddah Film Festival: not banned exactly, but stopped. The five-day event was due… Read more
Mauritania is one of those out-of-the-way off-the-radar Arab countries that rarely get much attention. I must admit I have never been there myself, though I have flown over it a couple of times – which in the circumstances probably makes me something of an expert.
Anyway, Mauritanians were voting… Read more
Recriminations continue over the Yemenia Airbus that crashed off the Comoros islands at the end of June, and it’s becoming reminiscent of the row between Egypt and Boeing after Egyptair flight 990 plunged into the Atlantic in 1999. In that case, investigators claimed… 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
