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Twenty-one-year-old Algerian student Assil Belalta was murdered on Sunday night in what appears to have been a homophobic killing. According to friends who discovered his body, his throat had been slit and the words "He is gay" were daubed in blood on the wall of his room.
The Algerian newspaper… Read more
Jeff Bezos, the American multi-billionaire who claims he was the target of a blackmail attempt, has been talking mysteriously of a possible Saudi connection.
On January 9, Bezos and his wife jointly announced they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage. Next day, the National Enquirer, a… Read more
The British government has refused a visa for a Sudanese writer who was due to spend a term at Durham University as a Visiting Fellow.
Hammour Ziada, who writes in Arabic, is the author of two published novels and two collections of short stories. His most recent work, Shuq al-Darwish ("The… Read more
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Proposed constitutional changes in Egypt, announced at the weekend, could keep President Sisi in power until 2034.
Sisi is currently in the second of two four… Read more
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In Saudi Arabia it's not uncommon for a man to divorce his wife without telling her. This isn't because Saudi men are especially forgetful – it's a way… Read more
Reverberations from a controversial pop concert are continuing in Egypt, more than a year after the event. It was in September 2017 that a performance by the Lebanese band, Mashrou' Leila, in Cairo triggered a moral panic. The band's lead singer is openly gay and several fans in the audience waved… Read more
A Russian-led move to restrict investigation of chemical attacks in Syria was heavily defeated at the Chemical Weapons Convention review conference in The Hague on Tuesday.
As a result, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will now be able to carry out further… Read more
November 16 is the UN's International Day for Tolerance and to mark this occasion one of the world's less tolerant countries – the United Arab Emirates – is holding a "World Tolerance Summit".
About 1,000 people are expected to attend the two-day conference organised by the International… Read more
In 2014 two human rights researchers from Britain went missing in Qatar. They had gone to investigate the conditions of migrants working in the Gulf state and it turned out that the authorities, displeased by the researchers' activities, had arrested them. International media took up the… Read more
Last November Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, travelled to Riyadh for an interview with the heir to the Saudi throne – an interview that has since proved memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Under a headline announcing "Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last", Friedman wrote… 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
