Around 250 people gathered in London at the weekend for a conference on "the religious right, secularism and civil rights". It was a diverse event with speakers from more than 20 countries, ranging from an old-style Iranian Marxist to a representative of Femen (who appeared on the platform fully… Read more
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The Baghdad papers: some were paid by the former PM to just write good things about him
Media organisations that fostered close links Iraq’s former Prime Minister and, some say, published or broadcast propaganda for him, are finding that their funding has dried up. Analysts and… Read more
Later today the World Bank will be hosting an online discussion on a topic of great importance in the Middle East which rarely attracts enough attention: crony capitalism.
The problem began in the 1970s and 1980s when Arab states started to liberalise their economies and open them up to the… Read more
The tweet above, posted last week by Telegraph journalist Andrew Critchlow, points to an article on the Telegraph's website which begins:
"International investors will have an important role to play in nurturing economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa, while helping in… Read more
Uniforms left behind by the Iraqi army when they fled their posts in Mosul earlier this year.
By Mustafa Habib in Baghdad, via niqash.org
The Iraqi army is suffering badly from what locals describe as the “astronaut phenomenon”. That is, soldiers who pay money to superior officers so they can… Read more
In a series of blog posts over the last few weeks I have been arguing that the international response to ISIS is hopelessly inadequate. Even if the military effort succeeds in rolling ISIS back, it can be nothing more than a temporary palliative. This is because it is failing to address the… Read more
By Erin Kilbride, via muftah.org
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) could be heading for financial turmoil, potentially posting a deficit in 2015. For the Al Saud monarchy, which depends on its massive cash reserves to quell dissent against the regime, recent warnings from the… Read more
Yesterday, the European Council on Foreign Relations – a think tank with four former presidents and twelve former prime ministers among its members – published a collection of essays and articles exploring the conflict with ISIS from a regional perspective. One of them looks at Saudi Arabia and… Read more
By Ahmad Mohammed in Kirkuk, via niqash.org
In areas under the control of Sunni Muslim extremists, teachers have been issued a special set of instructions. Among other things they say that males and females are to be separated, all mentions of evolution are to be removed from… Read more
There are growing calls from left and right for "clarity" in the international response to events in Iraq and Syria. One of the latest to join this chorus is Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defense Secretary who made such a fool of himself over Iraq in 2003. Rumsfeld told the Washington Times the… 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
