Category: Features

The cellphones of dead people were still ringing inside the Pulse nightclub on June 12 when Cathy Lanier, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., got a message from her counterparts in Orlando, Florida. First reports were that a terrorist had carried out “the worst mass murder in American history” there. A famously… Continue reading Daesh: You Can’t Stop ‘Em All

THE RACE FOR THE PRESIDENCY YOU BETTER WATCH IT: On November 4, 2015, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump signed his Declaration of Candidacy to appear on the New Hampshire primary ballot in the secretary of state’s office in Concord, New Hampshire. On November 9, 2015, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton signed her declaration… Continue reading IN PHOTOS: The Race for Presidency

Years later when his father’s supermarket in Damascus was gone, Almotaz Bellah would remember the delight he once found in its bounty. There was a section for sweets and a section for soft drinks; one for American coffee and another for Arabic qahwa. He could spend hours walking the narrow aisles to admire the products.… Continue reading From Colombia With Love

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is undergoing its third round of municipal elections. The first round was held in 2005 to much fanfare, whilst the second was slated for 2009 but in fact delayed until 2011. Women were excluded in those first two municipal elections. The participation of women only became possible this third time… Continue reading No Sacred Space

With oil prices down by some 70 percent from mid-2014 and touching multi-year lows, economies across the globe are gradually adjusting to the New Oil Normal and the massive transfer of real income from oil producers to oil consumers, with Middle East oil exporters losing $390 billion in export revenues in 2015. At its meeting… Continue reading Witnessing OPEC’s Demise

The image of the Muslim man in the popular imagination: conflicted, beset with issues as to his identity, unsure of his place in the world. Muslim masculinity is in a state of crisis. Honor killings. Political violence. Extremism. Domestic abuse. Grooming. Every touchpaper possible that can be lit, has been lit. Some are aiding and… Continue reading Muslim, Man Up?

At the start of 2016, the Middle East feels battered and bruised. For many of us who take a determinedly optimistic view of the world, 2015 pulled no punches. Despite this, many people are working towards a brighter future. But we’ve got to take the blinkers off. The key to success is long-term thinking. For… Continue reading Seeds of Growth

Over the past century, three countries have led the Middle East’s political hegemony: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran. But never, has the Kingdom, since the days of King Faisal —who cut off Saudi oil from the West— been as assertive and firm in its stand and policies as it is today. With King Salman Al… Continue reading Saudi Arabia: The Bold And The Dutiful

In mid-April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his first-ever cabinet session atop the mountains of the occupied Golan Heights. In his second visit in just one week to the Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, he told the world that “after 50 years, the time has come for the international community to finally recognize that the Golan… Continue reading Dirty Border Games

After five years of continuously worsening conflict in Syria, the chances of any decisive outcome are bleak at best. The superpowers and their allies continue to dither at the negotiating table, exacerbating the conflict and the misery of millions of Syrians. The country is rapidly fragmenting. Nearly 470,000 have died in the conflict, according to… Continue reading Casus Belli

On February 26, Palestinian journalist Mohammad Al Qeeq ended what has widely been reported as one of the longest hunger strikes on record. Al Qeeq was detained at his home in Ramallah by Israeli forces last November and subsequently placed under administrative detention without any charges, and no trial. After 94-days of abstention, a deal… Continue reading Palestine: Hungry for Freedom

“O Captain! My Captain!” is an extended metaphor poem written in 1865 by Walt Whitman about the death of American President Abraham Lincoln. This poem was written after the U.S. Civil war in the 19th century and describes the grimness of the state of the country after tens of thousands had lost their lives. In… Continue reading From GCC, With Love: A Letter to Donald Trump

In 1815, an Italian strongman-turned-explorer and archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities, Giovanni Belzoni, traveled to Thebes, upper Egypt to extract the Younger Memnon, a more than seven-ton granite statue depicting the head of the young Pharoah Ramses II. Belzoni learned of the bust through Swiss scientist and orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, who had stumbled across the… Continue reading Egypt’s Own: Repatriation of Antiquities Proves to be a Mammoth Task

“I cannot imagine how the war in Syria will end…I believe that the U.S. administration, perhaps, is no longer capable of fixing the situation [there],” says Abdul Halim Khaddam, Syria’s former vice president, from his Parisian home, thousands of kilometers away from his motherland. The ongoing war, to the 84-year-old Syrian politician, has become more… Continue reading EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam

Even by the standards of the ever-dramatic world of Iraqi politics, today’s stakes are at a current high. On March 31, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi proposed a near complete reshuffle of his cabinet, with a list of 10 candidates chosen on the basis of “professionalism, competence and integrity” for ministerial positions. He wants to… Continue reading Iraq: Make or Break

Twelve years ago, Kuwait took a decision to build a new public university known as the Sabah Al Salem University City, better known as Shadadiyah University, to cope with the rising number of students seeking higher education in Kuwait. The ambitious project featured nine state-of-the-art facilities that were to be built on an allocated area… Continue reading The Problem With Kuwait’s Higher Education

The story of why Britain invaded Iraq with the U.S. is of a once-powerful empire yearning for its former military stature in the world. Some say it was Iraq’s oil that seduced Tony Blair into joining George Bush; others point to Britain’s eagerness to interfere in the Middle East. These charges have some truth to them, but sometimes the simplest explanations… Continue reading Chilcot and the Great Game

The horrors of Daesh and Al Qaeda have reached such a level of barbarity and violence that we are unable to find the right words to describe them. Today, they have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe and their affiliates are challenging regimes anywhere and everywhere in the world. Their campaign of terror has also resulted… Continue reading Crafting Stability

Ever since the the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967, successive Israeli governments have taken advantage of every opportunity at hand to increase the settlers’ population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The illegality of Israel’s settlements has been affirmed by the United Nations Security Council, the International… Continue reading Truth and Lies

Earlier this month, under the cover of rain and thick fog, several Hezbollah fighters snuck across the Lebanese border into the mountainous terrain of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. Their mission was clear: To plant an improvised explosive device, (IED), on a road frequented by Israeli military personnel and vehicles. As an Israeli patrol passed, the… Continue reading Blurred Future

Walking around Dubai’s GITEX exhibition this year, nothing from the wide array of “tech” products on display caught my attention, or enticed me enough to stop and ask questions. The event itself is the largest technology exchange and marketplace for Middle East and Africa, with the latest and greatest gadgets and gizmos available at hand.… Continue reading Minority Report: The Tech Life

It’s said that fortune favors the bold; in a region of chancers and missed opportunities there are occasions where this does appear to hold true. On the Bole thoroughfare, Addis Ababa’s Fifth Avenue last July, I was taken up several flights of darkened stairs into what looked like a jazz lounge. There we came across… Continue reading Ethiopia: Wild South