اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.
For over a decade, Russia’s immediate neighborhood has been subject to the vagaries of the Kremlin’s cyber operations. Russia has effectively used cyberspace to advance its adversarial goals, be it through combining cyberattacks with military action during its war with Georgia, or targeting essential power grids in Ukraine. Advancing its cyber capabilities has enabled Russia to reassert its status as a superpower and hit targets anywhere in the world. In recent years, as the use of social media grew, the information war in cyberspace became the Kremlin’s primary tool for discrediting its perceived archenemy: “The West.” The Middle East, with its increasing dependence on social media for news, has also fallen prey to Moscow’s disinformation campaigns. Russia’s main disinformation narratives in the region stem from its Soviet-inherited superpower complex and its broader strategic imperatives on the international stage.
Over the past decade, social media and communications platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp have emerged as important spaces for civil society, journalists, and everyday people in the Middle East to express themselves and organize. However, users’ experiences on these platforms often differ as platforms’ enforcement of their content policies varies by geography, language of use, and context. These flaws in the content moderation system can harm users residing in and around the Middle East, as well as those who use Middle Eastern languages such as Arabic.
اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.
In a landscape of suppression and retaliation against Palestinian journalists and activists at the hands of Israel, social media networks have been at once critical organizing platforms and tools for exacerbating censorship.
As one of the hottest and driest spots globally, the Middle East region faces some of the worst impacts of climate change. Many of these events have not only been socially and politically devastating but have also resulted in huge financial losses for countries already experiencing economic insecurity. Countries in MENA have found themselves increasingly exposed to extreme weather events and natural disasters, which have affected more than 40 million people and cost more than $20 billion over the past 30 years, according to the World Bank. During the last five years alone, 120 disasters were recorded in the region, resulting in an average of $1 billion annually in damages and losses.
Blessed with milder temperatures than its Gulf neighbors as well as abundant rain and snow fall, Iran is one of the last countries in the region to introduce a seawater transfer plan to fight unprecedented levels of drought. The plan, once fully implemented, could help build water corridors linking the shores of Iran’s southern Gulf to those of its northern Caspian Sea. Named the Hope Transfer Line, the plan promises prosperity for farmers and industrialists, and potable water for communities in some 10,000 villages and urban areas located in so-called Red Zones, a category that applies to regions coping with severe water scarcity.
On Sept. 15, 2020, the world witnessed a new era of Israeli-Arab relations as the UAE and Bahrain opened diplomatic relations with Israel, in what is known as the Abraham Accords. Unlike the Israeli-Egyptian or the Israeli-Jordanian peace deals, which aimed to end direct military confrontations, the Abraham Accords seek to maximize common interests and address security issues to form a new front against Iranian threats. As Biden’s administration shows a willingness to return to some form of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the joint cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states is becoming more visible than ever, particularly in cyberspace, where they share a common enemy.
Sarah Johansson and Mohammed Soliman join guest host Mike Sexton to discuss the various legal, technical, and environmental challenges of cryptocurrencies in the region, among others.
The 5G technology revolution is poised to change society irreversibly in the Middle East. The evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) powered by 5G networks could prove life-enhancing. Already, the Gulf countries have led the way in adopting 5G technology in the region and the rollout of 5G showcases the Gulf’s new role as a leader in digital technology. Although the Gulf countries have made strides to be global tech leaders, their neighbors in the region seriously lag behind in their abilities to adopt large-scale 5G technology. This disparity will further deepen the divides in development between the Gulf and the rest of MENA. Looking to the future, the Gulf will surely pull ahead as the tech hub of the region, but there are still important benefits for the rest of the region to reap as they slowly adopt next generation technology.
Over the last decade, new technology has been developed to address agriculture’s longstanding structural problems related to unproductive farming soils and water shortages. Such initiatives could potentially play a pivotal role in promoting food systems’ resilience across the region. These technologies are designed to increase and improve the outputs of the agricultural sector, while using less energy and more sustainable methods. Responding to the need to promote sustainable agricultural growth, agricultural technology (or “agritech”) today aims to reduce agrarian waste and the use of chemical fertilizers. Looking to the future — while taking cues from the past — may unlock the solutions to the region’s desperate food insecurity.
Since the normalization of UAE-Israel relations was first announced, much of the international commentary only focused on the deal’s political and diplomatic significance. However, the deal will create a new digital order in the Middle East, one in which Israel and the UAE will partner more closely than ever in developing emerging technologies and cyber capabilities. This cooperation will be at the forefront of this UAE-Israel tech order.
Around the world, there is ongoing debate over the extent to which speech should be regulated for the common good. Facebook has been a key battleground in this debate. Indeed, since nearly its founding day, the company has struggled with the degree to which it bears responsibility for the content that its users post on the platform, including but not limited to, the glorification of violence, incitement to terrorism, and false and misleading political content. In 2020, the company officially launched the Facebook Oversight Board, a trust-based body composed of 40 members and tasked with passing final, binding rulings upon Facebook’s content moderation decisions.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is grappling with many challenges on several fronts. Air pollution, water scarcity, and climate change in general are some of the serious challenges facing the MENA economies and residents that have been overshadowed by energy, security, and political debates surrounding the region. Nonetheless, considering their significant negative impact on the economic development of the MENA countries, inclusive, sustainable, and stable economic growth will require timely and effective solutions for the region’s environmental challenges.
The Middle East and North Africa faces a host of major environmental challenges, from water scarcity and food insecurity to climate change adaptation. In recognition of Earth Day on April 22 and in conjunction with MEI’s Climate Week 2021 events, we asked experts and scholars to weigh in with their thoughts on the most pressing environmental issues facing the region.