Research & Commentary Results

The two-month war between Russia and Ukraine has disrupted global food supplies, exposing the fragile state of food security across much of the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike those Mena nations struggling to secure cargoes of wheat and other staples, the UAE is in a better position, even though it currently imports 80 to 90 per cent of its food, thanks to its forward-looking food strategy during the past several years.

Egypt’s energy policy is helping to change the terms of the global debate on climate change by demonstrating that there is a basic compatibility between developing domestic natural gas resources and developing renewable energy sources. Disproving the dogma that natural gas and renewables are in a zero-sum competition, Egypt is advancing as a leader in renewable energy development while also increasing its offshore natural gas production capacity.

Karen Young, director of MEI’s Program on Economics and Energy, is joined by Emily Stromquist and Colby Connelly for a discussion on gas and energy developments in the Eastern Mediterranean.

در جمهوری اسلامی ایران, این فرضیه وجود دارد که حمایت از سازمان حزب الله در لبنان, امنیت و قدرت بازدارندگی ایران را افزایش داده است.  در عین حال, شواهد و قرائنی وجود دارند که نتایج انان برعکس این فرضیه را نشان می دهند.

Since late September 2021, Tehran and Baku have engaged in a process of de-escalation, largely focused on economic cooperation and regional transportation links. Such efforts should be welcomed, but underlying geopolitical tensions, especially the Iranian-Turkish competition for influence in the South Caucasus, can still derail them at any moment.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

President Kais Saied’s war on speculation is attempting to direct the focus of people’s anger about food shortages onto speculators. A recent emergency importation of grain has stayed off the emptying of shelves, but as the country’s treasury empties and eventually products begin to disappear from stores again, the people’s patience and faith in his new political project will wear very thin. For now, he is profiting from national exhaustion, but how long till hunger becomes anger and anger becomes a movement?

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, groundbreaking investigations revealed in stark detail Israeli authorities’ intensifying use of surveillance and predictive technologies to police and control Palestinians. Subjecting Palestinians to such scrutiny from security and military apparatuses narrows their expressive spaces and plunges them into a state of constant anxiety. This practice also carries out a commercial purpose: Occupied Palestine effectively functions as an open-air laboratory for Israel to test techniques of espionage and surveillance before selling them to repressive regimes around the world.

MENA countries are currently home to nearly 15% of the world’s installed energy storage capacity, but this total will need to grow to enable variable renewable energy systems to be integrated into the region’s power grids in a flexible and stable manner.

Khan’s removal has served to galvanize and perhaps even expand his support base and his opponents among the senior brass of the army and in the political class have unwittingly rehabilitated his public image. As Khan’s political fortunes have improved, the new coalition government is struggling to handle the hot potato of a deteriorating economy and the army is facing criticism unprecedented in recent years.

While the holy month of Ramadan is known for increased food consumption in Egypt and other Muslim-majority countries, Elham Mohamed, 40, a government employee, said it was very difficult for her just to make ends meet this year. “I had to give up many of the items I usually buy during Ramadan,” she said. “Prices have gone crazy. Even the basics, such as bread, rice, sugar, flour, eggs, and cooking oil, have all gone up,” she added.

On March 25, 2022, President Joe Biden announced an agreement committing the U.S. LNG industry to supply an additional 15 bcm of LNG to Europe through the remainder of the year. The agreement also envisions U.S. LNG increasing supply to Europe to 50 bcm through 2030, equating to approximately one-third of the EU’s gas imports from Russia in 2021.

Amb. Gerald Feierstein, Bilal Saab, and Karen Young join guest host Brian Katulis to discuss their recent MEI policy paper, US-Gulf Relations at the Crossroads: Time for a Recalibration, and why they believe now is not the time to disengage from the region.

In a room at the old Mosul Museum, a young Moslawi singer closes his eyes in a moment of rapture. Singing next to the museum’s modernist 1974 incarnation still being restored after ISIS’s pillage of it treasures, his voice lifts the hearts of listeners.

Since the beginning of his presidency, Raisi has called for increasing cooperation with Africa. Contrary to popular perception, this is not part of a hegemonic project to further expand Iranian influence in Africa. Rather, it constitutes an effort to reset relations with the continent after his predecessor spent eight years neglecting it.