Never has the international community looked more impotent, or worse indifferent, to what is the greatest humanitarian crisis in modern history.
Nearly a million civilians, 81 percent of them women and children, have been displaced from their homes in 90 days in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, amid a brutal military campaign by Syria’s Assad regime, Russia and Iran-backed militias.
The outcomes of elections in the Islamic Republic are not about the choices the Iranian voters want to make, but about Khamenei’s self-serving calculations.
While President Ashraf Ghani’s regime refuses to give ground, the risk of nationwide disturbances is very real.
Lebanese and Iraqi protesters have faced an uphill battle drawing global media attention since Arab Spring-like uprisings erupted in both countries last October. Coverage of the protests has been dwarfed by other major international news stories running concurrently with the uprisings, such as Brexit and the Hong Kong protests. The main implication of low coverage has been a lack of sustained international pressure on Lebanese or Iraqi political leaders to accommodate protester demands for wholesale systematic changes.
Social media has transformed the information landscape in the Middle East over the past decade. The 2009 Green Revolution and the 2011 Arab Spring demonstrated the enormous power of platforms like Twitter and Facebook for political organizing. Popular perception in the U.S. at the time was that these services would democratize a region notorious for its strongman governments. But it also showed governments and militants in the Middle East how powerful social media campaigns can be, if co-opted for their own purposes.
A Safe Zone Could Forestall a Humanitarian Crisis
MEI scholar Przemysław Osiewicz joins host Alistair Taylor to discuss EU-Middle East relations and key policy issues, from Iran and Israel-Palestine to Libya and Syria.
A low voter turnout at the weekend will be the latest indication that ordinary Iranians are just not happy with the regime in Tehran
There has been a largely overlooked yet significant trend in entrepreneurship in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country. Much of this has been concentrated in the country’s two main economic centers, Cairo and Alexandria, but there are also signs of a broader and more inclusive trend. Despite this boom, few start-ups seem to have left much of a mark beyond the early development stages. A lack of access to finance has long been recognized as a key obstacle, yet the approaches taken by the government and international development lenders have proven largely ineffective. If this, along with other obstacles, can be addressed, the country’s nascent start-up scene could become a catalyst for economic development.
This year could mark a turning point in the European Union’s relations with the countries of the MENA region. If the EU is to realize the objectives laid out in its 2016 global foreign and security policy strategy and become a major world power, it has to be more proactive and creative, especially in the Middle East.
The main takeaway from the Saudi Aramco IPO in December 2019 is that the Saudi leadership is willing to fully support private investors.
This article discusses the efforts taken by The Gambia on behalf of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to obtain provincial measures from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) directing Myanmar to cease-and-desist ongoing genocide, to cease destroying evidence of genocide, and to “take all measures within its power” to prevent any acts of genocide against the Rohingya occurring in the future.
Whatever else it may do, the pending agreement is intended to provide the political cover for a U.S. departure from Afghanistan at an opportune time with this an election year.
Egypt’s burgeoning population is one of the biggest threats to its future.