A pressure-cooker mix of electoral, technical and diplomatic factors is shaping the potential for conflict over Iran.
The former Information Minister has been apprehended trying to smuggle explosives into Lebanon. Away from the media focus on street clashes, subtler political trends threaten Lebanon's years of building a fragile peace.
Each of the key players perceives peace as desirable but not at any price. This is the message of the exchanges of views aired in Bitterlemons over the years. We still need to enable discourse that is ‘equal and fair’.
The closure of well-known zine Bitterlemons, providing fresh perspectives on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, poses the question: is there is still a need for voices from the region and writers with expertise on the topic? To that, I would answer an emphatic “yes.”
The middle-east’s power-balance is in flux amid state tensions and political conflicts. In a two-part article, Bill Park - who was recently in Ankara and Erbil - examines the impact of these changes on Turkey and its neighbours, especially the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq. In
Despite repeated Egyptian pledges that it will not seek a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran, new political opportunities have arisen on both sides which could render this option much more feasible.
The brutal response of Syria's authorities to an eruption of protest in early 2011 propelled the country into conflict. It was the latest and most catastrophic of a series of misjudgments by Bashar al-Assad's regime over the decade of his rule, says Carsten Wieland.
An innovative Israeli-Palestinian collaboration offering regular analysis of middle-east affairs is ending regular publication after eleven years. Its co-editors, Yossi Alpher and Ghassan Khatib, explain why.
A Lebanon-based journalist examines the possibility of violence spreading from Syria to Lebanon. There are reasons enough to fear the worst, but also signs of real restraint.
