Qatar and a secret meeting in Kandahar
Summary: a meeting shrouded in secrecy may move the Taliban away from their fanatical repression of women and girls.
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Arab Digest Newsletter
Arab Digest Newsletter Archive
An unlasting home
Summary: Arab Digest’s editor talks to Mai al-Nakib about her debut novel, a sweeping and panoramic portrait of five generations of women.
Is Sisi Debt Crisis Morphing into a Banking Crisis?
Summary: as Egypt’s debt load mounts inexorably the rate of reform including the demand from lenders to demilitarise the economy is moving so slowly it may precipitate a banking collapse.
Sudan and a seven-day ceasefire
Summary: a short ceasefire that was ignored more than it was honoured is coming to an end and the prognosis for a peaceful solution remains grim unless the US and other Western nations bring pressure to bear on the states backing rival sides: Egypt and the UAE.
A rare street protest in Bahrain
Summary: for more than a decade the government of Bahrain has used the harsh repression of individual rights and the banning of protests to silence critics but this week saw the detention of a prominent cleric bring people defiantly into the streets.
The banker with nine lives
Summary: a red notice may prove of little real consequence for the Governor of the Bank of Lebanon who continues to avoid justice for actions that have helped to wreck the Lebanese economy.
Industrial zones in the West Bank
Summary: touted as a pathway to statehood for Palestine, free industrial zones in the West Bank are another weapon in Israel’s colonisation arsenal that have become even more potent with the extremist regime that Benjamin Netanyahu has pulled together.
Covering up for Sisi
Summary: Western governments have a long history of covering up for Arab dictators. The latest Home Office information notes on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood show a new twist in an old story.
Warming to Assad
Summary: COP28, scheduled to take place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, has invited the Syrian president to attend as the Arab world continues its rehabilitation of a leader once reviled as a pariah.
Yemen: progress on prisoner exchanges
Summary: as peace talks remain stuck in uncertainty, one piece of good news is the release in two tranches of cohorts of prisoners held by both sides of the conflict.