Summary: a big hike in interest rates as inflation gallops ahead shows that the economic model Egypt’s president is using is in danger of running out of road with grievous implications both for the country’s poor and an increasingly beleaguered middle class already slipping into poverty.
Summary: as the captagon trade continues to boom in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, its security and geopolitical implications have become harder to ignore.
Summary: with resentment growing in Turkey towards Syrian refugees, President Erdoğan offers homes and promises of a ‘self-sufficient economic infrastructure’ to encourage 1 million to leave.
Summary: under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords Israel and its new friends in the Middle East are wasting no time in deepening security, economic and diplomatic relations.
Summary: with the exception of occasional news reports, the war in Syria grinds on with little coverage of the growing threat of IS or awareness that the international community has moved to accept Bashar al-Assad back into the fold even as millions of Syrians continue to suffer inside and outside the country.
Summary: this year poses big challenges to the economies of the MENA region, many of which are already in deep trouble while a wealthy few will use their hydrocarbons revenues to ride out whatever rough weather comes their way.
Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Cinzia Bianco. Cinzia takes an insightful look at the year just past in the Middle East and North Africa, from coups, to Covid, to MbS and MbZ, to alliances abandoned and new ones forged. And she offers her predictions for 2022.
Summary: while scientists around the world rush to assess the impact of the emerging Omicron variant, much of the Middle East is at a worrying threat threshold.
Summary: while scientists around the world rush to assess the impact of the emerging Omicron variant, much of the Middle East is at a worrying threat threshold.
Summary: a new report on organised crime around the world indicates Arab countries are amongst the world’s biggest offenders, with states in conflict or post-conflict at the bottom of the list.
