Summary: even though the Middle East and North Africa are on the frontlines of climate change the structures of governance are ill-suited to manage arguably the greatest threat the region and its people have ever faced.
Summary: Mohammed bin Zayed has diligently, carefully and quietly built his small Gulf state into a regional powerhouse. Matthew Hedges analyses how he has done that.
Summary: child abuse is a huge problem but social taboos and government indifference means little action is taken; in war zones such as Syria physical and sexual abuse is a deliberate regime weapon; breaking the taboos, providing sanctuary and support for survivors and arresting, convicting and jailing perpetrators is urgently required.
Summary: the ever-increasing danger of dust storms, Iraq’s marshlands dying, a Lebanese journalist jailed, Foreign Office fall-out from a piece of anti-BDS legislation, a Palestinian family evicted from their East Jerusalem home and Black African migrants targeted in Tunisia.
Summary: Iraq’s water security is poor and – absent urgent action – is set to get much worse.
Summary: ISIS strikes in Syria, MbS leaves Paris smiling, a “bad bill” comes before the UK parliament, the cycle of violence in the Occupied West Bank intensifies and a great chef passes away in Lebanon.
Summary: while Syria’s Bashar al-Assad basks in the mostly friendly embrace of his Arab counterparts, Canada and the Netherlands are taking the dictator and his regime to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Summary: a meeting shrouded in secrecy may move the Taliban away from their fanatical repression of women and girls.
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.
Summary: talks need to resume to achieve a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East, and build on the recent thawing of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
