How Iran’s Hijab Protest Movement Became So Powerful

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Isaac Chotiner Last month, Iran’s morality police arrested Mahsa Amini, a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish Iranian who was visiting Tehran and apparently revealed some of her hair. She was sent…

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Captagon trade in Middle East topped $5bn in 2021

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Produced mainly in Syria and consumed almost exclusively in the Middle East, the drug poses an increasing health and security risk to the region, according to New Lines…

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Behind Israeli apartheid

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Amnesty International’s moralistic condemnation is totally inadequate. As Moshé Machover has long argued, anachronistic settler-colonialism is the root of Israel’s racist apartheid. Only de-Zionisation can end it Amnesty…

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Jihadism: bitter fruit of imperialism

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Yassamine Mather n the aftermath of every Islamist terror attacks in America, Europe or the UK, such as the stabbing of Tory MP David Amess, we hear the…

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Arab Spring: The End of Political Islam as We Know It

Monday, February 15, 2021

Abdullah Al-Arian Last month, Tunisia’s parliamentary speaker and head of the Ennahda Party, Rached Ghannouchi, came under fire for comments he made following a meeting with the French ambassador.  Following a recent string…

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The House of Zion

Monday, December 28, 2020

Perry Anderson Since the turn of the century, the Arab states have come to constitute a zone for Western military intervention without parallel in the post-Cold War world—us…

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Arab Spring: The end of political Islam as we know it

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Abdullah Al-Arian Last month, Tunisia’s parliamentary speaker and head of the Ennahda Party, Rached Ghannouchi, came under fire for comments he made following a meeting with the French ambassador.  Warning…

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Blips on the Screen: the drone as a weapon of war

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Andrew Cockburn The Drone Age: How Drone Technology Will Change War and Peace by Michael Boyle. Oxford, Drone Art: The Everywhere War as Medium by Thomas Stubblefield. California, The Kill Chain: Defending America…

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Covid-19 vaccine: How the Middle East and North Africa is preparing

Friday, December 11, 2020

This month, Covid-19 vaccines are set to begin rolling out to patients worldwide. Some countries in the Middle East and North Africa have already ordered doses from manufacturers…

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More than ever, the struggle for justice unites the Middle East and the world

Monday, November 16, 2020

Jade Saab “A spectre is haunting Europe…” This is how Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels opened their Communist Manifesto, written on the eve of several uprisings on the continent…

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Death of courageous journalist of Middle East, Robert Fisk

Friday, November 13, 2020

Robert Fisk, a veteran Middle East correspondent for The Independent and the most celebrated journalist of his era, has died after an illness. He was 74. Fisk was…

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The Syrian Mercenaries Fighting Foreign Wars for Russia and Turkey

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Elizabeth Tsurkov “They sent us directly to the front lines. The situation is terrible. Terrible. There is fighting every day. We are charged with storming. There is no…

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Water in the Middle East: A Primer

Monday, October 19, 2020

Jessica Barnes Water is a prominent topic in discussions about the Middle East. Fishing at the Chebayesh marsh in Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 2019. Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters Yet…

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China Signs Series Of Deals To Develop Supergiant Oilfield In Iran

Monday, August 3, 2020

Simon Watkins Two key questions logically arise from last week’s announcement from Iran’s Petroleum Ministry that it has awarded a US$1.3 billion development deal to more than double…

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Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic, the U.S. War Machine Presses On

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Jeff Mackler That Russia paid the Taliban financial bounties to kill 18 U.S. and “coalition” soldiers in Afghanistan is in dispute to say the least. Both Democrats and…

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Defying U.S., China and Iran Near Trade and Military Partnership

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Farnaz Fassihi and Steven Lee Myers Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of…

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Coronavirus in the Middle East: A perfect storm

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Marco Carnelos The impacts of coronavirus have been tremendous everywhere, but in the Middle East, the situation seems to be assuming the features of a perfect storm. In…

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US imperialism, Zionist and the danger of war

Saturday, June 6, 2020

Mike Macnair, Moshé Machover, Yassamine Mather Crisis and need for conflict Mike Macnair What we are seeing today is a situation where the United States is lashing out…

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The Beginning of the End for Oil?

Sunday, May 3, 2020

Michael T. Klare Energy analysts have long assumed that, given time, growing international concern over climate change would result in a vast restructuring of the global energy enterprise….

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Essential Books: Environment and Politics in the Middle East

Thursday, April 30, 2020

While scholars of the Middle East have long been attentive to problems of land and property, resource extraction and accumulation, and the political nature of knowledge production, it…

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Western “Anti-Imperialists” Silence Middle Eastern and North African Voices

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Daliah Lina “You stand with the terrorist troops. You are a jihadist.” This just covers a part of the public smearing I had to face the last couple…

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The new Middle East revolutionaries share this one fatal flaw

Monday, November 4, 2019

Robert Fisk Revolutions are like electricity. An electric shock of the most unexpected kind. The victims think at first it must be a powerful wasp sting. Then they…

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Yemen: The Deeper Meaning in a Lost War

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Alastair Crooke. It’s pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and, notes Bruce Riedel, “the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners”. Saudi proxies in Aden – the seat…

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Domestic Violence is Widespread in the Middle East

Sunday, July 28, 2019

Cesar Chelala. Gender violence, manifested essentially as violence against women, is one of the most significant epidemics in the Middle East today. This kind of violence occurs in…

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Arms Manufacturers Tell Investors That Iran Tension Fuels Business

Saturday, June 1, 2019

Lee Fang. Defense executives from around the country crowded into Goldman Sachs’ glimmering tower in downtown Manhattan in mid-May, eager to present before a conference of bankers and financial analysts….

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Trump and the Middle East: a Long Record of Personal Failure

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Melvin Goodman. Many American presidents have blundered in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, but Donald Trump’s personal involvement in the region has been particularly disastrous.  President…

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Threat of war in the Middle East is real

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Yassamine Mather. A common question journalists ask these days – if they are not asking about Brexit – is ‘Will there be a war against Iran?’ and, if…

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What Revolutionaries Have Learned Since the Arab Spring

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Patrick Cockburn. Two very different political waves are sweeping through the Middle East and north Africa. Popular protests are overthrowing the leaders of military regimes for the first…

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China’s Rise in the Middle East: Beyond Economics

Monday, March 11, 2019

Nicholas Lyall. The Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia and away from the Middle East, followed by current President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach, has seen U.S. attention on…

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The Me Too Movement in the Middle East

Thursday, February 14, 2019

by Lara al-Kateb and  Omar Abbas with contributions from Selin Cagatay, Frieda Afary,  Fatemeh Masjedi and socialist feminists inside Iran  The Me Too movement against sexual assault and…

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