The release of a Thomson Reuters poll on women’s rights in the Arab world has been greeted with incredulity by many in Egypt, the country that ranked at the very bottom. When polls such as this emerge…
The violent deaths of hundreds and the injury of thousands of peaceful pro-democracy protesters in a few short hours yesterday is tragic. What is the more tragic is that it could have been avoided. In…
Parliamentary elections for the 65 member Kuwait’s National Assembly (Majlis al-Umma) are set for this Saturday. Over 410 candidates are contesting the 50 seats elected by popular vote in the oldest and…
Foundation essay: This article on the indignant generation by Simon Hallsworth, head of the School of Applied Social Sciences at University Campus Suffolk, is part of a series marking the launch of The…
The ongoing protests across Turkey, stretching from May 28, show there is ample evidence of a flourishing culture of democracy in the country. They also highlight a worrying counter trend. Last week, the…
The American delegation in Benghazi has been left reeling by the deaths of four of its staff, amongst them Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The deaths occurred in an effort to evacuate the consulate…
This week the Islamic Republic of Iran made a blunt statement, reiterating its position in relation to the on-going conflict in Syria. According to Saeed Jalili, a senior advisor to the Iranian Supreme…
For the first time perhaps in all of Egyptian history, its citizens have chosen their own leader. The election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammad Morsi as the president of Egypt is a major historical…
Symbols are important, but often deceiving. This is certainly the case of Hosni Mubarak, whose inexorable decline acted as a metronome for the Egyptian political crisis. In early 2011, Mubarak’s political…
In the face of the largest mobilisation Egypt has ever witnessed, President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 12, 2011. Facing an unlikely coalition of disaffected youth, labour workers, Islamists…
Last week in Baghdad, 17 men were executed. Nothing special to note here in the conflict ridden, post-US withdrawal landscape of Iraq, except that this time they were executed by an Iraqi court. This was…
The stench of hypocrisy is a hard one to wash out for the West in the Middle East. We shook Gadaffi’s hand and pretended we liked his outfits when he coughed up for Lockerbie and we snuggled with Mubarak…
This weekend, Syria witnessed some of its bloodiest days since political agitation began last year. Dozens were killed after the government launched a new military offensive against rebel group the Free…
Recent days have seen a return to Cairo’s Tahrir Square by thousands of Egyptians concerned by what they see as a delay by the ruling military council in implement full democracy in Egypt. With reports…
Social media provokes some of the most voluminous and heated responses in two key areas of contemporary society – democracy and privacy. Promoting the first and threatening the second, social media is…
Muammar Gaddafi met his end after being cornered in a Sirte drainage pipe, having fled from a NATO air-strike on his convoy. Questions about exactly how he died - whether caught in crossfire or summarily…
It has been a tumultuous week in the life and times of democracy in the Mediterranean. Seven days punctuated by joyous hope and its ugly opposite, sullen despair. The promising news came from Tunisia…
The death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte highlights the remarkable impact a single individual can have on a whole country. Until he was captured or killed Libyans could not get on with the job of…
The former Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been killed. He was caught in a firefight between his supporters, and rebels backing the National Transitional Council, following a Nato airstrike…