Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2023.
Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo
Is the much-heralded Israel-Saudi peace deal now dead? And how is Iran likely to respond? An expert in Middle Eastern politics explains
A view of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and its Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
The Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint in Hamas’ recent assault against Israel, hosts daily prayers and Friday gatherings. It lies adjacent to important Jewish and Christian religious locales.
Israelis inspect the rubble of a building in Tel Aviv on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip.
AP Photo/Oded Balilty
The Palestinian fighters who launched deadly attacks into Israel on Oct. 7 are not Iranian puppets – but they are doing the work Iran wants done.
Yousef Masoud/AP
Israelis will consider it critically important to reclaim their country’s military deterrence capabilities against Hamas, which may necessitate a military takeover of Gaza.
Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Photo taken in 2021.
Reihane Taravati / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP
Narges Mohammadi is the second Iranian woman, after Shirin Ebadi, to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She remains locked up in Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison for political detainees.
‘Democracy is in decline’ says Nobel committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen, as she gives the award to Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi.
Terje Pedersen/NTB
The Nobel peace prize committee noted that awards in recent years highlight pressure on democracy which they say is in decline around the world.
Jailed: Iranian women’s protest leader Narges Mohammad has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.
EPA-EFE/Abedin Taherkenareh
The Nobel prize committee said Narges Mohammadi represented the struggle of many thousands of brave women fighting for their rights.
EPA/AHMED JALIL
In our new research we examined popular music videos which drew on historical myths and contemporary clergymen to mobilise Iraq’s Shia population to fight the Islamic State.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden walk to the Oval Office on Sept. 21, 2023.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Post-9/11 international cooperation on weapons proliferation is giving way to a fractured regime dominated by ideology.
Iranian women demonstrate for equal rights in 1979. They continue the battle today, even when enshrouded in compulsory hijabs.
(AP Photo/Richard Tomkins)
The continuing unrest in Iran — and the brave women who have led the charge for decades — isn’t just about freeing women, it’s about restoring human rights for all Iranians.
Freed U.S. nationals released in a prisoner swap deal between the U.S. and Iran disembark from an airplane at Fort Belvoir, Va., on Sept. 19, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
States sometimes choose to pay for the release of their citizens held hostage abroad – but there could be profound, long-term costs involved.
War in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of the South Caucasus has been going on for more than three decades.
EPA-EFE/Sargsyan/OC media handout
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been contesting this region of the South Caucasus since before the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Family members of American citizens detained overseas participate in a Bring Back our Families rally on May 3, 2023, in Washington.
Anna Moneymaker/via Getty Images
The hostage swap between the U.S. and Iran may be an important step in a new nuclear deal between the West and Iran.
Protests happened all over the world, calling for change in Iran, after Mahsa Amini’s death.
Philip Yabut/Alamy
People are gearing up for a potential resurgence of protests, while the state is preparing to suppress any sign of dissent.
Protesters in Milan, Italy march in solidarity with Iranians.
Piero Cruciatti / Alamy Stock Photo
Social movements around the world use music in their struggle for freedom and equality.
Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool/AP
Russia is not only looking for much-needed ammunition, it is trying to counter Western influence wherever it can.
Hoda Afshar ‘Untitled #88’, from the series ‘Speak the wind’ 2015–22, pigment photographic print, 80 x 100 cm © Hoda Afshar, image courtesy the artist.
Hoda Afshar is one of Australia’s most significant photo media artists. A Curve is a Broken Line at the Art Gallery of New South Wales is her first major survey exhibition.
‘While the teachers are detained, the classrooms will be closed,’ reads one artist’s painting on a wall.
Khiaban Tribune via Instagram
Iranian artists are showing renewed determination to promote freedom as a cultural necessity in Iran, even in the face of a government crackdown.
Unrest: the murder of Mahsa Amini sparked an explosion of protest on the streets of Iran, which has been met with brutality by the country’s security forces.
EPA-EFE/stringer
After seven decades of oppression, Iranians yearn for democracy and are willing to risk their lives to win it.
Kurds and their sujpports demonstrate in Lausanne to protest the 100th anniversary of a treaty which denied them a homeland.
EPA-EFE/Jean-Christophe Bott
While analysts fret over what Iran and Russia are up to in Syria, Kurdish aspirations continue to be overlooked.