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
Nolan Fahrenkopf, University at Albany, State University of New York
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
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
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
The Security Intelligence Service needs public support and trust to do its work well. Adding a degree of transparency to it’s annual threat assessment should help.
New best friends? Syrian president Bashar al-Assad greets Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in Damascus, May 2023.
Syrian Presidency via Facebook via AP
From the Arab Spring to the Belarus Awakening and the ongoing Iranian protest Women, Life, Freedom, female-centered imagery and social media are battlegrounds of resistance and oppression.
Iranian women are still ditching the hijab despite buital punishments for women who disobey laws over head coverings.
Tutatama / Alamy Stock Photo
Yemen’s brutal civil war has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. But a recent Beijing-brokered rapprochement between two regional powers could unlock a path to peace.
After eight years of bombs, missiles, destruction and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, it is the Yemeni people who have lost the most in this war.
Israelis opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan set up bonfires and block a highway during a protest in March 2023.
(AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent backtracking to ease civil unrest, Israel’s ability to deter external foes has already been weakened by wounds that are self-inflicted.
Professor of Middle East & Central Asian Politics, Deputy Director (International), Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University