On December 16, 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) finally approved a new loan of $3 billion for Egypt. The country faces a deepening economic crisis and, like Argentina and Pakistan, ha...
https://www.fairobserver.com/economics/egypts-imf-loan-now-shows-sure-fire-signs-of-failure/
The Internationally Recognized Government (IRG) of Yemen has designated Houthi rebels as a terror group. In an unprecedented move, the National Defense Council (NDC) released its official stateme...
On my way home, the taxi driver told me about the football (soccer if you are American) game he had been watching. The team he was rooting for had lost. I, in turn, told him about the event I had...
https://www.fairobserver.com/culture/experiencing-the-world-as-miss-universe-morocco/
With inflation at its highest levels since 2008, the international economy finds itself amid a cost-of-living crisis. In many countries, inflation has reached multi-decade highs, with both headli...
https://www.fairobserver.com/economics/soaring-inflation-in-turkiye-is-now-boosting-illicit-trade/
In our previous piece, we examined how Reza Shah destroyed Iran. In this piece, we put his son Mohammad Reza Shah under the microscope. We do so because, to understand the Iran of 2022, we have t...
https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/revolution-erupted-in-iran-because-of-mohammad-reza-shah/
Today, Iran is ruled by a theocratic regime. It is easy to blame the mullahs for all of Iran’s ills. However, it is an inconvenient truth that their path to power was paved by the British and t...
https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/the-dirty-secrets-about-how-reza-shah-destroyed-iran/
Headlines in the BBC, The Guardian and other western media have focused on protests in Iran. They erupted after a tragic incident in Iran. On September 13, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd, was ar...
https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/why-are-young-people-protesting-in-iran/
Abu Dhabi sees itself as an actor of international significance. Leading the charge is Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and President Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While the UAE’s...
Economic and military hard power have not solved Israeli problems with its neighbors and with Arabs living within in the past few decades. The handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rab...
https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/the-israeli-bet-on-audiovisual-culture-as-soft-power/
A study released by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on Monday paints a detailed picture of a resurgent ISIS in Syria. The final defeat of the so-called caliphate in 2019 was achieved largely...
https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/the-isis-is-back-in-syria/
On March 10, 2022, US President Joe Biden officially designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally. Qatar is the 18th state to earn this designation and the third Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sta...
These are heady days for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). With King Salman home after a week in hospital during which he had a colonoscopy, rumors are rife that succession in the kin...
Saying that the brutal killing of Shireen Abu Akleh has shocked the world would be an understatement. Talking to fellow journalists within my circle and in numerous East African journalists’ Wh...
https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/middle-east-news/shireen-abu-akleh-the-journalist-martyr/
Over the last two years, headlines about Lebanon have been negative. Nearly 80% of the Lebanese population is living below the poverty line. The World Bank has deemed Lebanon’s economic crisi...
Just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the chief commentator of the Turkish daily Sabah, Mehmet Barlas, summed up his assessment of the situation with the sentence, “I...
The world is watching Ukraine. This is a historic moment that leads to a significant deterioration in relations between Russia and the West. When Europe faces a geopolitical challenge that remind...
Never has the question of where Europe’s foreign gas supplies come from, and whether there are alternatives to the continent’s dependence on Russia, been so much debated as in recent weeks. A...
On January 3, the United States announced the elimination of Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the so-called Islamic State (IS) during a counterterrorism raid in Atmeh, a town in Syri...
The linkage between economic growth and environmental degradation is a well-known topic. The burning question has become whether there is a trade-off between sustaining economic activities and ma...
There is a growing body of evidence revealing that women and girls in communities in Iran and other parts of the Middle East are being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM). Yet efforts to...
The assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander, he...
The United Arab Emirates, a small and ambitious country in the Persian Gulf, faces a variety of security threats. Its geographic location puts it at the center of instability, sectarianism and re...
In Iraqi Kurdistan, there is a growing debate over a potential second term for Barham Salih, the president of the Republic of Iraq. This matter has led to polarization in Kurdish politics and soc...
Surprisingly, ending the war in, or rather on, Yemen is no longer an immediate concern. The gratuitous violence can continue, for there are now other priorities, or so we are told. Amongst them a...
Contemporary diplomatic relations between Morocco and Spain saw their genesis after the Spanish departed from Western Sahara and the tripartite agreement was reached in 1975. Signed in Madrid, th...
War crimes, genocide, torture, forced disappearances, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international law have been characteristic of conflicts in the Arab world since even ...
In 2019, former US President Jimmy Carter told a church congregation about a conversation he had with Donald Trump, the incumbent president at the time. He said Trump called him for advice about ...
Since the end of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the United States has been the unchallenged dominant power in the Middle East and North Africa. As such, it often saw its role, for better or worse, as...
It has been over a decade since a civil uprising began in Syria during the height of the Arab Spring. What started in March 2011 soon developed into a civil war between the government of Bashar a...
Saudi Arabia and Iran have engaged in four rounds of talks over the last six months, the most recent of which with the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi already inaugurated as president. A fifth meeting is...
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron, despite being preoccupied with next spring’s presidential election, dropped in on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to celebrate the conclusion...
Last month, human rights organizations and many national legislatures commemorated the anniversary of the November 2019 protests in Iran and the crackdown that followed. The regime’s response i...
The disconnect between donor-based development aid and local needs grows wider as the crisis deepens in Yemen. Focus remains on prioritizing emergency response to crisis zones, such as the devast...
Global warming is an established ongoing threat, and the Middle East is warming at twice the global average. This summer, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iraq have experienced temperatures surgin...
Twenty years have passed since the 9/11 attacks in the United States. It was in the immediate aftermath that US President George W. Bush declared his infamous “war on terror” and launched a c...
Ryan Grim and Ken Klippenstein at The Intercept cite the tense relationship between US President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the explanation of the high gas prices tha...
On October 25, in an unexpected move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi chose not to extend the nationwide state of emergency that was imposed in April 2017, after the bombing of two ch...
For decades, the relationship between Morocco and Algeria has been characterized by tension, indirect attacks and the support of proxies. The Algerians back the Polisario Front, an armed group th...
Early investment by Abu Dhabi in a rapid humanitarian response hub paved the way for an Emirati regional leadership role in humanitarian affairs and a model for future multilateral operations. Th...
Our agriculture system as we know it needs to change. We see an enormous amount of waste in current practices through using too much water, too many pesticides that hurt the neighboring environme...
In Lebanon, October 17 marked the anniversary of the 2019 demonstrations against the government due to its mismanagement of the economy and widespread corruption. After two years, despite the fal...
As demonstrations against sexual harassment and gender-based violence take center stage worldwide, Kuwait is witnessing a moment of its own. While Kuwaiti women have been fighting for their right...
Are we freighting football with too much responsibility? After all, the game we recognize today started as a frivolous competition for English factory workers to let off steam at the end of a mis...
Gulf Arab states are in a pickle. They fear that the emerging parameters of a reconfigured US commitment to security in the Middle East threaten to upend a pillar of regional security and leave t...
Parliamentary elections in Iraq were originally scheduled for last spring, but the vote was postponed until October 10. This election is important for Iraqis in light of recent developments. For ...
In a discussion concerning a new law that restricts the attribution of French visas to North Africans, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Algeria’s leadership of the crime of using the hi...
Organized crime is an ever-evolving, transnational threat that affects every country in the world and poses a global threat to peace and security. It transcends borders and undermines sustainable...
Turkey went through a terrible summer from an ecological point of view. The country has been experiencing unprecedented wildfires caused by heatwaves and droughts that have devastated forests in ...
On September 22, Tunisian President Kais Saied extended the emergency measures introduced in July that saw parliament suspended and the prime minister fired, granting the president executive auth...
In the spring of 2020, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden affirmed what his policy concerning the Iran nuclear deal would be if elected: “I would rejoin the agreement and use our renew...