For decades, Jordan has struggled to introduce reforms and prevent honor crimes — one of the uglier vestiges of colonialism. A Jordanian woman shows the name of her sister in a list of honor crime victims published by a human rights group in Amman, Jordan, 20 May 2000...
For decades, militant religious schools in Pakistan called madrassas taught students to kill non-believers. Now, Islamabad is taking them on. Zaman and Viqar Shah head to a madrassa in Islamabad, Pakistan, 22 May 2003. (EPA-PHOTO/EPA/Shabbir Hussain Iman) For 30...
The war in Afghanistan is the longest military conflict in U.S. history. It has failed. The key to peace is diplomacy and the quiet work of diplomats. U.S. and Taliban negotiators at peace talks brokered by Qatar, in Doha, 25 February 2019 (Qatar Ministry of Foreign...
After extremists killed hundreds in Easter suicide bombings, Sri Lanka’s minority Muslim population now has to worry about retaliatory attacks. A Sri Lankan Muslim waits to pray in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 29 April 2019 (AP Photo/Manish Swarup) It used to be that Sri...
By Jonathan Thatcher After the world’s largest ever democratic election in a single day last week, Indonesia’s 20-year-old democracy is looking reassuringly predictable. There was even an indignant post-election sulk by the losing candidate, who claimed, as he did...
Many Westerners hold misconceptions about Middle Eastern women. They are not powerless, and Islam is compatible with women’s rights. Candidates wave during a rally ahead of parliamentary elections in Jordan, 2 September 2016. (EPA/Jamal Nasrallah) This is the...
A decades-long conflict over Kashmir escalated rapidly last week. Here’s why fights between India and Pakistan matter to the world. Indians wait to welcome the return of a captured Indian pilot at the India-Pakistan border, 1 March 2019 (AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill)...
Afghanistan is in peace talks. Governance by the government would be bad, governance by the Taliban worse. Afghans must resist fundamentalism. (Photo by Atiq Rahimi) On the eve of Valentine’s Day this year, a well-known Afghan poet, Ramin Muzaher, recited one of his...
Revolutions lead in uncertain directions. Today, the effects of Iran’s revolution are still being felt on geopolitics, women’s rights and global conflict. An Iranian soldier during a demonstration in Isfahan, Iran, December 1979 (AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz)...
John Rogers, one of News-Decoder’s correspondents, was a young reporter for Reuters in 1979 when events in Iran changed the face of that country, the Middle East and the world. Rogers witnessed the collapse of the Shah’s royal regime, which crumbled when...