By Nelson Graves “We have to find a political solution, in offices and not with arms.” So said Evgenia Chatziadamido, one of four students from three continents who discussed the causes and effects of Syria’s civil war during a recent online round...
By William Close Behind closed doors in the Saudi capital Riyadh, consultants and government officials are developing policies to prepare the country for what until recently seemed unthinkable: an economy without oil. For decades, Saudi Arabia has been the world’s...
(All photographs by Christoph von Toggenburg) By Christoph von Toggenburg I took these photographs on Easter Sunday in late March when I visited various refugee camps right on Lebanon’s border with Syria. The welcome was warm and open. Suddenly, the numbers I...
This story was runner-up in the high school category in News-Decoder’s inaugural essay contest. By Aisha Malhas The flag of Jordan includes a white star with seven points, one for each of the seven hills on which the capital Amman was built. Today those seven...
An American student visits the Middle East’s biggest refugee camp for Syrians in Jordan and discovers a restless and generous people. Zaatari Refugee Camp (Photo by Samantha Schmidt) This story, written and illustrated by Samantha Schmidt, was a runner-up in the...
This story, written and illustrated by John Cottrell from the Greek island of Lesvos, was a runner-up in the university category in News-Decoder’s inaugural reporting contest. Cottrell visited Lesvos in November 2015. By John Cottrell Travelling across the...
By Nelson Graves Beware misconceptions about Islam that can mar Western accounts of society and politics in Muslim-majority nations. That was the advice of Jonathan Lyons, an expert on the Islamic world, in a mini-course for students in News-Decoder’s pilot...
By Rashad Mammadov Forgotten by most outsiders for the past 22 years, a frozen conflict between two former Soviet states, Azerbaijan and Armenia, flared up unexpectedly last week in the volatile Caucasus. At least 30 military and several civilians lost their lives and...
Our thoughts are with the victims of today’s attacks in Brussels and with their families and friends. Below is an article, updated with today’s events, that we published last November after terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Although much...
By Alistair Lyon A year ago, Saudi Arabia and its allies unleashed a Western-backed military intervention in Yemen’s civil war. It has gone horribly, and predictably, wrong. Twelve months of bombing, backed by a naval blockade and some ground troops, have failed...