by Alistair Lyon | 6 Aug 2020 | Educators' Catalog, Middle East
Disaster was awaiting Lebanon, its finances in tatters. Now a huge chemical explosion has compounded the crushing challenges facing the tiny but pivotal nation. Beirut’s port after the explosion, 5 August 2020 (EPA-EFE/WAEL HAMZEH) It is hard to imagine a...
Students see headlines all day long and have a good sense of the big news events around the world. But when something happens far away, they don’t always understand why it matters to them, because they are young and also because harried real-time news outfits don’t always connect the dots. When a chemical explosion tore through Beirut in August, media organizations around the world flashed photographs, videos and headlines capturing the anguish and destruction. In 900 words, Alistair Lyon goes further, taking readers through Lebanon’s dire circumstances and explaining why it matters to all of us. No region of the world is more complex or more important than the Middle East, and Lyon — a former Middle East diplomatic correspondent for Reuters — offers an exemplary synthesis of the tangled forces at work in the volatile region.
by Alistair Lyon | 8 Jun 2020 | Middle East
Lebanon has largely dodged COVID-19. But its finances are in tatters — and so, too, its facade of prosperity. Disaster awaits. Anti-government protesters demonstrating against Lebanon’s economic and financial crisis, and to demand early parliamentary...
by Bernd Debusmann Jr | 1 Apr 2020 | Health and Wellness, Human Rights, Middle East
Protesters across the Middle East had been hoping for a second Arab Spring. COVID-19 has driven them off the streets. But for how long? Workers disinfect around the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 7 March 2020. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) Imagine yourself...
by Bernd Debusmann | 14 Jan 2020 | Decoders, Islam, Middle East, Technology
The U.S. used a drone, controlled from an Air Force base thousands of kilometers away, to kill Iran’s top general. Are drones reshaping war? A U.S. MQ-4 Predator drone at Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad, Iraq, 21 June 2007 (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) The death of...
by Alistair Lyon | 8 Jan 2020 | Middle East, Politics, Religion
Iran has signaled a desire to avoid full-out war with the United States. But the conflict between the two nations remains, and Tehran has other options. Mourners attend the funeral for Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, Tehran, Iran, 6 January 2020 (Saeid...
by Jonathan Lyons | 3 Dec 2019 | Media Literacy, Middle East
Iran’s nuclear programme has held much of the world in suspense for years. But what if the real story, largely overlooked by the media, is elsewhere? Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, hold a poster of a Hezbollah leader during a rally in Sanaa, Yemen, 3 March...
by Jessica Moody | 18 Nov 2019 | Africa, Middle East, Terrorism
The head of the Islamic State has been killed. But the hardline militant group’s influence is growing in Africa, and talk of its demise could be premature. A soldier walks past a burnt car in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, after it was attacked by militants, 17...
by Rashad Mammadov | 31 Oct 2019 | Middle East, Syria
Russia has long treated relations with Kurds as a bargaining chip as it pursues broader objectives. Today in Syria, things are no different. A Kurdish girl in front of a poster of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Afrin, Syria, 24 January 2018 (AP Photo/Petros...
by Harvey Morris | 14 Oct 2019 | Decoders, Middle East
The Kurds are the world’s largest nation without a state. Yet, when thrust onto the world agenda, questions over the group’s identity invariably arise. Supporters of Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party dance during Nowruz, the Kurdish New Year, in Istanbul,...
by Ben Barber | 27 Sep 2019 | Americas, Asia, Economy, Middle East, Nationalism
When the Cold War ended, many thought international relations had entered a new era. Now, resurgent nationalism is fanning old animosities. Indian Hindu nationalists at a training camp in Ahmadabad, India, 1 June 2019 (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki) After the collapse of the...
