Category: Opinion

Tue 18 June 2019: An unprecedented trilateral security summit between the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolay Patrushev, US National Security Adviser John Bolton and his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat will be held on 24-26 June in Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post reported on 14 June. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came up with the idea for the meeting, […]

Sun 16 June 2019: New communities are settling in areas where Sunnis have fled or been forced out as Tehran seeks an arc of control stretching from its borders to Israel In the valleys between Damascus and Lebanon, where whole communities had abandoned their lives to war, a change is taking place. For the first […]

Thu 13 June 2019: ‘Epistemic decolonisation’ cannot happen in a political vacuum, separated from the African streets. From Cape Town to Cairo, Bahia to Bombay, recent calls to “decolonise the university” have gained traction across the globe. These demands correctly challenge the legacies of colonialism and attempt to subvert them in institutional structures of higher […]

Wed 12 June 2019: The cover of a recent issue of Time magazine left little to imagination. It featured a menacing looking president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, looming over a globe dotted by white location pins bearing red stars. The issue’s feature article claimed in its title that Russia was engaged in a wide-ranging and largely successful effort […]

Mon 10 June 2019: If the US wants to deal constructively with the region, it must seriously engage with political Islam As Murphy’s law states, “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”. Based on some of the decisions taken by Washington in the last two decades, it seems this law can broadly be applied to US […]

Sat 08 June 2019 In today’s international system, trade deals and realpolitik have superseded the value of human life When China began its crackdown on Uighur Muslims in 2016 in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, a territory that lies at the heart of its Belt and Road grand economic strategy, human rights organisations estimated the number of […]

Fri 07 June 2019: In the Middle East, it has often begun the same way: a popular swell of street protests against long-entrenched autocrats and demonstrators inspired by burgeoning aspirations for democracy and freedom. But then the military moves in. Its ruthless, harsh force helps prop up the leader and his family, or safeguard the […]

Tue 04 June 2019: Are there more lost leaders, imams and mujahideen than the current ones, who can fight only by using big high-flying rhetoric? Before I continue with this column, let me ask: Are the Palestinian refugees today happy or miserable in their refugee camps? Have they reached the commonsensical and realistic conviction that […]

Mon 03 June 2019: Ankara is funding thousands of mosques out of more than just goodwill. The mosque being built in Albania’s capital will be the largest in all the Balkans. Still a few months away from opening, it already dominates a corner of Tirana, overshadowing the neighboring Parliament building from a 105,000-square-foot compound. The […]

Sat 01 June 2019 Unable to sustain its Syrian campaign, Iran is rapidly losing ground to Russia. The Syrian regime is suffering from the worst economic crisis since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011. The acute shortages of fuel, gas and electricity have frustrated even the staunchest loyalists who now publicly express their dissatisfaction against […]