Category: Opinion

Having vowed to protect the ‘downtrodden’, the Islamic Republic is unable to undertake any major structural reforms. Six months after the US sanctions came into effect, Iran’s economy appears to be struggling. Efforts by the international community to salvage the nuclear deal and provide an economic lifeline to Iran to dampen the fallout of the sanctions have […]

Tue 30 Apr 2019: Counter-revolutionary forces are seeking to resurrect the military dictatorship model the Arab Spring dismantled. With the breakout of the Arab Spring more than eight years ago, pro-democracy activists in the Arab world and elsewhere were hopeful that the tide of democratic change might have finally reached its shores. Many who had criticised the […]

Mon 29 Apr 2019: Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, is resorting to crowd funding to fill its shrinking coffers. The militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke of its growing dependency on donors during a recent speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Resistance Support Association, a benefactor organization. The speech shined a rare light on Hezbollah’s […]

Sat 27 Apr 2019: The entire world remains confronted with the horrors that unfolded yesterday throughout Sri Lanka. Whilst the country remains under curfew, the authorities have pinned the blame for the attack on an obscure group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ). NTJ is reportedly an Islamist terror group that as noted by Sri Lankan […]

Fri 26 Apr 2019: The recent referendum in Egypt extends President Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s tenure – but more importantly, it is a complete capture of Egypt’s institutions. “The rich don’t need to even pretend there’s democracy in Egypt.”  My friend, another Egyptian reduced to anonymity out of fear, says this with almost humorous resignation. […]

Thu 25 Apr 2019: Anxiety among Muslims, who form 14 percent of India’s population but barely constitute four percent of its parliament. As India conducts the biggest democratic exercise in the world, its Muslim minority has little to cheer amid their increasing electoral marginalisation. In the lower house of the outgoing parliament known as Lok […]

Wed 24 Apr 2019: Global terror groups are relying on the power of online networks to drive discussions and shape opinions – often without any inkling of their real motives. Last year, Facebook’s failure to combat violence-filled content came into sharp focus in Sri Lanka, when extremist Buddhist monks used many Sinhalese-language Facebook groups to […]

Tue 23 Apr 2019: Nearly three hundred people died in Sri Lanka after bomb attacks on three churches and some hotels were simultaneously carried out. It is difficult to make a definite conclusion on the causes of the attacks, as there is no organization that has claimed them. However, it can be ascertained that the […]

Sat 20 Apr 2019: Billionaire Ray Dalio, manager of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater, recently shocked the world when he announced that “capitalism is failing” and that a “revolution” is coming. There is no denying that global inequality is at unsustainable levels, and that interest-based economies are no longer fit for purpose (in many […]

Sat 20 Apr 2019: If the U.S. continues to threaten Turkey over its S-400 purchase and some sanctions, Turkey will continue to respond in kind and maybe get the offer that it wants from Iran Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif paid an official visit to Ankara this week. Just a day before this visit, Zarif […]