DUBAI, July 28 (Reuters) – Bahrain’s king approved parliamentary reforms on Thursday after the suppression of pro-democracy protests, granting more powers of scrutiny for the elected lower house but preserving the dominance of an upper house appointed by the royal elite. King […]
The Bahrain National Dialogue document has been published in summary and a copy of it is below. They say the Arabic version is to be published on Friday. The king is to meet the Dialogue members today; Wefaq say they will not go, […]
A group of Islamists tried to set up a political party in February. They are one of many small groups of activists on the scene right now but were obviously sticking their heads out further than most. Seven were arrested and of […]
I wasn’t so keen on writing this when I was asked to look into it – it’s highly speculative and who can know. It’s also tough to get anything concrete from Iranians inside Iran. I can see the value in going over […]
Bahraini former army officer Mohammed Al-Buflasa was released today after he was detained for several months for making a speech at Pearl Roundabout about Sunni-Shi’ite unity in their demand for a democratic Bahrain. This is the speech. He was arrested immediately after […]
It’s summer in Saudi and that means one thing: Saudi ‘foreign policy’, such as it is, is on hold. The Saudi foreign ministry amounts to the minister, Saud al-Faisal and … well, that’s about it. Except that the king appointed this week […]
My sojourn in Tunisia inevitably ended up focussing to some degree on the question of the Islamist Ennahda (al-Nahda) party and the future of secularism in Tunisia. It’s a sign of how advanced the secular agenda is in Tunisia that the term is […]
I was in Tunisia for two weeks and had a chance to compare how things are moving there to the situation in Egypt. I like Tunisia and I like the Tunisian dialect, which is getting more comprehensible to me on each trip! […]
Back to Abdelrahman Munif’s Cities of Salt and London-based Palestinian writer Elias Nasrallah’s recent book with a startling rereading of what Munif was trying to say in a work that has come to be regarded as one of the greats of modern […]
Nationalism when it evolved in Europe in the 19th century postulated an ideal of nation states for specific ethnicities. Germany was for the Germans, France was for the French, etc. Realities were more complex. Histories were distorted to promote ethnic unity and create narratives whose inevitable […]