By Andrew Hammond DUBAI | Thu May 5, 2011 2:18pm IST (Reuters) – Bahraini media have played a central role in a crackdown on Shi’ite Muslims following the suppression of pro-democracy protests that threatened the Sunni monarchy’s grip on power, analysts say. […]
What is striking about Osama Bin Laden’s extrajudicial execution – let’s be precise – is how insignificant the man’s movement had become in much of the region. The threat to Arab regimes has moved on from the violent revolt of al-Qa’ida to the peaceful civil […]
Abdelbari Atwan, the editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, says the Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf was looking for investments not direct aid handouts during his Gulf tour last week. But while he was received in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, the door was […]
In time the reasons why the Egyptian uprising took place and the reasons for its success will appear ever clearer and perhaps some elements will jump out that we cannot discern now. Civil disobedience could be traced back, ironically, to the period from […]
By Andrew Hammond DUBAI | Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:04am EDT (Reuters) – At a recent conference in Abu Dhabi, a confidant of the emirate’s crown prince vented his frustration over the downfall of a major ally who Gulf Arab rulers once […]
Word is Egypt’s post-uprising prime minister will be in Riyadh next week meeting King Abdullah. One would like to be a fly on the wall at that one. It’s not been a good year for the Gulf dynasties. The regional discourse was […]
As-Safir Newspaper – غسان بن جدو يستقيل من «الجزيرة». This was just waiting to happen. The article says Ben Jiddo feels the dream of Al-Jazeera is over as an independent serious Arabic channel because it has become a source for “incitement and […]
I had the good fortune to receive a copy of a rare and arresting critique of Abdelrahman Munif’s classic Cities of Salt novels. It is by Elias Nasrallah, a London-based Palestinian writer, and just came out in Arabic last year under the […]
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy wants to tell us that “U.S.-Saudi relations are in crisis” (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1612). We’ve heard this one many times before and quite frankly who’s buying it. The “conflict” over the U.S. administration’s rhetorical commitment to democracy and freedom to choose your […]
It was immediately obvious during the protests in Egypt against Mubarak that something wasn’t right in the media coverage of Al-Jazeera Arabic. While the problems of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen were being given similar-ish treatment, the democracy movement in Bahrain was […]