BrainCan - middle east and africa

why some countries are turning off the internet on...

AS LONG as there have been exams,students have found ways to cheat. nowadays the correct answers are...

senegal s democracy is being tested by its...

Macky Sall stares down the oppositionTO THE casual observer,all seems well in Senegal. Visitors to...

a chat with zimbabwe s new president

“THE land resettlement was a huge success in terms of our people,367000 of our people, back in...

why south african women are opting for clandestine...

NEARLY every lamp post,nonsense bin and brick wall in Johannesburg’s downtown is plastered with...

the success of black panther is spurring demand...

SINCE the release of “Black Panther”,a film based on a Marvel comedian, internet searches for...

did kenya get a loan to build a railway, or vice...

WHEN Kenya launched its new railway final year,connecting the coastal city of Mombasa to the...

saudi arabia s unprecedented shake up

EVEN by standards of recent palace intrigues,it was a dizzying Saturday in Saudi Arabia. On November...

how illegal charcoal fuels war and harms the...

DRESSED in a faded T-shirt bearing the face of the American rapper 50 Cent,Samson Okenye leans on a...

increasing debt in many african countries is a...

“A idiot’S bargain.” That is how Idriss Déby,Chad’s president, now describes the state oil...

how a small african nation is beating aids

AS A middle-class Senegalese man,Salou (not his genuine name) was rather proud of his roundness in...

al qaeda s chick lit: how to please your holy...

“GREET your husband with a smile when he comes and a smile when he goes.” So says a new magazine...

george weah, an ex footballer, wins liberia s...

AS THE only African football player to believe been awarded both FIFA’s World Player of the Year...

africa s ageing leaders don t know when to quit

THE aged taxi park in central Kampala,Uganda’s rowdy, traffic-clogged capital, or is a huge patch...

decoding donald trump s efforts to draw a road map...

How tough can this peace thing be anyway?PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP casts himself as a master...

uganda s politicised police force is not reducing...

“STOP killing us!” chanted a crowd of several hundred people as they marched through Kampala on...

a woman who ran against rwanda 039;s president is...

PAUL KAGAME,the president of Rwanda, thinks there is nothing odd about how he won re-election for a...

tension surges across the middle east as america...

nearly everybody claims to beget foreseen Donald Trump’s decision,but when the thunderbolt came it...

south africa s new president will have to dish out...

SOUTH AFRICANS had only a few days to celebrate the resignation of Jacob Zuma and the swearing-in of...

the regime in syria is closing in on a rebel...

IN THE spring of 2015 the rebel takeover of Idlib province in north-western Syria seemed to sign the...

why ethiopians are nostalgic for a murderous...

IN AMBO,a town in central Ethiopia, a teenage boy pulls a tatty photo from his wallet. “I admire...

can foreign observers keep zimbabwe s election...

Hoping for victory,praying for peaceZIMBABWEANS shuddered when a bomb went off on June 23rd in...

lebanon s political system leads to paralysis and...

IT IS difficult to escape the grip of religion in Lebanon. The rules that govern marriage,property...

what fuel, bread and water reveal about how egypt...

WITH less than two months to go before Egypt’s presidential election,no one is talking...

muhammadu buhari gears up for a second...

THE mantle of power is so heavy in Nigeria that presidential candidates must be begged to run for...

why sierra leone is running out of fish

Fish out of waterONE evening in Tombo,as fish buyers throng the seafront, an argument erupts at the...

how robert mugabe held on to power for so long

IT WAS the dismissal and flight abroad of Robert Mugabe’s oldest and trustiest lieutenant that...

why binyamin netanyahu is fudging east european...

YAD VASHEM,Israel’s national authority for research and commemoration of the Holocaust, is a staid...

on the edge of the sahara, people mourn the...

ON JUNE 14th the Sultan of Aïr,the traditional leader of the Touareg people of Agadez, came out to...

a new approach to somali pirates frees more...

Off to file his expensesNO ONE seized by pirates can be considered lucky. But many of the seamen...

in tanzania, getting impregnated also means...

MARY (not her real name) was 16 when she became pregnant. The father sold chips by the road near her...

the djs in kenyan cinemas who tell you what is...

AS THE lights in the cinema travel down and the patrons take their seats,the familiar Warner...

emiratis plough millions into a country that no...

THE ancient port town of Berbera in Somaliland,a breakaway state in northern Somalia, is generally a...

why cape town is running out of water

AT THE edge of Khayelitsha,a township in Cape Town, Ntombi Mlityalwa is filling a huge old paint tin...

why un forces are finding it hard to bring peace...

AT THE weekly market in Toya,at the edge of the Niger river, just outside the ancient city of...

muhammadu buhari starts to jockey for a second...

THE mantle of power is so heavy in Nigeria that presidential candidates must be begged to run for...

is america wrong to cut aid to palestinian...

He has nothing left to loseA TRIP billed as a display of support for Christians had a noticeable...

tunisians are losing faith in the ballot box

DESPITE his best efforts,when President Beji Caid Essebsi visited Ettadhamen (solidarity”) on...

will emmerson mnangagwa be better than robert...

HAVING promised at his inauguration on November 24th to “hit the ground running”,Emmerson...

saudis applaud the anti corruption drive, but...

CHECKING into Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton normally costs approximately $300 per night. Checking out...

how the taxman slows the spread of technology in...

AFTER a stunning economic expansion,sub-Saharan Africa has run out of puff. Last year GDP growth...

african herders have been pushed into destitution...

AT THE start of every dry season fires creep southwards across the Central African Republic (CAR)....

muhammad bin salman has swept aside those who...

NO ONE is quite certain what to call it. The arrest of scores of people in Saudi Arabia on November...

the first universal museum of the arab world opens...

AS EMMANUEL MACRON and Muhammad bin Zayed,the president of France and the crown prince of the United...

elite private schools are booming in kenya

LAST year stories appeared in the press,illustrated by pictures of bloody clothing, of an initiation...

the leader of hamas in gaza is the most...

Sinwar has seen war and it didn’t workYAHYA SINWAR,56, has spent his entire adult life in prisons:...

mozambique is back, says its president. donors are...

“MOZAMBIQUE is back,” says President Filipe Nyusi, hoping to persuade a recent gathering of...

saudi arabia is pushing out foreigners to create...

EVER since the local laundrette replaced its Asian workers with Saudis,his Parisian silk shirts...

as morocco s economy slows, the jobless are...

FOR over a year,fishermen, miners and jobless graduates in northern Morocco maintain demanded more...

there is increasing talk of war all around israel

THINGS are eerily quiet external the caged walkway that cuts through the no-man’s-land separating...

why the gulf co operation council can t co operate

EVERYONE knew this year’s summit of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) would be contentious. But...

congo s kabila chases an unconstitutional,...

A veteran of two types of campaignLAST month residents of Binza Delvaux,a neighbourhood of Kinshasa,...

where syria s despot bashar al assad is likely to...

whether THE cruise missiles that slammed into Syria on April 14th rattled President Bashar...

forty four african countries sign a free trade...

“LET’S catch together,” sang the choir to the rhythm of Bob Marley, as a succession of African...

nigeria hopes high tariffs will make it grow more...

STANDING ankle-deep in water between neatly spaced rice plants,an instructor shows a group of...

saudi arabia s use of soft power in iraq is making...

IT ALMOST feels like obsolete times. Before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990,Gulf Arabs partied...

ahead of a farcical election, abdel fattah al sisi...

ABDEL-FATTAH AL-SISI,Egypt’s president, could not inquire of for a better mouthpiece than Khairy...

africans want to sell donkey skins. western...

But not this oneBARINGO county,in Kenya’s Rift Valley, is a hard place. Water is short in the...

zimbabwe s new president says he is a democrat. is...

WILL parliamentary and presidential elections,which must be held by late July, be free and fair?...

with nobody in charge, ethiopia declares a state...

sob freedomTHE well-heeled residents of Legetafo are not used to demonstrations. The town on the...

the delicate dance to depose jacob zuma

Zuma down,rand up. DiscussTHE new era began brightly. Since fitting leader of the ruling African...

camel trains are holding up ethiopia s new railway...

“MORE than any other technical design or social institution,” wrote the late British historian,...

lebanon s prime minister decides not to resign...

FOR a man who less than three weeks ago said his enemies were out to destroy him,Lebanon’s prime...

the saudi purge will spook global investors and...

DOING business in Saudi Arabia has long involved accepting a trade-off between stability and...

nigeria has a high fertility rate. why are...

IN A rough-and-ready church in Ifo,on the northern fringe of Lagos, Prophet Emmanuel Akanni and...

emmanuel macron pays tribute to fela kuti, a...

Selfie-promotionTHE old Afrika Shrine,a music venue in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, or...

america s strategy against islamic state is...

AS THE territory held by Islamic State (IS) shrivelled in Syria,American generals spoke of...

zimbabwe launches a second state owned airline

HAVING one loss-making state-owned airline is rank enough. What,then, of a government that wants...

fifteen years after america s invasion, iraq is...

WHISKY is back on the tables in Mosul,one of Iraq’s biggest cities. Until last year, boozing was...

after taking afrin, turkey looks for new targets...

FOR President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,the timing of Turkey’s victory in the Afrin region of northern...

egypt s sham election features two candidates, but...

SINCE one in four Egyptian voters cannot read,political candidates pick symbols to identify...

how to save botswana s sparkling reputation

Khama,a frosty and collected authoritarianWHEN Ian Khama steps down at the conclude of the month,...

jacob zuma s last stand

NO ONE expected Jacob Zuma to go gracefully. But as South Africa’s ever-defiant president drags...

what is cheaper than beer and gives you energy ?

STRONG,smooth, with notes of melon and a hint of a buttery aftertaste. Leopord Lema’s banana wine...

israel s plan to deport africans is dividing the...

An uncomfortable comparisonCOMPARISONS with dim chapters in Jewish history tend to elicit the...

protests have engulfed several cities in iran

INCREDIBLY,religious hardliners may hold started the protests that hold spread across Iran....

tunisia s nobel prize winning trade unions are...

RESIDENTS of Tataouine,on the edge of the Sahara, judge it ought to be a boomtown. The dusty city is...

jordan s water crisis is made worse by a feud with...

THE Dead Sea is dying. Half a century ago its hyper-salty,super-pungent waters stretched 80km from...

angola s new president flushes out his predecessor...

WHEN João Lourenço said on the eve of Angola’s election in August that,as president, he would...

although persecuted, sudan s christian population...

“whether SOUTH SUDAN secedes,” Omar al-Bashir told supporters at a rally in 2010, we will change...

mauritania ignores slavery, but jails those who...

nearly born a slaveA FEW miles from the green grass of Mauritania’s presidential palace,in a slum...

why a mayor in lebanon has dressed policewomen in...

Officers but no gentlemenTHE mayor of Broumana,Pierre Achkar, has a problem. Rich tourists from the...

why arabs are watching a pirated world cup feed

ARABS enjoy slight to cheer in this year’s World Cup. The four teams from the region lost all...

burnt votes and an election recount might plunge...

Voters’ wishes to ashesWHAT would politicians the world over like to finish when they lose an...

tension is mounting in madagascar ahead of...

THE placard is grim: a hand smeared in blood set inside a red circle,with the words: “Enough, no...

american sanctions will make it hard to revive the...

WHEN it has come to punishing recalcitrant foreign countries,President Donald Trump’s bark has...

iraqi voters are fed up with the old guard

HAIDER AL-ABADI,the prime minister of Iraq (pictured), has a strong case for re-election. He has...

the uncertain promise of local elections in the...

At least we maintain a choice nowLOCAL lore holds that seven visits to Kairouan’s imposing grand...

how african governments try to control what is...

You have the right to remain silentIN THE West,when celebrities post revealing videos on Instagram,...

why africa s poor pay high prices

“WE FEEL so hungry,” says Agatha Khasiala, a Kenyan housekeeper, and grumbling approximately the...

for the gulf states, diplomacy involves buying...

Tools of diplomacy,or just mirages?WHEN Qatar celebrated its national day in December, warplanes...

can a reality tv show discourage corruption?

THE timing could not have been better. In the same week as two civil servants in Nigeria appeared in...

africa s chiefs are more trusted than its...

SEATED by the roadside in the Ghanaian town of Kyebi,Kwame Asiedu explains how for seven years he...

more africans have electricity, but they are using...

TOURISTS have long been drawn to Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya by its steep cliffs,plentiful...

why nigeria produces scrabble champions

IN THE hot,golden light of an Abuja afternoon two men spin a rotating Scrabble board, oblivious...

america s neglect and confusion aggravate problems...

WHEN it is finished,America’s imposing original embassy in Lebanon will be its moment-biggest in...

robert mugabe, who bragged he would rule zimbabwe...

SUDDENLY the dictator was no more. As Zimbabwe’s parliament began impeachment proceedings against...

stopping the flow of arms to south sudan

IS THAT a light at the end of the tunnel? Since South Sudan’s war began nearly five years ago,tens...

zimbabwe s new president may not be able to fix...

Green,but not backedUNTIL recently Priscilla Magaya was an administrator in a printing firm in...

a charismatic young leader tries to calm ethnic...

IN ITS three decades of existence,the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front...

the palestinians in gaza are once more bidding to...

Made you lookTHE skies above the eastern suburbs of Gaza City buzzed with drones on March 30th. The...

winnie madikizela mandela leaves behind a...

THE death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela came as a shock to South Africans. At 81 she looked as...

israel has killed over a dozen palestinians in...

IT WAS billed as the “remarkable Return March”,the first step in the return of Palestinians in...

most of nigeria s kidnapped dapchi schoolgirls are...

On their way homeIT WAS a crisis that ended as suddenly as it began. On the morning of March 21st...

a fuss over freemasons in africa

IT WAS too much of a coincidence for the members of “No to Freemasonry and Homosexuality”,a...

israel s leader binyamin netanyahu fights for...

Friends and benefitsNORMALLY composed,Binyamin Netanyahu looked rattled. Addressing the nation on...

turkey s offensive in syria complicates an already...

SEVENTY-TWO Turkish fighter jets cut through the skies above north-west Syria on January...

cyril ramaphosa could save south africa—if he...

HIS wide grin,and his rival’s grimace, heralded the big news. On December 18th Cyril Ramaphosa...

the world reacts to donald trump s recognition of...

EVEN before Donald Trump issued his proclamation recognising Jerusalem as the capital of...

will zimbabwe s new president make things better?

IT TOOK time for the dancing and honking of horns to die down. After 37 years in power,Robert Mugabe...

robert mugabe clings to his title, as crowds...

ZIMBABWEANS tuned into their turgid state broadcaster on Sunday night expecting the news of a...

boris becker, african diplomat

His Excellency,Baron von SlamWHEN people say “diplomatic service”, they seldom mean an envoy who...

burundi s president is now supreme eternal guide...

AS OMENS travel,it is not a splendid one. In Kinama, a district in north-east Bujumbura, and the...

angola s new president, joao lourenco, has made an...

FEW presidents fill entered office amid such low public expectations as did João Lourenço,who in...

zimbabwe s new president has changed his tone, but...

This is an extended version of an interview with Emmerson Mnangagwa that was published on March 3rd...

egypt goes on the offensive in sinai

THE Egyptian army announced the offensive with a gauzy video,clips of saluting soldiers and gleaming...

israel launches airstrikes in syria

IT LASTED only six hours,but the battle in the sky above Syria and Israel in the early hours of...

how a saudi nuclear reactor could accelerate an...

IN THE desert 220km (137 miles) from Abu Dhabi,the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a...

south africa is getting land reform wrong

Who’s the boss?HANNES BOOYENS,clad in the khaki shorts and shirt of the Afrikaner farmer, shows...

a bitter rivalry between arab states is spilling...

THE rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on one side and the Gulf state...

an army of worms is invading africa

On Friday he ate a field of maizeAFRICA has been invaded on quiet wings. First they landed by ship...

the sudden, surprising rise of arabic on israeli...

Some don’t want to see any ArabicTWO years ago Ayman Odeh,the pragmatic novel leader of Israel’s...

iran and saudi arabia take their rivalry to...

Hi stranger. It’s been a whileSAAD HARIRI is an unlikely hero for Lebanon. Despite inheriting a...

louvre abu dhabi is the gulf s new go to cultural...

Build it and they will comeAS EMMANUEL MACRON and Muhammad bin Zayed,the president of France and the...

the saudi hand in saad hariri s resignation as...

Can I fade now?AS whether shuffling one government were too slight a task,Saudi Arabia’s ambitious...

jihadists continue to torment egypt

IT WAS as whether the militants knew they were coming. When the Egyptian police drove into the...

saudi women want more sway in religious affairs

TO hold women quiet,Saudi Arabia’s clerical hierarchy once damned their voices as awra, an Arabic...

how a victorious bashar al assad is changing syria

A NEW Syria is emerging from the rubble of war. In Homs,which Syrians once dubbed the “capital of...

bridge academies battles its enemies

“BRIDGE is unauthorised and illegal,” says Wilson Sossion, the secretary-general of the Kenya...

how sierra leone is beating tropical diseases

SIXTEEN years ago Hannah Taylor woke up with a fever. Her legs began to swell to four times their...

the un s refugee agency for palestinians is...

YOU may think that after a dozen years of blockade by Israel,three devastating wars and the rule of...

of 100 african football officials offered cash,...

“FOR shopping,” says a man, laying $65000 on a table. “Thank you, and ” says Kwesi...

a cleric who once tormented america seems to have...

MUQTADA AL-SADR is a master at tapping Iraqi discontent. The firebrand Shia cleric (pictured)...

iran braces for economic war with america

TEHRAN’S grand bazaar,a weathervane of politics, is on strike again. Shutdowns there foreshadowed...

protests on gaza s border with israel turn deadly

THEY ran up the hill to burn tyres or reduce the coils of barbed wire that mark the start of...

syria is erasing the palestinians largest refugee...

WHEN the bombing finally stops,miniature will remain of Palestine’s capital-in-exile. Yarmouk, on...

africa has plenty of land. why is it so hard to...

SURROUNDED by tangled shrubland,Wisdom Mababe’s farm in central Zambia seems incongruously trim....

guinea s president alpha conde hints that he may...

Alpha Condé,husband to all womenTHE main road from the Sierra Leone border to Guinea’s capital is...

africa s big carbon emitters admit they have a...

AN HOUR east of Johannesburg,on the rolling highveld plains, six massive cooling towers sit around...

war torn libya plans an election

SAIF AL-ISLAM QADDAFI is determined not to let a death sentence cease him from running for...

europe is sending african migrants home. will they...

ONCE considered the smartest hangout in town,the Benin Plaza motel in southern Nigeria’s Benin...

spaghetti smugglers of the sahara

THE shifting sands of the Sahara have long been crossed by trade and smuggling routes. Traffickers...

indisposed graybeards rule over much of the arab...

Bouteflika,hanging onTO ALGERIANS, Abdelaziz Bouteflika is like Schrodinger’s cat: simultaneously...

a dispute over real estate roils jerusalem

A SMALL wooden ladder stands on a ledge above the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in...

ethiopia s regime flirts with letting dissidents...

LIFE in Maekelawi,a prison in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, or had a predictable rhythm....

francophone africa s cfa franc is under fire

DEBATING the merits of the CFA franc,says Guy Marius Sagna, a Senegalese activist, or “is like...

one year after a massacre in uganda, a king faces...

THE palace gates are locked,but the bullet holes remain. It is a year since the Ugandan army and...

why arab states have lots of expensive villas

THE billboards almost seem to taunt motorists crawling through traffic below. They hawk luxurious...

mohamed salah, a footballer, has given egyptians...

Salah strikes againIN THE run-up to Ramadan artisans set to work on fawanis,the lanterns that hang...

why qatar is raising cows in the desert

STEP inside,and it could be a scene from the English countryside or the American heartland: one...

will afonso dhlakama s death derail peace in...

Give me a child and I’ll make a soldierAFONSO DHLAKAMA (pictured),the Mozambican rebel turned...

africa s economies are turning a corner

A MONTAGE of miracles plays on the giant screens in the Perez Dome,a Pentecostal church in Accra. A...

can ethiopia and eritrea make peace?

Cold peace,hot border“LIKE Sarajevo, 1914, or ” said the late Ethiopian prime minister,Meles...

lebanon s prime minister vows to pose for selfies...

FEW politicians enjoy a selfie as much as Lebanons prime minister,Saad Hariri (pictured). On the...

binyamin netanyahu tries to convince donald trump...

IT WAS one of the most hyped PowerPoint presentations in history. “Game changing”,“very...

donald trump s other trade war—with...

Not another from Ivanka’s lineTHE second-hand clothes trade often starts with a gift: an passe...

a short history of kurdish women on the front...

A British warrior abroadWHEN Anna Campbell heard that Kurdish women were fighting the jihadists of...

gay rights activists take to the air in tunisia

BOUHDID BELHEDI is not easily intimidated. The campaigner for LGBT rights has been assaulted by...

the pressure on binyamin netanyahu is growing

IT SEEMED that things could not get worse for Binyamin Netanyahu,Israel’s prime minister, when on...

israel and iran square off in syria

IT LASTED only six hours,but the battle in the sky above Syria and Israel in the early hours of...

a performer, a parasite and the prickliness of...

Egypt’s terrorist sexpotAFTER centuries of abuse,the Nile river will finally obtain its day in...

turkey struggles to keep the peace in afrin

THE scene in the centre of Afrin,a Kurdish city in north-western Syria, hardly inspires confidence...

ethiopia and eritrea put an end to two decades of...

FOR a cold war it could turn surprisingly hot. Countless skirmishes occurred over the course of the...

as a libyan warlord sickens, a power struggle...

THE most important narrative in Libya this year is unfolding in a Paris hospital. Khalifa Haftar,the...

unstable neighbours and bad policy are just two of...

PERCHED on a hill beneath a ruined Crusader castle,Karak feels a world away from Amman, Jordan’s...

with zuma gone, south africa 039;s opposition...

CLOUDS of confetti and pyrotechnics marked Mmusi Maimane’s re-election as leader of South...

america vows to respond to a suspected chemical...

THE video shows bodies sprawled on top of each other,some secreting white foam from open mouths. A...

saudi arabia and the uae are gobbling up yemen

BRIGHTLY painted dhows bob on the waves of the Arabian Sea. Fishermen auction the morning’s catch...

a rebellion in aden is hastening the break up of...

IT WAS typical Aden. Bomb blasts,gunfire and fireworks lit up the night in a chaos of clash and...

bibi netanyahu has some ideas for the iranian...

NO LEADER was more vocal in his opposition to the nuclear deal signed in 2015 by Iran and six world...

djibouti risks dependence on chinese largesse

Who is in the driver’s seat?DJIBOUTI was the final of Europe’s African colonies. France clung to...

why morocco is cosying up to sub saharan africa

The King and BuhariKING MOHAMMED VI of Morocco has had a quiet year. The monarch,who has visited at...

the battle begins for hodeida, yemen s lifeline

THE war in Yemen has entered what may be a decisive phase. Early on June 13th convoys of Yemeni...

donald trump and his advisers cannot agree on a...

BASHAR AL-ASSAD’S chemical attack on the town of Douma on April 7th has been widely condemned. But...

sierra leone s new president has made big promises

JULIUS MAADA BIO wasted no time before being sworn in as president of Sierra Leone. Just an hour and...

muslims consider queen elizabeth s ties to the...

Elizabeth of the Al Windsor clan“QUEEN ELIZABETH must claim her moral to rule Muslims.” So ran a...

ethiopia s prime minister resigns

POLITICS IN Ethiopia normally happens behind closed doors and is about as exciting as watching...

tanzania s rogue president

A BIT like President Donald Trump,Tanzania’s president, John Magufuli, and likes to fire employees...

can syria s kurds keep control of their territory?

ABU JABR waited more than three years to exact his revenge. In 2014 the jihadists of Islamic State...

why the palestinians have never felt so despondent

A flag in search of a stateEVEN by the standards of the peace process,this may be a new low....

jacob zuma loses two court cases in one day

THE wheels of justice turn slowly,but probably not slowly enough for South Africa’s...

the fight against islamic state is moving to...

THEIR hair tightly braided,two young girls sleep head-to-toe in matching pink dresses with gold...

mullahs rig the price of moolah in iran

FOR the second time in as many months,Iran’s “dollar patrol” is on the streets. The...

how african cities can pay for their own upkeep

“WE PAY our money and you see how it looks,” says Aggrey Batwala, leaning out of his minibus in...

the complicated legacy of rabbi shteinman, who has...

The greatest,according to someHE WAS exceptional in several ways. Brought up in the shtetls of what...

egypt is optimistic about new gas discoveries in...

FIVE years ago the country that hopes to become a Mediterranean energy hub couldnt even keep the...

ngos in lebanon want to dig up mass graves from...

LINA MAHFOUZ was six years stale when Lebanon’s civil war began. She remembers hearing screams...

bernard lewis was the doyen of orientalists

WHETHER he was drinking tea with Arab royalty or discussing his books on Islam with an American...

israel is determined to stop iran from...

Vlad,I’m disappointed in youIN THE early hours of April 9th Israeli fighter jets crossed into...

ali abdullah saleh s death will shake up the war...

IT WAS an unceremonious discontinuance for an Arab leader who had dominated his country for decades....

uhuru kenyatta s hollow victory

KENYA,according to its deputy president, William Ruto, and “is not the type of country where you...

african governments are having doubts about their...

That’s not the way out“IT’S what our forefathers used to eat,” says Kennedy Kapami, a...

islamic state has been stashing millions of...

GONE are the days when the black flag fluttered over a third of Iraq and almost half of Syria....

pictures of robert mugabe are being torn down all...

ROBERT MUGABE SQUARE,a grassy patch in central Harare, will host a congress of Zimbabwe’s ruling...

israel s capital is badly run and out of cash

EARLIER this year residents of Jerusalem woke up to find piles of rubbish strewn across...

vladimir putin takes a victory lap in the middle...

This is my winning faceEVEN some of Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest opponents cringed at the snub. On...

africans are getting healtheir and wealtheir...

IN MANY ways the tale of Africa in the 21st century is one of success. Great strides have been made...

a south african trader finds an artful way to...

JAMES GUBB was finishing off the knuckles when the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) shut him down....

ceasefires in south sudan seldom last

CEASEFIRES in South Sudan’s civil war tend to be short. At least nine such agreements contain been...

female candidates are facing a backlash in iraq

THERE is an air of optimism in Iraq,which will hold parliamentary elections on May 12th. It will be...

iran s anaemic economy is pushing people over the...

SIX months after the final round of protests over their country’s anaemic economy,Iranians are at...

middle east and africa

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