For the second time, the rate of extreme poverty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region jumped again, nearly doubling between 2015 and 2018, according to a new World Bank report. The World Bank’s biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity report finds that the rate of extreme …

Michael Young  Much attention in recent weeks has been focused on the aborted formation of a new government according to a road map laid out by French President Emmanuel Macron. Yet in his press conference on September 27 related to the situation in Lebanon, Macron said something else …

 James M. Dorsey Public opinion polling in the Arab world suggests that autocratic leaders like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his UAE counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed, have gotten some things right. Both men have to varying degrees replaced religion with nationalism as the ideology legitimizing their …

Adomas Abromaitis Sanctions are used as a tool of foreign policy by many governments. This month such restrictions were imposed on Belarus in order to force Belarus leader Alexsandr Lukashenko to leave office. Political and economic situation in this country has been remaining complex for about two months since …

Ahmad Naji If one battle in Yemen’s war seems designed to kill as many fighters as possible, it is the one currently taking place in Ma’rib Governorate. Five years of fighting between Ansar Allah, usually referred to as the Houthis, and armed groups loyal to the internationally recognized …

Giancarlo Elia Valori There are currently three types of intelligence transformations, namely conceptual, technological and operational. In the first case, we are dealing with a new and original intelligence paradigm. From a mechanism based on the identification of the need for information-research-processing and analysis-dissemination-feedback, we are shifting to …

   Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet US President Trump with representatives from Israel, the UAE and Bahrain for the signing of an agreement to normalise relations, 15 September 2020. The announcement of yet another historic agreement between an Arabian government in the Persian Gulf – Bahrain – and the State of …

Thomas de Waal The political crisis in Belarus is now so protracted that analysts are reaching for chess metaphors. The opposition owns the streets of the capital city, Minsk, as another huge demonstration proved again on Sunday, September 27. Yet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose sickening brutality has shocked the world, …

Farzad Ramezani Bonesh Senior Researcher and Analyst of International Affairs Iran and India have thousands of year’s records of cultural and civilizational relations. Official relations between the two countries were established after India’s independence. Iran and India signed a friendship pact after India’s independence. Iran’s position in India’s …