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Of the three various frames for studying the MENA region at present questions of securing economic development and reforming social welfare programs generally receive less attention than topics such as Islamism, security sector reform, or social mobilization. Most analysts…struggle to imagine the kind of economic improvement that could curb high levels of unemployment (especially among the educated) and generate much-needed revenue to finance state services such as education, health care, and basic infrastructure projects.

BY CALEB GERBITZ The ladder to financial freedom depends on the promise that if a family saves a portion of every paycheck, over time they will climb the ladder to economic independence. Unfortunately, for many working families, monthly paychecks fall short of covering necessities, let alone savings. They can’t reach the first rung. Today, the […]

Maha Yahya, Director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, sits down with Niku Jafarnia to discuss the conditions needed for the safe return of Syrian refugees to their homes and the current tenor of domestic rhetoric around refugees in host countries, involuntary returns, “safe zones,” and shifting territorial control within Syria.

BY CAMERON LINDSAY While Amazon continues to pilot its fully autonomous drone delivery system, Amazon PrimeAir, an autonomous delivery system millions of times larger is occurring at sea. And whether you are the passenger on-board a cruise ship or you hire a shipping company to transport your belongings overseas, in a few years, you will […]

Stretching from the Atlantic coast in the west to the Red Sea in the east, the region of north-central Africa known as the Sahel has rarely figured as a focus of international geopolitics. Yet this semi-arid band of territory, spanning some 14 countries and home to numerous ethnic and religious groups, is emerging as a new arena in the sprawling global battle between governments and jihadist groups.

BY MATTHEW CROSS The days after an election bring feelings of happiness or sadness with the illusion that the victory or defeat is permanent. Since November 2016, the Democrats I speak to still wonder if their party will ever be competitive again. I too have experienced this, but from a different viewpoint. As an idealistic […]

The authors of this article partnered with seven juvenile detention centers across the country to obtain an unprecedented snapshot of youth in custody to determine if lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning, gender nonconforming and transgender (LGBQ/GNCT) youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. Specifically, the authors were interested in understanding how disparate system practices impacted […]

BY MARIYA ILYAS AND CASSIE RASMUSSEN Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States—more commonly known as the “Muslim Ban”—which restricts immigration from several Muslim-majority countries. For a year now, the United States, a country founded on religious freedom, has been […]

The stimulant Captagon has been portrayed as a super drug underlying the violence in Syria and Iraq. But the emphasis on the drug’s side-effects, in conjunction with a fear of narcotics bred by the war on drugs, has detracted from a proper analysis of the foundational causes of that violence.

For as long as I can remember, January 26 has been one of my favorite days of the year: Australia Day. Typically, I, and many other Aussies, spend the day with family and friends overloading BBQs with meat, carefully extracting beer and wine from ice-filled eskys, playing backyard cricket, and listening to Triple J’s Hottest […]

BY BEN YUNMO WANG A massive government effort to build thousands of commercial-themed towns across China is off to a rockier start than expected. Still largely overlooked in Western media, “Characteristic Small Towns” (CSTs) have become the championed model of urban development in China over the last two years, littered across ambitious initiatives by central […]

After 30 years of implementing the Arabization policy, the challenges with language education in Morocco, if not with the education system as a whole, have yet to be fully addressed. To effect true change and movement towards multilingualism, the entire approach towards teaching language must shift from a grammar-oriented approach to a meaningful competencies-based approach.