Asia

BY SHAI KIVITY A tectonic movement in the nature of international relations has arrived, with most of the West ignoring it – the rise of China. As China’s GDP has recently surpassed the United States’, making it the strongest country in the world from an economic standpoint, the US has woken up to find itself […]

Renewed US sanctions will have a detrimental impact on the Iranian economy, but Iran is winning the public relations battle on the world stage.

BY WON-MO KOO Just four years ago, Nadia Murad, co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, was one of the thousands of Yazidi women sexually enslaved by ISIL. Since her escape and despite multiple death threats, Murad spoke publicly of the atrocities she suffered. Her courage in calling international attention to the often-overlooked issue of […]

Raed Fares was killed on November 23rd, but his work as a citizen journalist and activist lives on in the people he taught and empowered. Contributing writer Oula Alrifai, a Damascus-native and activist herself, remembers Raed.

Financial hubs in Middle Eastern urban centers such as Dubai foster technological innovation, but the existing political framework in the Gulf and across the region remains in urgent need of reform to solidify recent economic successes and ensure that future generations of entrepreneurs can follow in their footsteps.

Trump’s statement on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is worth examining for the baldness of its cynicism and perhaps unprecedented about-face on human rights. But Congress still has an opportunity to act where the White House falls short.

BY JASON HUNG The “bookstore incidents” In January 2018, Hong Kong-based Swedish Chinese publisher, Gui Minhai, was snatched by mainland Chinese authorities in Ningbo, China. Supposedly, Gui was on his way to Sweden’s consulate in Shanghai to renew his Swedish passport. It was the second time Gui went missing in two and a half years. […]

BY YASIR GÖKÇE “Our life was turned upside down. In one night, we were declared ‘terrorists,’” said Sevval, a 13-year-old who was among the victims of a massive crackdown on dissidents conducted by Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan. The crackdown continues today and impacts people who identify as critical of the Erdogan regime. Since a failed […]

Tay Hong Yi examines the psychology behind the “elite” and “neighbourhood” school labels, exploring the link between school names and the prestige associated with “elite” schools. He argues that school names play a role in entrenching educational stratification and have become an indicator of social hierarchy – and that reframing the discussion this way can facilitate more targeted education policy design.

The Idlib de-militarized zone (DMZ) deal is a powerful tool for advancing peace, but only if Turkey and Russia commit the resources to properly enforce it. The implementation of the Idlib DMZ holds powerful consequences for the ongoing Syrian constitutional committee and the broader peace process.

Amidst the ongoing debate on how Singapore’s Government responds to inequality-related issues, Theophilus Kwek points to misalignments between the policy lens of the technocratic state, and the naked human eye through which its constituents must view the same issues. He argues that we must go beyond purely data-driven perspectives of inequality, and include street-view perspectives in policy considerations too.

In this episode of the Middle East Weekly podcast, we discuss the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents in Istanbul, the formation of and challenges facing Iraq’s new government, the re-instatement of sanctions on Iran, and an election boycott in Bahrain. Khashoggi was murdered when he visited the Saudi […]