Posts Tagged ‘Middle East’

In Egypt right now, it is practically Bush vs Gore

A Mohamed Morsy and Ahmed Shafiq runoff would crush those who believed in the revolution

On Egypt’s first (sort of) free and fair presidential election

For the first time ever in Egypt, no one knows in advance who will win the presidency

Al Jazeera goes undercover in Syria

Al Jazeera has become the essential media; even US networks that demonize it rely on its video feed


Why is it so hard to get word out of Syria?

Homs is bad enough but what is happening right now in Aleppo, in Suweida, in Deir ez-Zur?

Did Yemen just have a revolution?

Ali Abdullah Saleh is out at last but it looks like the Saleh regime remains

Caught in the middle of a firefight in Syria

A terrifyingly close view of what it means to fight an irregular war in the middle of a city


Ghost of Judith Miller returns to the NY Times

In the form of Ronen Bergman, whose cover story on Israel attacking Iran reads as propaganda

Ahmed Basiony and the cost of revolution

The protesters in Tahrir Square preached non-violence, but the Mubarak regime did not

Taking to the air to document a revolution

The remote-controlled toy helicopter comes of age


One year on in Egypt: Art, Politics and Power

The Egyptian revolution happened in the middle of my Egypt novel and I didn’t know what to do about it

The ‘inheritance project’ and Mubarak’s last hours

The film hindi going on behind the scenes during the last days of Egypt’s First Family

Why Mubarak should not be hanged

The old man’s secrets about his odious regime are worth more to Egypt than vengeance


The Egyptian police beat protesters senseless

The video is hard to watch but it shows why freedom in Egypt has not yet been won

Hitch 1949-2011

Christopher Hitchens wrote like a polymath on a bender and his bombast was a pure reading pleasure

The official end of the Iraq debacle

A bad idea, but it will incubate like a latent virus in right-wing circles and return one day


Mapping the invisible city of Beirut

How a city fed up with thinking about war knows where the next frontlines will be

Back flips off the destroyed infrastructure in Gaza

Bringing the daredevil leaps of parkour to the bombed-out buildings of the Gaza Strip

Sharia El Aziz Osman street sign, Cairo, Egypt

I used to live on this street in Zamalek and have now given it to the protagonist in my novel


What to make of the elections in Egypt?

Millions turned out, but will the electoral process prove worthy of the hopes invested in it?

Egypt votes today, but it’s a mess

The elections were badly organized, the military undermined them, but turnout has been significant

What is going on with the Arab League?

They actually did something. Sanctions on Syria won’t work, but it’s a miracle all the same


The truth revealed, at last, in Tahrir Square

The military was always an obstacle to democracy. Now everyone can see that

Video of the Egyptian army running over civilians with APCs

But the Egyptian army rules the country, so it is the protesters who face military trials

Peter Schjeldahl wanders blind through the Met’s new Islamic wing

He sees only difference where he ought to be able to see centuries of cultural exchange