Section: Non-Middle East media focused on Middle East
Opinion: Media Wars
The media wars in the Arab world that erupted before and after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings are well-known to ordinary people who switch between Arab and international news channels in order to familiarize themselves with the different points of view or angles of coverage. Viewers have become experts on how this or that TV channel addresses...
Report: At least 60 journalists killed in 2014
This May 27, 2011 file photo shows American Journalist James Foley as he poses for a photo in Boston, USA. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) New York, AP—At least 60 journalists around the world were killed in 2014 while on the job or because of their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Tuesday, making the past three years the deadliest...
Opinion: Tumbling Oil Prices and Assad’s Friends
As oil prices continue to fall, it is evident that a state of paranoia has afflicted Iran and Russia—two allies of the government of Bashar Al-Assad. Tehran and Moscow have issued similar statements in terms of their condemnation of plummeting oil prices, both claiming that this is the product of a conspiracy, rather than prevailing economic...
Putin says Russia economy will be cured but offers no remedy
Russia’s former Prime Minister and opposition leader Kasyanov speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Moscow. (Reuters)Moscow, Reuters—President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia’s economy would inevitably rebound after the rouble’s dramatic slide this year but offered no remedy to a deepening financial...
Opinion: The Perennial Story of Gulf Oil
By the time this article goes to press, oil prices will have suffered huge losses, approaching fifty per cent of their value of just five months ago. The decline in the price of a vital commodity on which some state budgets depend almost completely doubtless brings back memories of previous oil price collapses, and the great suffering of the...
Opinion: Oil and Politics
In April 2014, when the Russian President Vladimir Putin was at the peak of his tsarist splendor after his invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea, he spoke about his ability to control Europe’s gas and energy supplies. He was like a hurricane, blowing away any objections by the West and the US. His only interest was to know what Saudi...
UN: $16.4 billion needed to aid most vulnerable
Britain’s Valerie Amos (R), United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, sitting next to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, Portugal’s Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres (L) as they launch the Global Humanitarian Appeal 2015 to support people affected by disaster...
Opinion: Putin is losing his luster
One of the myths woven around Vladimir Putin’s personality cult is based on the narrative of his first visit to “the Holy Land” as a young man, where he is supposed to have been inspired to assume “a special mission” in the service of Mother Russia. The Putin system is often spelled out with a verbal tripod: a man, a nation, a mission! That...
Putin defends Russia’s foreign policy
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to give his annual state of the nation address in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on December 4, 2014. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Presidential Press Service)Moscow, AP—In an annual speech ranging from economy to school tests, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday evoked religious...
Russia boasts a dynamic press despite risks to journalists
A couple passes coin-operated newspaper vending machines in the metro in Moscow. (John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images) Moscow, Asharq Al-Awsat—The way some circles in the West put it, Russia has all but returned to the Soviet era with an omnipresent Vladimir Putin in tight control of the media. Putin, we are told, has built a cult of personality...
