This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
The six Arab Gulf Cooperation States (GCC) have condemned Iran for setting up offices on three disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil is shipped. The islands - Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb - are claimed by both Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The GCC [...]
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has met with Libya’s ruler Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. She is the first U.S. Secretary of state to visit Libya since 1953.
Story at BBC
See also: Helene Cooper, “Isolation Over, Libyan Leader Meets With Rice,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 2008
More on Libya
See the BBC profile of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi (also spelled Gaddafi)
More on Libya
Conservative Islamist clerics and tribal chieftains in Yemen, a country where the reach of state power is limited, are pushing for stronger regulation of public morality.
Story from the BBC
The man nicknamed the “national poet” of Palestine has passed away.
Story at BBC
Egyptian university professor and political activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim has been sentenced to two years in jail for “tarnishing the reputation of Egypt. ”
Story from the BBC
More on Professor Ibrahim
Translation of an article that helped get Ibrahim in trouble.
The New York Times’ Andrew Martin wrote recently on the impact of rising prices and global food shortages on the Middle East.
Andrew Martin, “Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water,” New York Times, July 21, 2008
More on water shortages in the Middle East
Militant Islamists in Algeria, who prompted a bloody civil war there in the 1990s, have forged new ties with Al-Qaeda and are attempting to transform what had been a nationalist insurgency into part of the global jihad.
Souad Mekhennet, Michael Moss, Eric Schmitt, Elaine Sciolino and Margot Williams, “A Threat Renewed: A Ragtag Insurgency Gains a [...]
The latest installment in the New York Times’ “Generation Faithful” series features a story about education in Algeria, a country where in recent decades the struggle between fundamentalist (and at times extremist) Islam and more modern and secular emphases has been acute. Michael Slackman writes, “Now the government is urgently trying to re-engineer Algerian identity, [...]
Hugh Sykes, the BBC’s correspondent in Damascus, profiles Syria’s interests regionally in the Middle East and abroad. Among the topics addressed are prospects for the Turkish mediated peace talks between Syria and Israel that came to light recently. In addition, Sykes interviews HAMAS leader Khaled Meshaal, who has been living in safe house in Damascus.
Go to the [...]
BBC Middle East