Gennaro Gervasio and Enrico De Angelis, openDemocracy – 22 March 2021 “Everyday life has become a constant gamble. A taxi driver once told us that ‘they turned the country into a huge casino’”. In this interview Farvardin and Talebi, both Iranian academic researchers at Berlin’s Humboldt University, specialising in Middle Eastern politics, nationalism, migration and gender…
Soutik Biswas, BBC News – 16 March 2021 According to Freedom House and The Economist Intelligence Unit data, democracy around the world is in decline and one country where this is most apparent is the world’s largest democracy, India. This article in BBC News explains why Modi’s government are being blamed for these new rankings…
Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Taimoor Shah and Fahim Abed, The New York Times – 8 March 2021 During the day in Panjwai, Afghanistan, you’d be forgiven for thinking the war had ended. An unofficial ceasefire, this is an example of how small communities, exhausted from violence, can govern the fighting without foreign intervention or reliance on government. This article in…
Sofia Barbarani, Al Jazeera – 26 February 2021 The lives of Iraqi citizens, even those who don’t care much for oil, has been unmistakably influenced by the large role their country’s oil plays in foreign politics. This article explains why, decades on from their invasion of Kuwait, the youth of Iraq view oil as a…
Susannah George, The Washington Post – 10 March 2021 The Washington Post reports this week on the leaked U.S. document that details plans to withdraw all American troops by the 1st May on the grounds that Afghanistan’s government is replaced with temporary leaders, a new constitution is drafted and a ceasefire is brokered. Read the…
Ghazi Ghazi, 1001 Iraqi Thoughts – 1 March 2021 Iraq’s weak education system dates back to the 1990’s and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent sanctions by the UNSC. Prior to this, the country had an education system upon which many countries in the Middle East looked upon as an ideal, however thirty years…
Dumrongkiat Mala, Bangkok Post – 1 March 2021 Tsai Ing-wen has made Time magazine’s 2020 Top 100 most influential people, partly due to her success in containing Covid-19. Taiwan’s first female president, Ms Tsai’s strong work ethic has came from her humble roots and her parent’s small-business background, and her championing of women’s and LGBT…
Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs – March/April 2021 The U.S. has been the world superpower in a unipolar international system since the collapse of the Soviet Union, therefore it should serve as no surprise that the fast rise of China and their impending joint place at the top of the table unsettles Washington. Kevin Rudd writes…
Roddy Gow, The Scotsman – 25 February 2021 Trump’s allegations over rigged voting and the storming of the capitol building triggered a response, mainly from the east, questioning the moral high ground upon which the U.S. holds its democracy. Roddy Gow, chairman and founder of the Asia Scotland Institute, writes in this article on The…
