With the downfall of the Assad regime, Algeria lost a strong ally in the Arab region. Algiers is now seeking to establish relations with the new leadership in Damascus, hoping to maintain its old alliance despite the change of regime.
Tag: arab spring
Supporters of the Assad regime rallied around the slogan “Assad forever.” But we have now seen what happens the day after “forever.” Egyptian writer Ezzat el-Kamhawi considers what that means for Syria and the region.
The secret royal wedding, the start of a revolution and the first of many papal trips around the world.
After meeting Bashar al-Assad, then heir to the Syrian dictatorship, then Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said he feared for the country’s future.
Will the Arabs take the initiative to take tangible measures before the fire reaches their countries, or will they be forced to be mere tools and bases to protect Israel? After the six-day war of 1967, the Three No’s of an Arab Summit set a new hardline. That should be the model now.
The Arab front in favor of the Palestinian people is more feeble and ambiguous than ever, even as the people of Gaza are being killed by the thousands. Multiple factors explain this weakness, from fears of a repeat of the 2011 uprisings inside their own countries to longstanding competition with Iran.
With results in Sunday’s election showed Kais Saied winning the election by a landslide, Tunisia may have definitively returned to dictatorship and closed a chapter on democracy in the Arab world that began a generation ago on the streets of Tunis. Daraj took a pre-election look at what it means for the people who live there.
The Islamic Bands were especially popular in the early 2000s, then became a tool of the Muslim Brotherhood after their victory following the Arab Spring. Then they largely disappeared, until showing up more recently on social media.
U.S. President Joe Biden is pushing Saudi Arabia and Israel to sign on to a broad “normalization” deal, which would be a landmark of his first term in the White House. But Israel’s Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman each have their own calculations standing in the way.
As the United Arab Emirates normalizes relations with Israel, an Emirati organization’s recent revival of a famous pan-Arab song is strangely devoid of all common Arab issues and subjects that would anger Israel, just as Palestinians are being massacred in Gaza.
Houthi rebels are now blocking the strategic Red Sea, by striking or seizing merchant ships, while also attempting to launch rockets into Israeli territory. This has sparked a strong response from the U.S and Britain, escalating a situation that could impact global security in major ways, with competing powers ready to cash in.
Elon Musk has been criticized before for his management of Twitter, now known as X. But it was not until Saturday that the social network revealed just how inept and dangerous it had become, as fake news spread far and wide. It may never recover.
Syria is positioned to return to the geopolitical fold in the Arab world, but the political structure inside the country is still fractured, facing protests from its citizens and the need to call in the Russian air force and Iranian backers.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent tour of Gulf states is proof that the Turkish president aims to repair his country’s diplomatic ties in the region, all the while looking for investment for Ankara’s floundering economy. Quite the reversal of fortunes considering that not so long ago Gulf countries faced accusations of sponsoring the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.
The arrest this week of top opposition leaders shows Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed is drifting ever farther away from basic democratic practices. Yet there’s no mass uprising, unlike in 2011, perhaps because economic factors are foremost on people’s minds.
More than a decade after the Arab Spring gave hope of a wave of democracy in North Africa and beyond, the violence that has erupted in Sudan squashes hope in that troubled nation of a democratic future.
In the cradle of the Arab Spring, democracy is once again at stake.
Rising tensions in wheat productions, explosion of oil prices, fear of the unknown, could the Ukraine war lead to a popular Arab uprising similar to the one in 2011?
In an area the size of Singapore, Egypt is building its new capital. Constructed under the close control of the military and the head of state, the city embodies the grand ambitions of an increasingly autocratic president. But will it turn out to be a ghost city?
The Tunisian president is cultivating his ambiguities and pushing his constitutional reform, without proposing a roadmap to get the country out of the crisis. Refusing to speak to the media, he has an increasingly populist tone with messianic accents.
A decade after the Arab Spring, the Islamist political movement driven by the Muslim Brotherhood, from Egypt to Morocco and beyond, continues to flirt with more extreme Salafist elements to build popular support — and continues to show its utter incapacity to properly run a national government.
Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed caused a stir by appointing Najla Bouden, the first female head of government in the Arab world. But as the president has assumed full powers a decade after the launch of the Arab Spring, it is a choice with a mixed message.
Over the past few weeks, the offspring of two of the 20th centuries most ruthless strongmen have announced they’d like to become the (democratically elected) leaders of Libya and the Philippines.
North Africa correspondent Frédéric Bobin analyzes Tunisian President Kais Saied’s recent decision to suspend parliament and sack Prime Minister Mechichi and what it means for the legacy of the Arab Spring — for Tunisia and for the region.
The editor of Mada Masr writes about what how to remember the revolution in Egypt.
In the southern city of El Hamma, young Tunisians attempt to emigrate all the time for a dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. One recent tragedy left dozens dead.
SFAX — Plastic bags litter the fields that separate the highway from the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisian fishermen sail their boats in the Gulf of Gabes, between the cities of Sfax and Zarzis — and just 120 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Indeed, recently the fishermen’s haul has begun to include migrants picked up […]
TUNIS — Six years ago, the Tunisian Revolution sparked the Arab Spring uprisings and overthrew the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his notoriously violent police state. Now a nascent democracy, Tunisia is once again faced with the issue of police brutality. Tunis-based daily Le Temps reports that several local and international NGOs […]
Experts do know a lot. But they have a tendency to consider the object of their expertise as immovable.
CASABLANCA — Morocco is no stranger to the jihadist violence afflicting other Muslim countries: In 2003, a suicide bombing killed 33 people in the country’s largest city, Casablanca, while a 2011 attack killed 17 in Marrakesh. But unlike most of its neighbors, Morocco has a detailed policy to reform rather than destroy followers of Salafism, […]
A female Islamist member of Parliament and an alternative-minded blogger have very different ideas about the role of religion in post-Revolution Tunisia.
CONSTANTINE — Algeria’s third-largest city has been shaken after May 1 worker demonstrations, included one man setting himself on fire in front of the Constantine governor’s office to protest rampant unemployment. The Algiers-based daily El Watan reports that the man, indentified as Hamza, was participating in a demonstration organized by the National Committee for the […]
A heat map from French tourism professionals, forced to rethink where to send eager would-be globetrotters in the face of new and old security threats.
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Is A New Arab Spring Simmering In Algeria?
OUED EL MA — High tensions persist in Algeria, a week after police and security forces violently cracked down on protests in the impoverished central town of Oued El Ma. Algiers-based daily El Watan reports that the violent crackdown laid waste to houses and businesses and left the town largely devastated, and what the daily […]
-Essay- CAIRO — Every year, on Jan. 25, I have the same thought: I don’t have any memories to share. Every time I’m with friends who nostalgically remember moments of happiness and triumph, I stay silent, because I have no memories to share. During the 18 days of the revolution, I was in Gambia, watching […]
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF EGYPT’S ARAB SPRING Photo: Amr Sayed/APA/ZUMA Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has warned against protesters using today’s fifth anniversary of the Jan. 25 revolution to disrupt the country. Al Arabiya reports that security forces were on high alert and the streets of Cairo were mostly calm this morning, five years to the […]
Five years after the revolution that overthrew the Mubarak regime, Egypt’s security forces raided apartments and closed public space to send a very clear message
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On This Day – January 14
LUXOR — It’s hot in the minibus that takes us to a village about 10 kilometers from Luxor’s city center. We ask the driver to drop us off at the house of Hajj Tarek* on the main street. Dotted with farmland, sugar cane and modest concrete houses, the village looks like many other Upper Egyptian […]
Patients versus doctors, electors versus parties and disappointed refugee aid response. The Internet may actually widen the gap between citizens and modern democratic institutions.