Greater Middle East

Are you ready for World War 5?

The fearful synergy of regional sectarian war and Great Power rivalries holds the menace of the looming Syria intervention setting off a new global conflagration.

Greater Middle East

Syria: ‘sectarian cleansing’ on both sides?

A Syrian rebel offensive targeting Alawite villages in the coastal governorate of Latakia has seen some 200 people killed and left nearly 3,000 families displaced this month.

Greater Middle East

Yemeni pro-democracy leader barred from Egypt

Egypt banned Yemeni activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman from entering the country for “security reasons”—to protest from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Iran

Iran: protest conviction of Sufi activists

Human Rights Watch called upon Iran’s judiciary to drop charges and quash the verdicts against 11 members of a Sufi order convicted in what the rights group called unfair trials.

Europe

France: whither the hijab intifada?

The on-again/off-again Parisian intifada has exploded once more—this time over the arrest of a man whose wife was ticketed for wearing a face veil in the suburb of Trappes.

South Asia

Bangladesh Islamist sentenced for war crimes

Street clashes erupted as Islamist leader Ghulam Azam was sentenced to 90 years by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal for crimes against humanity in the 1971 war. 

Southeast Asia

US troops to Philippines amid Mindanao fighting

The White House is finalizing a deal with the Philippines that will allow the US to deploy more troops—as new fighting is reported from Mindanao despite talks with Islamist rebels.

Greater Middle East

Egypt authorities order arrest of Ikhwan leader

Egyptian authorities ordered the arrest of Mohammed Badie, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as nine other leading Islamists, in an escalation of the crackdown.