While so much attention is focused on Israel’s war in Gaza and its shockwaves across the Middle East, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government is steadily reintegrating into the Arab world, despite still being shunned by the West as a pariah. Since Syria made its full-fledged return to the Arab League in May 2023, when Assad...
The United Arab Emirates on Saturday acknowledged it is conducting a mass trial of 84 inmates previously reported by dissidents as it hosted the United Nations COP28 climate talks last month. The trial likely includes a prominent activist lauded by rights group abroad. The state-run WAM news agency quoted the country’s attorney general, Hamad al-Shamsi, as saying...
“Mediapart reveals that a private Swiss Detective agency sent the names of a thousand Europeans to the Abu Dhabi intelligence services, qualifying them, often wrongly, as Islamists having close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Among the victims of this absurd filing are Benoît Hamon, Samia Ghali, the CNRS and the La France insoumise mouvement. “A...