Read all posts for ‘Arab world’

The focus this month in Future Challenges is on global citizens and migration, and how they are changing the faces of  our cities every day. In today’s world travel is cheaper and modern communications enable anyone to learn about other cultures and languages without leaving their own countries. So in […]

World-renowned linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky spoke to 1000 Egyptians at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on 23 October in a lecture entitled “Emerging World Order and the Arab Spring.” The event’s location was quiet poetic; at the AUC’s Tahrir Square campus, an eclectic audience with politicians, journalists, activists and students […]

Civil society potentially has the power to force economic policies that change the world; but what if it’s barely keeping itself alive? Civil Society Organization laws in the Arab world are extremely restrictive, impeding the rights and powers of such organizations. A vibrant civil society arena is typically reflective of […]

Arab  Spring, Act I: the seduction of straightforward revolutions. In December 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, set fire to himself to protest against his treatment by the authorities when he tried to get back the wares they had confiscated. . This self-immolation in the name […]