As scientists around the world rush to find a vaccine to put an end to the death and economic destruction wrought by COVID-19, age-old fears and mistrust have been given a new lease of life. It didn’t take long after the first cases of coronavirus were reported for conspiracy theories and misinforma...
The mysterious British street artist Banksy, known for his political or social-commentary graffiti that has popped up in cities around the world, made a powerful statement by funding a migrant boat The Louise Michel, named after a French feminist anarchist, to rescue refugees attempting to reach Eur...
On July 19, 2020, a daring mission blasted into the skies taking aim at Mars; the dusty, cold, desert planet that has captured human imagination for centuries. It was the first interplanetary mission undertaken by an Arab nation: “al-Amal” (which means, ‘Hope’); a historic - and nail-biting - moment...
Rarely has the fate of many millions of people rested on an international competition like the one for a Covid-19 vaccine - the only sure escape route from the pandemic that can put an end to the 'new normal': no more social distancing or face masks. Unsurprisingly given the scale of the crisis acro...
Egypt-born Mahmood Al Durrah has been making waves in the fitness industry since he won the Canadian Nationals as a middle weight in 2012. From then, he has won several titles and competed in the world’s most prestigious bodybuilding competition, the flex-filled, oiled-muscle display of Mr Olympia, ...
The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in more than 85 identified camps since 2017 where they undergo forced re-education and political indoctrination. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group p...
Qatar, one of the world’s richest countries, has a long history of migrant worker abuse and exploitation, which has garnered widespread international condemnation. The vast majority of Qatar’s 2 million migrant workers—a significant number given that the country’s overall population is just 2.6 mil...
A new #MeToo firestorm is erupting in Egypt as a wave of allegations of sexual misconduct against a 22-year-old Egyptian university student who attended some of the country’s most elite schools and universities have been amplified on social media in the past two weeks. More than 100 accusers posted ...
Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have been at loggerheads with each other for almost 10 years over Addis Abba’s controversial dam being built on the Nile River. Ethiopia asserts that the new hydroelectric dam, the largest in Africa, which is going to be bigger than Greater London with a total capacity of 7...
Hotter heatwaves, higher sea levels and more severe droughts: This is the sweltering reality in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where climate change is an especially urgent issue. By 2030, temperatures in the world’s hottest, driest and most water-scarce region are expected to increase more than...
