The eternal promise of the Arab Spring: Democracy isn’t like instant coffee
Instead of undergoing a genuine transition to freedom and social justice, almost all Arab Spring countries have reverted to various combinations of autocracy, poverty and violence.
Ten years ago, a wildfire of revolts in the Arab world touched off an unlikely series of events that swelled, then dashed many hopes, and irrevocably changed the region.
Algeria's ailing Bouteflika, 82, reportedly offers to leave within a year if re-elected
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, facing mass protests over his 20 years in power, will run in April's elections, his campaign manager said on Sunday, with Ennahar TV saying he had offered to step down after a year if re-elected. The announcement read out by Abdelghani ...
The Middle East remains a nightmare of complexity, second only to North Korea as a threat to global security.
Sumo wrestler Osunaarashi becomes tourism ambassador for Egypt
Egypt's Osunaarashi, the first sumo wrestler from Africa to turn pro in Japan, became a tourism ambassador for his native country on Thursday, in a campaign to encourage Japanese to visit a destination avoided by many travelers following political upheaval. "I want to contribute in ...
An American journalist and her camera crew who were arrested in Bahrain and accused of participating in an illegal gathering have left the country after being released on Tuesday, their families said in a statement. Bahrain had said security forces arrested four U.S. citizens on ...
At least 65 people were killed on Thursday when one of Libya's worst truck bombs in years exploded at a police training center in the town of Zliten, local officials and hospital sources said. No group immediately claimed the attack, but the bombing was one ...
The rise and fall of Arab revolutionary discourse
The Arab Spring has shifted from an innocent, unifying, empowering and popular movement into a complicated, cunning, disuniting, disempowering and elitist one, where the people do not matter in the least.
Four years after the Arab Spring of hoped-for democratization, Japan needs to extend steady support for efforts to build peace in the Arab world and tolerance of diversified views and opinions.
Landmark Tunisian presidential election seen heading for runoff
Tunisians have voted to pick their first directly elected president, with the two major parties expecting a run-off as the final step in the North African state's transition to full democracy following a 2011 revolution that ousted longtime ruler Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Official results ...
The horror stories emerging from northern Iraq, as well as the continuing slaughter in Syria's civil war, point to the unraveling of the state system established after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire almost 100 years ago.
An Egyptian court on Monday banned a prodemocracy movement that helped ignite the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, judicial sources and the website of the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said. The court was ruling on a private lawsuit brought by a lawyer accusing ...
