Jordan
All countries-
Interview with Andre Bank, political scientist
"The refugees are part of Jordanian politics"
As conflicts continue to escalate in the region, Jordan remains stable. In fact, the kingdom is actually profiting from the chaos and the refugees, says political scientist Andre Bank in conversation with Jannis Hagmann
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Pew Research Center: Islam and national laws in the Muslim world
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Education in the Arab world
Stop corrupting the next generation!
With curricula still focusing on fighting Christians, the torments of the grave, not to mention children being burnt in Hell, a revolution in Islamic religious education would appear to be long overdue. Mousa Barhouma argues in favour of teaching pupils noble Islamic ideas and humane values without overtaxing their intellectual maturity
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Reforming the Arab security sector
A plea for transparency
In many Arab countries, comprehensive democratisation and national reconciliation is needed if urgently needed security sector reforms are to have the desired effect, says Yezid Sayigh, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut
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Democracy and civil society in the Arab world
Talk is not a crime
With the violent radicalism and civil wars of the Middle East and North Africa capturing the world′s attention, the region′s grossly distorted legal systems are being given short shrift. Yet problematic laws like those criminalising defamation, which facilitate political and economic repression, undermine development – and destroy lives. By Daoud Kuttab
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House of healing
Doctors Without Borders' (MSF) hospital for reconstructive surgery in Amman is the final hope for many of those injured in conflicts in the Middle East. Tania Kramer reports from Jordan
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Fighting jihadism
The fatal attraction of IS
In seeking to explain the rise of terrorist militia such as IS, we must look beyond school curricula, Friday sermons and religious texts, argues the Jordanian political scientist Mohammad Abu Rumman
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Geopolitics in the Middle East
A new century dawns
There is no doubt that the crisis-riven Middle East is beset by some unique challenges. As Jeffrey Sachs argues, however, these are not the Sunni-Shia political divide, the future of Assad or other doctrinal disputes, but rather the unmet need for quality education, job skills, advanced technologies and sustainable development
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The Middle East
Preserving the Ottoman mosaic
With the international community striving to end the chaos and conflict racking the Middle East and establish a regional order than can sustain peace and stability, Sweden′s fomer prime minister, Carl Bildt makes a plea for working within the existing framework
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IS and the lessons learnt
Negotiating beyond time and space
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, is a recruitment tool for the IS and has to go. Nevertheless, a successor government needs to be able to keep order and cannot allow the jihadists to exploit a power vacuum, as it has in Libya. An essay by Richard N. Haass
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Chronicle of a war foretold
Redefining the "Syrian" conflict
The war waging in Syria, hijacked by opposing ideologies just months after it began, has had an irrevocable impact on the Syrian people. Although not much is heard of Syrians outside the refugee camps, Americans, Europeans, Russians, Turks, Iranians, and Arabs hold meeting after meeting to agree and disagree, coalesce and collide, in an attempt to halt the ″Syrian conflict″. By Hakim Khatib
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The Arab world
(Not) an unlimited book market?
With the increasing efforts to revive the book market in the Arab world by publishers and cultural institutions, intermittently hindered by economic, political and social factors, the limitations of this market are yet to be explored and redefined. By Amira Elmasry