By the excellent @rahulabhatia.bsky.social

From "Dubai: Conversations in a Crisis" in the FT Magazine
www.ft.com/content/c902...

Excellent profile of Iran's Ghalibaf, a repeatedly unsuccessful presidential candidate who "arrived at the center of Iranian power not through electoral victory, but through survival."

AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying LLMs-gone-rogue dominated coverage, but had nothing to do with the targeting. Instead, it was choices made by human beings, over many years, that gave us this atrocity

"Someone decided to compress the kill chain. Someone decided that deliberation was latency. Someone decided to build a system that produces 1,000 targeting decisions an hour and call them high-quality. Someone decided to start this war."
www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ma...

📢 We are hiring an Assistant Professor in Middle East Politics.
Come and work with us in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University.

Details here: durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
Closing date: 7 April 2026

Six 36-month postdoctoral positions @durham.ac.uk open for application now.
Find more about the expertise of our academic staff members here
www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...
Our research centres
www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Saudi Arabia goes after critics of rising cost of living Wave of arrests and fines are in apparent response to online anger over reforms to social security benefits

Saudi Arabia goes after critics of rising cost of living ft.trib.al/7s5ib7X

My friend Salim Hmimnat and I have a new essay out in The Middle East Journal on the latest developments inside Morocco's Party of Justice and Development. We ask how viable is the Islamist project today.

muse.jhu.edu/article/975851

@sgiadurham.bsky.social @imeisdurham.bsky.social

The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care? The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...

A tall tree stands in front of the Al Qasimi building at Durham University

✨PHD FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AT DURHAM UNI✨

Funding is available from NINE DTP, China Scholarship Council, and Transformative Humanities. For more info visit our website: www.durham.ac.uk/.../research...
Join the Information session on 28th Nov, 12-1pm here: teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-joi...

Petrodollars and the ‘Islamic Bomb’: how a Saudi-Pakistan pact was forged Gulf nation backed Islamabad’s nuclear weapons programme, say experts. A new defence pact draws the Sunni allies closer

Petrodollars and the ‘Islamic Bomb’: how a Saudi-Pakistan pact was forged:

"the implications were clear: if Israel and the US were reshuffling the Middle East order, Saudi Arabia was keen to shore up an older alliance with a nimble friend."

on.ft.com/4pKdPTs

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

OpenAI will not “embed” its tools in college life, it is already changing the nature of what it means to learn, to read or think critically. It does not embed in the world, it makes the world in its image. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

Medical journals like the Lancet have been publishing articles a/b the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers’ reliability since fall 23. Given scale of destruction & recording methods, they were always undercounts. Outside numbers underestimate civilian death b/c they treat all adult men as combatants.

So sorry to hear this. I've learned a lot from your work.

Who killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – and why? | Dion Nissenbaum You may think you know the story of the US citizen killed by Israeli forces, but you probably don’t

Who killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – and why?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Congratulations to the outstanding @declanwalsh.bsky.social , whose reporting from Sudan has been essential reading.

Israel eases block on exits from Gaza after Trump urges resettlement Hundreds leave besieged strip in what diplomats fear is start of Israeli displacement plan spurred by US president

On Gaza, from the FT: 'Hundreds leave besieged strip in what diplomats fear is start of Israeli displacement plan spurred by US president'
on.ft.com/3RNSoB8

Jordan joins regional push to sideline Islamist opposition Jordan’s government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood movement, a week after 16 of its members were arrested

Jordan’s government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood movement, a week after 16 of its members were arrested

Jordan joins regional push to sideline Islamist opposition Jordan’s government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood movement, a week after 16 of its members were arrested

Jordan joins regional push to sideline Islamist opposition
theconversation.com/jordan-joins...

‘I will spend my life rebuilding’: Gaza’s heritage sites destroyed by war Palestinian experts and British archaeologists say more than two-thirds of heritage, cultural and archaeological sites in Gaza have been damaged

Evidence of destruction of Palestinian heritage in Gaza:
'Palestinian experts working with British archaeologists estimate that more than two-thirds of heritage, cultural and archaeological sites in Gaza have been damaged, often very badly.'

NEW: The actions of Trump and Vance in recent weeks highlight something under-appreciated.

The American right is now ideologically closer to countries like Russia, Turkey and in some senses China, than to the rest of the west (even the conservative west).

My column: www.ft.com/content/3046...

Mass trial begins of Tunisian president's opponents Around 40 diplomats, politicians, and journalists are accused of conspiring against state security.

#BBCNews - Mass trial begins of Tunisian president's opponents
www.bbc.com/news/article...

The lives lost in Gaza: A closer look at those killed in the conflict so far The death toll from the war already dwarfs the numbers killed in previous bouts of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza over many decades.

According to this new analysis from Reuters, almost a quarter of those killed in Gaza were under 12. 1,200+ families were completely wiped out, the data showed, including one entire family of 14 people

Great work by Sudev Kiyada, Simon Scarr and Nidal al-Mughrabi
www.reuters.com/graphics/ISR...

Israel's military is told to prepare to defend a Druze community outside Syria's capital Israel’s defense ministry says the military has been instructed to prepare to defend a Druze settlement in the suburbs of Damascus in neighboring Syria.

Israel preparing to intervene militarily in Damascus suburbs over a nonexistent threat to Syrian Druze that they haven’t asked for and don’t want as part of effort to expand territorially and destabilize transition. Just terrible on all fronts with almost no attention.

apnews.com/article/isra...

“Pepfar has saved more than 26 million lives and prevented roughly 1,000 babies a day from being born with the HIV virus”

Superb piece on how cuts to USAID will affect the world’s poorest, focusing on HIV

on.ft.com/3QX1HhP

More than 160 Gazan medics held in Israeli prisons amid reports of torture Senior doctors claim they were subjected to months of physical abuse, as UN calls for release of those still detained

'“Frankly, no matter how much I talk about what I experienced in detention, it is only a fraction of what truly happened,” said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of al-Shifa hospital, who was detained for seven months in Israeli prisons before being released without charge.'

Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told @Reuters reut.rs/4iC3xB2 1/8

The department of flags: Syrian rebels lay bare Assad’s corrupt state Transitional authorities grapple with bureaucracy filled with phantom jobs, pervasive graft and culture of obedience

On unravelling Syria's bureaucracy:

'Asked what this division did exactly, the civil servant answered, “flags”.

“There’s a department for flags?” Ghazal asked incredulously.

“Yes, when foreign dignitaries come, we put up a lot of flags,” he said. “We hang them from the poles. It’s a big job.”'

The Gold Rush at the Heart of a Civil War (Gift Article) Famine and ethnic cleansing stalk Sudan. Yet the gold trade is booming, enriching generals and propelling the fight.

Exclusive — A luxury jet, a secret cargo, and the gold rush propelling Africa's biggest war.
How a gold trade that Sudanese once hoped would lift their country is turning out to be its downfall.
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/w...

A photo I posted of graffiti in Syria in 2014.
"One day the war will be over and I will return to my poem"
I hope they will return to their poem