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The Middle East
Lebanon’s tourists
Can they be lured back?
Jan 11th 2013, 11:17 by Economist.com | BEIRUT
LITTLE more than a stone’s throw from Europe’s capitals lies a place where visitors can ski in the morning and enjoy dinner by the sea in the evening; trek among ancient ruins one day and sample world-class local wines the next. Yet tourists are coming to Lebanon in ever fewer numbers. In a bid to lure them back, the government this week launched a 50-day campaign to boost the country’s image as the perfect holiday destination. Discounts of up to 50% are available on airfares on the national carrier and in hotels across the country.
Tourist arrivals to Lebanon reached 2m in 2010, the most in over 15 years.
Syria's war
Just a game?
Jan 9th 2013, 14:57 by Economist.com | BEIRUT
WAR is as at the heart of hundreds of computer games, but a game based on a real current conflict is proving controversial. On January 8th a game developer that focuses on turning current affairs into interactive entertainment said Apple had rejected its application to add to its App Store for iPhone and iPad “Endgame: Syria”, a game based on the country’s 22-month-old conflict, on the grounds that it is based solely on a specific political event.
The game, already available on Android and online, is produced by British company Auroch Digital.
Tunisian politics
Sheratongate
Jan 8th 2013, 12:06 by M.R. | CAIRO
A SCANDAL involving abuse of public money and gossip of adultery would be bad enough in ordinary times. Just now, though, Tunisia happens to be in the throes both of an imminent cabinet reshuffle and a budget crisis. The state of the country's finances led some economists to suggest last week that the government would fail to pay salaries in January. Worse, the minister at the heart of the affair is not only a top figure in the Nahda Party, the long-persecuted Islamist group that helped overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali two years ago and now leads the country’s ruling coalition.
Syria's crisis
Brazen Bashar
Jan 7th 2013, 4:12 by The Economist online | Beirut
BASHAR ASSAD'S ever-rarer speeches have become rather predictable. On January 6th Mr Assad, in his first speech in six months, blamed Syria's problems on "terrorists" backed by the West, appeared defiant over the current state of affairs, and ignored demands that he step down. At no point during the long and rambling address did the president acknowledge his increasingly tenuous grip on power.
Instead Mr Assad stressed the less savoury aspects of Syria's uprising, which started peacefully in March 2011 before transforming into an armed conflict.
Israel's elections
The dividing line
Jan 4th 2013, 10:23 by D.L. | JERUSALEM
ISRAEL'S elections, which are now two-and-a-half weeks away, are pitting hawks against doves in stark confrontation, despite the original determination of the two camps' leaders to blur their differences. The question now is whether this unintended deepening of the political divide will extend from the election campaign to the coalition-making process that inevitably follows. Will Binyamin Netanyahu be able to woo a moderate party into his new government? Or will he have to make do with the rightist and religious groups which he calls the 'natural allies' of his party, Likud?
Israeli politics
Goodbye, for now
Dec 18th 2012, 18:13 by D.L. | JERUSALEM
WHEN Israelis describe their outgoing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, “inscrutable” and “unstoppable” crop up most frequently. Peaceniks add other, less flattering epithets to describe the ultra-nationalist Mr Lieberman, autocratic leader of the ex-Soviet immigrant party, Yisrael Beitenu. Hardliners tend to speak of him approvingly, though there are sometimes sounds of discomfort over the nakedness of his political ambition.
When Mr Lieberman unexpectedly announced his resignation last Friday few believed he was in earnest.
Christians in the Middle East
A new spokesman
Dec 17th 2012, 19:36 by B.C.
AT A time when things are looking dire for Christians in the Middle East, they have acquired an articulate new spokesman who is also relatively young by the standards of clerical greybeards. At a gathering in Lebanon on Monday, the Orthodox Christians bishops with jurisdiction over Syria, Lebanon and much of the Arab Christian diaspora made a surprise decision to bestow on John Yazigi, who is currently serving as an archbishop in Paris, the ancient title of Patriarch of Antioch. The newly elevated prelate was born in 1955; his predecessor, who died earlier this month, came into the world in 1920.
Jabhat al-Nusra
Syria's jihadists
Dec 17th 2012, 18:20 by Economist.com | ALEPPO
"WE DON'T want the criminal army," chanted protesters at a recent demonstration in Aleppo, referring to the fighters of the Free Syrian Army. "We want the Islamist army!” they continued. Twenty-one months into Syria’s uprising-turned-insurgency against President Bashar Assad, the influence of Islamist groups has grown, none more so than the most extreme of the lot: Jabhat al-Nusra. The group, which boasts about 7,000 fighters, has declared a global jihad and is the only battalion recognised by al-Qaeda. According to America, it is an offshoot of the terrorist group's Iraqi branch.
The media in Egypt
Television wars
Dec 17th 2012, 17:53 by M.R. | CAIRO
MEDIA critics have long lamented the decline of even-handedness in American news coverage. The fashion for partisan stridency on channels such as Fox and MSNBC, they say, has cheapened the national debate and split the voting public into blinkered, self-reflective camps. But the critics haven’t seen the worst. The political jousting on American networks looks like child’s play compared with the rhetorical fireworks that now regularly erupt on screens in Egypt.
The exuberance is perhaps natural.
Bahrain's Shias
Getting back out there
Dec 15th 2012, 17:36 by N.P. and M.R. | MANAMA
THE annual mourning for Zein al-Abdin al-Sajjad, an eighth century martyred Shia Imam, is a relatively minor event, even in Iran where Shias hold power. But in the little island kingdom of Bahrain, where the Shia majority chafes at their subjugation under a Sunni ruling family, the Al Khalifas, it has become another excuse to reclaim the streets. “We celebrate the most minor festivals now, even more than Iran,” says Jasim Hussein, a former parliamentarian of Wefaq, a Shia party seeking a negotiated end to the pro-democracy uprising that erupted in February 2011.
Syria's war
Policing the rebels
Dec 14th 2012, 14:41 by B.S. | EL BAB
BARI ABDULATIF used to spend his time taking pictures of Syria—of the fighting, destroyed buildings, demonstrations. The young Syrian activist is now tied up at meetings at the local council in El Bab, a rebel-held town outside Aleppo. The problems range from trying to get diesel for the generators—power comes on for only a few hours a day—to looking after the refugees and managing the council’s political splits. "We are not very good at democracy yet,” he says, smiling apologetically.
As the war in Syria grinds on, new government structures have emerged in the rebel areas, partly replacing the rule of armed groups.
Palestine and the UN
Surprisingly sceptical
Dec 7th 2012, 16:30 by N.P. | RAMALLAH
WITH the triumphant arrival of Khalid Meshal, the leader of Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs Gaza, on December 7th, President Mahmoud Abbas could be forgiven for wondering who will remember his return from the United Nations armed with international recognition of Palestine as a non-member state.
"Jubilant Palestinians celebrate UN vote," trumpeted Fox News, an American cable news channel. "Abbas returns to hero's welcome," cried Al Jazeera. But for all the international fanfare accompanying the overwhelming international support for Mr Abbas, at home the Palestinian public failed to rally with the exuberance Mr Abbas's spokesmen and the international media claimed.
Israel's prime minister
Bibi's cynicism
Dec 6th 2012, 16:27 by D.L. | JERUSALEM
ONE of Binyamin Netanyahu’s least endearing habits is his rhetorical recourse to the second world war and the Holocaust when he is in political trouble. This week, this cynicism surpassed itself. “Seventy-four years ago,” Mr Netanyahu proclaimed in Prague on December 5th, the Czech prime minister, Petr Necas, by his side, “in 1938, in Munich, leading powers of the world forced this proud democracy to sacrifice its vital interests. The international community…hailed this as something that would bring peace, peace in our time… [Y]our country has learned the lessons of history. So has my country, Israel.
Kuwait's election
Giving democracy a bad name
Dec 6th 2012, 15:28 by J.K. | KUWAIT CITY
THE case of Kuwait dents the notion that if the Gulf’s richest rulers give lavish handouts to their people they will stay politely apathetic in their politics. The day before a general election held on December 1st, a youth-led campaign to boycott the poll drew tens of thousands to protest against a change in the electoral system, enacted by the ruling emir off his own bat, which the opposition says would put it at a disadvantage.
Bearded Bedouin men in dishdashas, sleek young women in Prada sunglasses, bespectacled students sporting British football shirts, all joined together in a mass protest.
Syria and Iran
The cost of conversion
Dec 5th 2012, 16:14 by Economist.com | RAQQA PROVINCE
ARIF NAWARA was infamous in his area. Brought up as a Sunni, he converted to Shiism, founded a local husseiniya, a Shia congregation hall, and entertained enough Iranians that even the regime’s security men feared him. Now he is in trouble.
As links grew between the regimes of Iran and Syria, Iranians sought to expand their influence by promoting their Shia version of Islam in a country where the majority are Sunni Muslims and where the core of power is the Alawite sect, an esoteric Shia offshoot, to which the Assad family belongs. The remote and poor north-eastern area, that includes the province of Raqqa, has been a favourite conversion ground, thanks to widespread poverty.
Reports and analysis on the politics, economics and culture of the Middle East, in a blog named after the fruit-bearing shrub that grows throughout the region
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