How many Children have to die?
The exact number of Yemeni children killed by Saudi bombing and malnutrition caused by the war has yet to be officially determined, but the number is certainly in the thousands. Overall the fighting and its consequences More...
Talking about Peace
One thing seems clear after over three years of an unwinnable war in Yemen that has created the worst humanitarian disaster in the world: it is past time to find a way out for all sides. The UN envoy Martin Griffiths More...
Socotra and Little Sparta
While the war on the Yemeni mainland drags on with daily deaths from violence inflicted from all sides and a largely ignored humanitarian crisis, there is a new twist in the overall dreadful scenario. The island More...
It takes a liar…
There is a saying, and a song by the American rock group “Taking Back Sunday”, that it takes a liar to know a liar. In the case of Oliver North, the newly elected president of the National Rifle Association More...
A Kingly look at Islamic Astronomy
All societies have star lore, using the movements of stars and other celestial phenomena to tell time and direction. The formal science of astronomy, with roots in ancient Mesopotamia and Greece, evolved in the More...
Popular Costumes of Turks in 1873
In 1873 the Turkish Imperial Commission for the Universal Exposition in Vienna published a beautifully illustrated, large-sized book entitled Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie en 1873. It was published in Constantinople More...
Meanwhile in Yemen…
The episode in early April of a poison gas attack in Douma, a city near Damascus, that led to a measured missile attack by the U.S., Britain and France, has understandably been the focus of media attention for the More...
Isolating Qatar
On June 5, 2016 Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain began a boycott of its Gulf neighbor Qatar, the richest country in the world, cutting off land and air travel over their space. No doubt the same countries that More...
No Alibi for Tit for Tat
The Saudi-led bombing campaign of Yemen has entered its fourth year with no end in sight. The humanitarian crisis created by the bombing runs is one of the worst in the world, so bad that the UN has just asked donors More...
Mapping the Islamic World
Maps make the world go round, even when the mapmakers still thought the world was round. There is a wealth of literature on Islamic miniatures found in manuscripts stemming back centuries, but there is less knowledge More...