Woman arrested at Heathrow Airport
Officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command arrested a 22-year-old woman at Heathrow airport, from an inbound flight from Turkey, at approximately 22:20hrs on Tuesday 19 September. The woman was arrested on suspicion of membership of a proscribed organisation, contrary to section 11 of the Terrorism Act 2000. She was detained under the More...
Of Cholera, Cluster Bombs and Summer Vacation
There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but there are some pictures that go beyond anything one can say. Before reading this commentary, look at the photographs that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia More...
Arabic Sign Language
While living in Doha, I was fascinated by the amount of transliteration of store names in to Arabic. I realize that store names are often trademarks and thus tend to be sounded out in Arabic letters rather than More...
Etiquette in the Middle East
Many matters of etiquette in the Middle East are connected to Islam as it is written in the Qur’an and how it has been traditionally understood and practiced throughout the centuries. Prescribed Islamic etiquette is More...
A Good Offense?
Yemen is now in the third year of a bombing campaign and mercenary-fueled ground war that has created one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in the world. The bombing started in March, 2015, when Saudi Arabia More...
Divide and Don’t Conquer
The Saudi-led coalition that launched a devastating bombing campaign on northern Yemen has continued over two years. It is largely a coalition of those willing to be bought (such as Egypt, Sudan and Somalia) alongside More...
Bombing al-Asad and Arming the Saudis
The world was rightly aghast at the recent callous use of sarin gas by the desperate regime of Bashar al-Asad on Syrian civilians in Idlib last week. Twitter-and-trigger-happy American President Trump, reeling from More...
The Toxic Proxy War over Yemen
A little over two years ago a coalition led by Saudi Arabia began a bombing campaign against its southern neighbor, the poorest and most populous country on the Arabian Peninsula. Although it was named “Decisive More...
It’s a horses’ life at the Pyramids
Horses, old, large and small are hosted at the Great Pyramids. These horses are what tourists see and often ride when visiting one of the most famous attractions in the world. Unfortunately, the lack of tourism More...
With Friends like this…
The old saying goes “With friends like this, who needs enemies.” This is especially apparent in the visit of Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to meet newly elected American President Donald Trump in mid-March. More...