Over the past few months a quiet effort has been underway in one of the most recognizable buildings in Abu Dhabi. A team has been carefully assembled under specialized leadership and their mission identified. Their target has been established: her name, Irena, born in Bonn in January 2009 and now in need of a home. Read more »
The National
Mandatory military service for our defence and future
A rigorous, secular and egalitarian military service can secure the Gulf’s future like it secured Switzerland’s past. Read more »
Dear Iran: Our Islands for a Gulf that carries your name
As tensions continue to rise in the Gulf because of religious, foreign and nationalistic forces, a breakthrough in the north-south divide would be a giant step forward. So I propose a solution: the Arab Gulf States recognise once and for all the name “Persian Gulf” for the 7,000-year-old, 600-mile body of water that separates us from our Iranian neighbour; and in return, Iran ends its occupation of the Arab islands and returns their sovereignty to the United Arab Emirates. Read more »
A Waltz with President al Bashir of Sudan
It was a cold October night last year when I entered the Curzon Soho cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue in London to watch Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir, the Israeli movie that retells in animation the story of a group of Israeli soldiers who stood idle as the Lebanese Forces Christian militia group massacred the Palestinian refugees of Sabra and Chatila. Read more »
Dubai, tennis and The Lord of the Rings
The next time you read a Dubai-bashing article in the western press, remember that there is potentially more accuracy in The Lord of the Rings – which took place in a world that never existed. Read more »
Iran: the day the revolution lost its way
The CIA under US President Dwight Eisenhower orchestrated a coup d’etat in 1953 against the Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, one of the first democratically elected leaders in the region. It took the US government half a century to admit any wrongdoing and offer a tepid apology to the Iranian people for meddling in their affairs. Too little, too late. Read more »