In need of capital to rebuild, Syrian men are staying in neighbouring countries to work while their wives head home By Melissa Pawson and Mahmoud Abo Rass | – ( OpenDemocracy.net) – Zahra Ziad met her in-laws for the first time when she moved in with them. Ten days after the former president of Syria, […]
Gaza Palestinians Suffer as Netanyahu pins hopes on Fickle US President
Paul Rogers ( openDemocracy.net ) – Trump has backtracked since meeting with Netanyahu last month Why was Donald Trump’s suggestion on turning Gaza into a Middle Eastern Riviera so helpful to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu? To understand this, it is worth briefly looking back to earlier phases of the century-old conflict. Israel became a […]
How to find Hope and Common Ground one Year into Gaza War
Nandini Naira Archer ( OpenDemocracy.net ) On the year anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks and the start of the devastating war on Gaza that’s killed more than 15,000 Palestinian children, there appears no end in sight. If anything, this month it’s escalated further with violence spreading to Iran, Lebanon and Jordan. All-out war […]
Is there any Hope of a Ceasefire in Gaza?
By Paul Rogers | – ( OpenDemocracy.net ) – As we near the seventh week of the war in Gaza, the extent of the devastation and loss of life is such that many Western governments are coming under pressure to back ceasefires – with France and Ireland having already done so. In the UK, MPs […]
Neoliberalism can’t solve the Climate Crisis: We Must become Activists
Paul Rogers ( Opendemocracy.net ) – Extreme weather events have increased in frequency and intensity over the past decade, with the last month seeing a rare combination of problems across North America, the Mediterranean and Middle East, northern China and South Korea. For the British, there has been the separate added shock of seeing […]
Secret Files reveal how UN Climate Advisers ‘greenwashed’ for BP
By Lucas Amin and Ben Webster | – ( OpenDemocracy.net) – The PR firm advising the UN on climate change campaigns has been accused by US lawmakers of helping BP “greenwash” its fossil fuel investments, openDemocracy can reveal. Internal BP documents released to the US House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee and published last […]
The volunteers risking their lives to secretly educate Afghanistan’s girls
By Deepa Parent | – ( OpenDemocracy.net) – In 2002, when Matiullah Wesa was a teenager, armed gunmen burned his school. It was this, he told openDemocracy, that led him to dedicate his life to ensuring other children in Afghanistan can get an education. Wesa is the co-founder and president of PenPath, an NGO that […]
Afghan Women Activists protest against Taliban’s new Burqa Decree
By Deepa Parent | – ( OpenDemocracy.net ) – “You are all loose women for protesting against the burqa. Why don’t you want to cover your bodies? You are not Muslims,” a Taliban fighter yelled at Zoya* when she led a march of 20 women in Kabul on Tuesday. Zoya, 38, a women’s rights activist […]
Fighting repression in the Land of the Free: an Arab-American feminist Perspective
By Nadine Suleiman Naber | – ( OpenDemocracy) – For decades, US and European governments, as well as corporate media, have been condemning authoritarian repression and violence against women in the Global South – from Africa, to the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Islands and Latin America. And tragically, these same voices have too frequently […]
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