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Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Trade

Extractive Agribusinesses—Guaranteeing Food Security in the Gulf — An irrigation system waters an alfalfa field in Butler Valley, Arizona belonging to Fondomonte, a subsidiary of the Saudi dairy company Almarai, 2023. Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesSatellite images show the expansion of irrigated land in the Toshka lakes area of Egypt from 2019 to 2023. Images sourced from the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center.

MER Article

Extractive Agribusinesses—Guaranteeing Food Security in the Gulf

The 2022 Food and Agriculture Organization report on food security and nutrition in the Arab region makes for bleak reading. Between 2014 and 2021, the total number of Arabs suffering from moderate to severe food insecurity increased from 120 million to 154 million.[1] This insecurity, however, was not distributed

Christian Henderson • 9 min read

Land, Livestock and Darfur’s 'Culture Wars' — Sudanese who had been forced off of their land in Darfur and were living on the outskirts of El Fasher in Abu Shuk Camp begin farming again, 2007. Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

MER Article

Land, Livestock and Darfur’s 'Culture Wars'

How austerity politics and the changing environment have fueled war in Sudan.

Edward Thomas • 12 min read

Land, Livestock and Darfur’s 'Culture Wars' — Sudanese who had been forced off of their land in Darfur and were living on the outskirts of El Fasher in Abu Shuk Camp begin farming again, 2007. Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

Uncategorized

Land, Livestock and Darfur’s 'Culture Wars'

How austerity politics and the changing environment have fueled war in Sudan.

Edward Thomas • 12 min read

The Networks, Strategies and Implications of Chinese Industrial Cooperation in the Middle East — Egyptian students visit the factory of China’s fiberglass manufacturer Jushi Egypt, located in China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, Egypt, December 2021. Wang Dongzhen/Xinhua via Getty Images

MER Article

The Networks, Strategies and Implications of Chinese Industrial Cooperation in the Middle East

Special economic zones are fast becoming the instrument of choice for African countries looking to attract mobile capital and increase their integration into global markets. Among the many initiatives planned or in operation on the continent are a series of economic cooperation zones in six African

Safa Joudeh • 19 min read

Latin America-Middle East Ties in the New Global South

Over the past several years, posters of a gray Chinese terracotta warrior have caught the eyes of travelers in international airports. Hung on walls alongside moving walkways, the posters advertise the London-based bank HSBC and feature photographs ironically labeled with a sentence starting, “In the future.” The campaign was designed

Alejandro Velasco, Omar S. Dahi • 14 min read

Current Analysis

North Africans Go Long-Distance Shopping

George Trumbull’s recent blog entry [http://www.merip.org/seven-places-you-didnt-know-were-part-middle-east] about Middle Eastern outposts in other parts of the world rightly mentioned Marseille and the Italian islet of Lampedusa [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer261/lampedusa], with its now closed migra

David McMurray • 3 min read

Current Analysis

China's New Silk Road Strategy

In the current issue [http://www.merip.org/mer/latest] of Middle East Report, we write about the strategic logic of China’s increasing investment in teaching Middle Eastern languages [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer270/chinas-strategic-middle-eastern-languages], particularly Arabic, Persian and Turkish

I-wei Jennifer Chang, Haiyun Ma • 3 min read

MER Article

Arabs in Yiwu, Confucius in East Beirut

The September 11, 2001 attacks marked the beginning of large-scale trade between the Middle East and mainland China in the modern era. New visa restrictions in the United States -- until then the number-one trading partner of Arab countries -- forced Arab merchants to find business destinations in v

Roschanack Shaery • 6 min read

MER Article

DragonMart, the Mega-Souk of Today's Silk Road

In 1998, a shipwreck was discovered off the coast of Indonesia. It turned out to be the remains of an early ninth-century dhow from the Gulf that had been headed back from China with a cargo of over 70,000 items, primarily ceramics, produced in different Chinese regions. The goods varied in style an

JACQUELINE ARMIJO • 9 min read

Current Analysis

The Golan Waits for the Green Light

Since their government has not, Shoshi Anbal and a posse of her fellow Tel Aviv housewives are preparing to engage in diplomacy with Syria. On May 18, they assembled along the Israeli-Syrian frontier to applaud what at the time was Syrian President Bashar al-Asad’s latest iteration of his call for n

Nicolas Pelham • 19 min read

MER Article

QIZs, FTAs, USAID, and the MEFTA

Jordan is the poster child for the Bush administration project of “transforming” the political order in the Middle East through free trade. If Jordan is any guide, however, economic liberalization does not lead inexorably to the diffusion of political power.

Pete Moore • 12 min read

Current Analysis

Iran's Human Rights Record Should Be As 'Intolerable' As Its Nukes

The Islamic Republic of Iran is in hot water with Washington and European capitals because of its apparent pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Dangling carrots of increased trade, the Europeans are trying to persuade Iran to renounce atomic ambitions. Skeptical of these methods but bogged down in Iraq, the B

Kaveh Ehsani • 2 min read