Shia mosque burnt in Brussels

You may have heard about the Imam al-Ridha mosque in Brussels which was burnt last month by a Salafi terrorist. The arson attack led to the tragic death of the imam, Sheikh Abdullah Dadou, a father-of-four from Morocco. A delegation from London travelled to Brussels to pay their respects to his family and the community. […]

Britain on a knife-edge

British politics has really kicked of in the last few weeks. The controversy surrounding Diane Abbott and her off-the-cuff statements about a white conspiracy to divide-and-conquer has only worsened the crisis following Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s remarks that Cameron was “a dictator in Europe.” In early December, whilst David Cameron was in Brussels keeping […]

It’s all yours

The Real Iraq

The Ministry of Youth & Sport in Baghdad organised three, all-expenses paid, programmes this month in which scores of young Arabs and Iraqi expatriates participated in. One programme was for non-Iraqi Arab youth from across the Middle East & North Africa, the other for budding Iraqi footballers, and the third – the subject of this […]

Miracle in the Marshes of Iraq

A tear-jerking documentary about the marshes of Iraq and one man’s crusade to undo decades of injustice. Highly recommend all to watch. The four-part documentary is available on YouTube. To become a member of Nature Iraq, the organisation spearheading the effort to restore the marshes to its former glory, click here.

Leaving Basra to the bandits

As the Royal Navy concluded their training mission last week, it marked the official end of the British military operations in Iraq. The task of training Iraq’s nascent navy is crucial due to the strategic importance of the southern oil ports and the 90 percent of Iraqi revenues that comes from selling crude. When the […]

Obama’s Speech: The Elephant in the room

President Obama’s speech on Thursday at the State Department was neither groundbreaking nor surprising. Despite the rhetoric from both Secretary of State Clinton who spoke briefly before the President about a “bold new approach” in US foreign policy, and Obama himself who bespeaks a “new chapter in American diplomacy”, the realities on the ground tell […]

Sectarianism and the conflict in Bahrain

As riot police and military troops close in on demonstrators in Pearl Roundabout today, using tanks and helicopters to suppress their people, the mass uprising in Bahrain says a lot about the country, its people, its leaders and its neighbours. But the world must pay careful attention to what the people are actually saying. My attention […]

Where is the outrage?

Yesterday, a baffled Iraqi parliament completely ignored the very laws it legislates by voting in six MPs to replace ministers who have moved up the food chain. An Iraqi MP with only 3 votes (himself, his wife, and maybe one of his brothers) now represents 100,000 citizens. But I suppose that’s okay, because the Supreme […]

We are not all Ba’athists

Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, we have witnessed an unprecedented and simultaneous awakening by people who have shocked the world and rattled the thrones of dictators who have been in power for decades on end. In Iraq’s Day of Rage, tens of thousands have taken to the streets demanding change. However, the nature […]