Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Haifa Zangana
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Rosa Luxemburg Foundation please note: ‘A time comes when silence is betrayal’
In a silent gesture that raises more than a few questions, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation – North Africa announced that it is “suspending all events until further notice out of respect for all victims in the Middle East.” The decision of the foundation’s office in Tunisia to remain silent...
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Are Arab rulers mentally ill?
Does the fighting in Sudan give us some understanding of the psychological transformations that Arabs go through when they take power and are willing to sacrifice other people’s lives in order to stay in power? Even the few elected Arab leaders go from being advocates of change and reform...
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The tragedy of refugees in Africa and the West: How did we come to hate ourselves?
Asylum seekers, in various parts of the world, have always been subjected to smear campaigns, hatred and accusations, the source of which is often the economic deterioration represented by the increase in unemployment rates, high prices and the lack of basic services for the general public in the country...
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Democracy in Iraq appears to be taking its terminal breath
We are witnessing another decline in Iraq. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Democracy Index indicates another low point, with Iraq falling eight places to rank 124 out of 167 countries and the Iraqi regime classified as “authoritarian”. This is the lowest Iraq has ranked since the index was established...
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The Iraq Resistance and the well-intentioned coloniser
While presenting the responsibilities of the British Ministry of Defence in the House of Commons, on 13 March, the Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, reminded the House of Commons of the growing threats in the world, as “The Middle East continues to harbour terrorism, which is why...
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Corruption and sectarianism need to be eradicated to solve Iraq’s problems
After decades of war, siege and occupation, it is rare to see an Iraqi audience joyful; rare to see women and men laughing and singing happily together in a place that unites them. They breathe in the meaning of being Iraqi with bright colours far from the mourning black...
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The Ukrainian victory in Saudi Arabia
Last Saturday, Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk won the world heavyweight boxing championship in a fight against Britain’s Anthony Joshua at King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah. The audience included Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. On Saudi soil, Usyk dedicated his victory to his country, which has been invaded by Russia...
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The British government responds as a friend of Israel
More than 100,000 people signed a petition calling for the UK to review its foreign policy “in light of reports of Israeli apartheid”. After obtaining the number of signatures required for consideration, the petition was sent to the British Petitions Committee made up of 11 MPs, from both the...
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Iraq's black comedy: The storming of the Parliament
Why does the occupation of the Iraqi Parliament building in the Green Zone in Baghdad, not arouse feelings of enthusiasm, as it did in the case of the protesters’ occupation of the presidential palace in Sri Lanka, enthusiasm towards which reached the Arab nations and gave some a level...
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Who’s responsible for covering Iraq with red dust?
A dust storm that covered seven Iraqi governorates, including Baghdad, caused more than 5,000 cases of suffocation and the death of one person. Social media sites circulated astonishing pictures of the red dust that enveloped the atmosphere, people and places for the seventh time in a month. The pictures...
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Is there any point in the UN’s World Day of Social Justice?
Given that citizens were being humiliated in most countries year in and year out, the UN decided in 2007 to mark 20 February annually as the World Day of Social Justice, under the slogan of “social justice and a decent life for all”. It was a slogan proposed by...
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Will a million signatures stop the honouring of a war criminal?
Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, says Mr Blair deserves knighthood, the title of “Sir” bestowed on him by the Queen, the UK’s highest honour, for “making Britain a better country”. On the other hand, more than a million British citizens (including those of Arab and Muslim origins) signed a...
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Why does Iraq top the lists of the world’s ‘worst’ countries?
The devastation caused by man to the environment is no longer a secret; nature is striking back painfully, after decades of warnings by scientists of a catastrophic future that requires quick, radical solutions. There is no more room for procrastination in the face of hurricanes, floods, rising temperatures, desertification,...
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There are no friends for Kurdish migrants on the Polish border
US President Joe Biden is worried, and his worry is shared by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Not, I might add, because of the “attempted assassination” of Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi last week. Their feelings, along with those of all of the other US, European and Middle Eastern...
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The struggle for power between the ruling families in Iraq
How can we understand what is currently happening in Iraq in terms of the violence, in the form of sabotage and fighting with live bullets or booby-trapped drones that occurred in the wake of elections that were marketed as one of the fairest and transparent elections that Iraq has...
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Why do nations elect incompetent leaders?
What makes nations, whether from countries with ancient democracies, such as Britain and America or a newly established democracy such as Iraq, choose leaders, especially in the last decade, who are distinguished by their incompetence either politically, morally, mentally—or all of three? Is there a need to read distant...
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Should we participate in the Iraqi elections or boycott them?
In a tweet written in English, Prime Minister of the Baghdad government, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, addressed the Iraqi people on the occasion of the early elections to be held on 10 October, saying: “Our dear Iraqi people. For the sake of yours & your children’s future, I urge you to...
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On normalisation, the Kurds, and the sigh of an American commander
On Friday 24 September a conference titled “Peace and Recovery” was held in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The conference, which was organised by an American centre called Peace Communications Centre, was attended by a number of Iraqis who were described as “tribal elders, writers and...
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Empowering women in Iraq and Afghanistan: Is this the actual question?
At a time when the voices of American and British officials, and the official media in the West in general, are loudly denouncing the lack of support for Afghan women in the recently formed Taliban government, and the failure to allocate a percentage of political representation to them, in...
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If the Taliban’s actions are the benchmark, where does that put America’s in Iraq?
Was America really surprised by the quick return of the Taliban to Afghanistan? Is there some hidden truth or is it just that everything happened much faster than anticipated, as US President Joe Biden said a few days after the Taliban regained control of Kabul on 15 August? Was...
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Yes, more than 11,500 people are under sentence of death in Iraq
The interviews are harrowing. “It was the same routine, every day hanging me up and beating me. There are things they did to me there that I am too ashamed to talk about, but one thing I can tell you is that two times they made me sit on...
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The electricity crisis in Iraq is a microcosm of the corruption afflicting the country
When the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas MP asked Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs whether the government was supporting gas-related projects in other countries financially, the minister replied that the government was continuing to support the General Electric power project in Iraq. This is in...
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Iraq is now part of the Balkan route used by drug smugglers
Almost daily, the security authorities in Iraq announce the arrest of drug smugglers and users, especially in Baghdad, as well as Basra in the south and Diyala on the Iraq-Iran border. On 20 June, the Baghdad Operations Command arrested six people accused of using narcotics and in possession of...
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We can learn from Iraq when looking to the future in Palestine
Palestine, which lives in our hearts and souls, has within eleven days achieved a lot in the relentless struggle for freedom, albeit at a cost which we all know is extortionately high. In imposing such a cost, the Zionist enemy wanted the lives of children, women and the elderly...