On his own …Mu

The King had allowed a pet elephant loose near Nasrudin’s village, and it was destroying crops. The people decided to go in a body to Tamerlane to protest. Nasrudin, because he had been known to amuse the King at times, was appointed leader of the delegation. So overawed were they […]

Life After Sexual Slavery Inside ISIS

Source: The Daily Beast When Elham Salah first began her training to be a psychological counselor, she thought that she would be helping local women cope with the effects of domestic and other gender-based violence. However, after almost three years of working at the Jiyan Foundation—a small group in Iraqi […]

Religious freedom deteriorating around the world

Source: Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious freedom remains under “serious and sustained assault” around the globe, according to a new annual report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “At best, in most of the countries we cover, religious freedom conditions have failed to improve,” commission chairman Robert […]

Quiet changes in Iran

Source: ET Iranian President Hassan Rowhani. PHOTO: AFP The run-off elections in Iran have served a sotto-voce notice on the hardliners in and out of parliament that their day whilst not yet over, is not indefinite. The moderates and reformists have gained a working majority in the Iranian parliament for […]

‘From Cairo to Goldberg’

May 02,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – James J. Zogby Earlier this month, “The Atlantic” magazine featured a cover story, “The Obama Doctrine”, written by Jeffery Goldberg. Based on the author’s many hours of interviews with President Barack Obama, the story represents an attempt to find a coherent framework with which […]

Plea for Syria

May 02,2016 – JORDAN TIMES EDITORIAL Following his Friday briefing to the UN Security Council, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura called on the US and Russian leaders to help salvage the “barely alive” ceasefire in Syria “from a total collapse”. Since the cessation of hostilities is “hanging […]

The UAE’s Fragile Good Life

In a region of civil war (Syria, Yemen, Libya), hardening dictatorship (Turkey, Egypt), nuclear build up (Iran), and potential water calamity (Iraq), where in the Middle East outside Israel can one find the good life? Surprisingly perhaps, in the United Arab Emirates, a country in the Persian Gulf. Despite the […]