Author: M Barbu

A Second Chance for a Consensual Process in Syria?

Knitting law and politics together into a constitution that serves as a repository of hard-won agreements is a matter of trust and bargaining, rather than foresight. But Syria’s will need both.

In March 2025, interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a constitutional declaration to govern the country’s transitional phase. The goals inferred were clear: to assure Syrians that order and justice would be restored, that their rights would be recognized, and that the Syrian president would guide the country away from its dark experience with oppressive dictatorship.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Qassem: I Call On Saudi Arabia To Turn A New Leaf With The Resistance, Freeze Past Disputes, Unite To Confront Israel; Pressure On The Resistance Serves Israeli Interests

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem said in an address aired on Al-Araby TV (Qatar) on September 19, 2025, that Saudi Arabia should turn a new leaf with the resistance. He called for dialogue that addresses problems and fears and is based on the principle that Israel – not the resistance – is the enemy. He urged freezing past disagreements so the focus can shift to confronting Israel. Qassem added that pressure on the resistance only benefits Israel, warning that if the resistance did not exist, these countries would eventually be targeted. He said that the resistance in Palestine serves as a dam against Israeli expansion.

Lebanese Islamic Scholar Khaldoun Arimat: Muslims Fought The Crusaders For 200 Years – War With The ‘Zionist Enemy’ Has Just Begun, May Last Centuries; All Of Palestine Is Allah’s Land, ‘From The River To The Sea’

On September 16, 2025, Lebanese Islamic scholar Sheikh Khaldoun Arimat said on Al-Manar TV (Hizbullah-Lebanon) that the conflict with Israel is an existential one. Speaking on behalf of the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, Abdul Latif Derian, Arimat said that Muslims fought the Crusaders for 200 years and that they are only at the beginning of their war with the “Zionist enemy,” even if it takes centuries. He stressed that Muslims will continue to believe that all of Palestine, from the River to the Sea, is an endowment land that belongs to Allah. Arimat concluded by saying that these are dreams – but dreams often come true.

Playing for Time: Pressure Mounts on Hungary, Slovakia to Cut Russian Energy Ties

epa00898749 A part of the receiving station of the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline in the country’s largest oil refinery in Szazhalombatta, 29 kms south of Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday, 09 January, 2007. Hungary has not received crude oil from Russia since Monday evening when delivery was halted due to a price dispute between Russia and Belarus. The Hungarian government decided to open the country’s strategic oil reserves which contains enough crude oil for three months. EPA/ZSOLT SZIGETVARY HUNGARY OUT

The EU’s latest proposed sanctions against Russia did not, as anticipated, include additional steps to halt pipeline imports of Russian oil and natural gas. However, the intransigence of Hungary and Slovakia over the issue is looking increasingly untenable.

How (and why) Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world for journalists

A forensic investigation of 219 killings in two years of war points to Israel’s deliberate targeting of reporters to suppress the truth about its assault on the enclave

More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave. So who were these journalists? Under what circumstances did they die? And were they deliberately targeted by Israel in an attempt to suppress the truth about what is going on in Gaza?

In Iraq and Yemen, Climate Activism Requires Both Defiance and Adaptation

In the Middle East, climate activism is often intertwined with public grievances over perceived governance failures and ongoing regional and national conflicts. Not only are Iraq and Yemen among the countries most vulnerable to climate change,1 compounded by apparent endemic state corruption, but they have also become key arenas for the ongoing regional confrontation between Israel and Iran’s axis that began in October 2023. In Iraq, for example, clashes between Iran-backed militias and U.S. and Israeli forces—a symptom of wider instability and governance failures—have enabled Türkiye and Iran to exploit the country’s water resources.2 In Yemen, Ansar Allah (commonly known as the Houthi movement) has disrupted international shipping in the Red Sea and attacked Israel, deepening the country’s isolation and insecurity. Both countries also grapple with fragmented political authority: Iraq’s federal structure includes a semiautonomous region, while Yemen remains divided among competing factions.

Official Islam in the Arab States of the Gulf: Local Establishments in a Regional and Global Context

In the Arab states of the Gulf, Islamic institutions have long existed at the intersection of local and regional space. Before the twentieth century, local rulers tended to rely on specific scholars who were part of regional religious networks for rudimentary needs in adjudication and education. The emergence of complex bureaucratic states in the middle of the twentieth century changed this picture in a way that renegotiated the terms between global and local Islam differently for each state.

Ex-Senior US Official Adds Weight to Thaci Defence

epa10556520 Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci appears before the Kosovo Tribunal together with Rexhep Selimi (R) in the Hague, the Netherlands, 03 April 2023. They are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, illegal detention, enforced disappearance and persecution, committed between 1998 and 1999. EPA/Koen van Weel / POOL

Outcome of trial may depend on whether James Rubin’s testimony – that Thaci was just a ‘front man’ for the KLA – is deemed credible.

On Monday, September 17, a rhetorical thunderclap shook the trial of Hashim Thaci and three co-defendants at the Kosovo Special Court in The Hague, KSC, as the defence presented its first witness, James Rubin, a former US Assistant Secretary of State from 1997 to 2000.

Why Palestine recognition is an important step towards making statehood a reality

Israel’s increasing attacks to undermine the possibility mean that no action is too small or without consequence

Palestinian hopes for achieving an independent state comprising the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem have been lifted by France, Britain, Portugal, Canada, Australia and a number of other countries formally recognising the state of Palestine in recent days, after nearly 80 years of its existence.