2016 is the International Year of Pulses, and we at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture are proud to be organizing what promises to be the landmark event, the Joint World Cowpea and Pan-African Grain Legume Research Conference.
The appalling crisis ravaging the Middle East and striking terror around the world is a clear challenge to the West, but responses are uncoordinated. This is due on the one hand to divergent analyses of the situation, and on the other to conflicting interests.
Of all over-written, under-reported issues and regions, the Middle East is perhaps one of the oldest, outstanding ones.
The ‘West’ is a concept that flourished during the Cold War. Then it was West against East in the form of the Soviet empire. The East was evil against which all democratic countries – read West – were called on to fight.
The results of a
survey of what 3,500 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 – in all Arab countries except Syria – feel about the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa have just been released.
There was a symbolic dimension to a recent four-day march from the periphery of Israel to the corridors of power in Jerusalem to seek recognition for Bedouin villages.
Twenty-five-year-old Ragae Hammidi of Casa Blanca, Morocco wears two hats. Five days a week, she attends a business school. But on weekends, she is a journalist who goes out on the street with a small camera, shooting videos of people and issues that go untold by professional media outlets.
As civil war paralyses Syria’s transit routes and political flux in Egypt may affect security at the Suez Canal, Israel is busy repositioning itself as a transhipment hub and trade gateway to the Middle East.
Two heavy metal bands, the Israeli-Arab Khalas (‘enough,’ in Arabic) and the Orphaned Land, a Jewish band, performed simultaneously this week under the roof of Club Hangar 13 in the refurbished port of Tel Aviv. The bands are slated to play together this fall in a series of 18 gigs across Europe.