@rpmccarthy.bsky.social
Associate Professor, Middle East Politics Author: Inside Tunisia's al-Nahda: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/politics-international-relations/middle-east-gov www.rorymccarthy.com
Petrodollars and the ‘Islamic Bomb’: how a Saudi-Pakistan pact was forged:
"the implications were clear: if Israel and the US were reshuffling the Middle East order, Saudi Arabia was keen to shore up an older alliance with a nimble friend."
on.ft.com/4pKdPTs
OpenAI will not “embed” its tools in college life, it is already changing the nature of what it means to learn, to read or think critically. It does not embed in the world, it makes the world in its image. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...
13.06.2025 18:11 — 👍 35 🔁 15 💬 1 📌 0Medical journals like the Lancet have been publishing articles a/b the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers’ reliability since fall 23. Given scale of destruction & recording methods, they were always undercounts. Outside numbers underestimate civilian death b/c they treat all adult men as combatants.
11.05.2025 13:58 — 👍 119 🔁 51 💬 5 📌 1So sorry to hear this. I've learned a lot from your work.
09.05.2025 17:35 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Who killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – and why?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Congratulations to the outstanding @declanwalsh.bsky.social , whose reporting from Sudan has been essential reading.
07.05.2025 08:21 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
On Gaza, from the FT: 'Hundreds leave besieged strip in what diplomats fear is start of Israeli displacement plan spurred by US president'
on.ft.com/3RNSoB8
Jordan’s government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood movement, a week after 16 of its members were arrested
26.04.2025 10:53 — 👍 9 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
Jordan joins regional push to sideline Islamist opposition
theconversation.com/jordan-joins...
Evidence of destruction of Palestinian heritage in Gaza:
'Palestinian experts working with British archaeologists estimate that more than two-thirds of heritage, cultural and archaeological sites in Gaza have been damaged, often very badly.'
NEW: The actions of Trump and Vance in recent weeks highlight something under-appreciated.
The American right is now ideologically closer to countries like Russia, Turkey and in some senses China, than to the rest of the west (even the conservative west).
My column: www.ft.com/content/3046...
#BBCNews - Mass trial begins of Tunisian president's opponents
www.bbc.com/news/article...
According to this new analysis from Reuters, almost a quarter of those killed in Gaza were under 12. 1,200+ families were completely wiped out, the data showed, including one entire family of 14 people
Great work by Sudev Kiyada, Simon Scarr and Nidal al-Mughrabi
www.reuters.com/graphics/ISR...
Israel preparing to intervene militarily in Damascus suburbs over a nonexistent threat to Syrian Druze that they haven’t asked for and don’t want as part of effort to expand territorially and destabilize transition. Just terrible on all fronts with almost no attention.
apnews.com/article/isra...
“Pepfar has saved more than 26 million lives and prevented roughly 1,000 babies a day from being born with the HIV virus”
Superb piece on how cuts to USAID will affect the world’s poorest, focusing on HIV
on.ft.com/3QX1HhP
'“Frankly, no matter how much I talk about what I experienced in detention, it is only a fraction of what truly happened,” said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of al-Shifa hospital, who was detained for seven months in Israeli prisons before being released without charge.'
26.02.2025 18:51 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told @Reuters reut.rs/4iC3xB2 1/8
13.12.2024 13:04 — 👍 141 🔁 37 💬 10 📌 13
On unravelling Syria's bureaucracy:
'Asked what this division did exactly, the civil servant answered, “flags”.
“There’s a department for flags?” Ghazal asked incredulously.
“Yes, when foreign dignitaries come, we put up a lot of flags,” he said. “We hang them from the poles. It’s a big job.”'
Exclusive — A luxury jet, a secret cargo, and the gold rush propelling Africa's biggest war.
How a gold trade that Sudanese once hoped would lift their country is turning out to be its downfall.
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/w...
A photo I posted of graffiti in Syria in 2014.
"One day the war will be over and I will return to my poem"
I hope they will return to their poem
Of all the images from Syria, the most moving show the joyful liberation of so many political prisoners, especially from Saydnaya, which Amnesty called a 'human slaughterhouse'.
This is the true cost of so-called authoritarian 'stability'. Fierce regimes, but always brittle in the end.
A map showing opposition advances in Syria, from the New York Times.
Map of recent opposition advances in Syria from NYT:
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/w...
Amnesty International in a new report today finds: 'Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.'
www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...
Like many other European social democratic parties, Labour is moving right on immigration, certainly driven by the recent success of Reform. We have researched this question for years now. There is an abundance of evidence of why this isn't a good strategy. A thread summarizing some of our research
02.12.2024 11:30 — 👍 635 🔁 322 💬 20 📌 67
Chart showing more people in the U.S. now speak Arabic at home than German or Italian, a reversal from 1980.
About 1 out of 200 people in the US speak Arabic at home. Arabic is more commonly spoken in US homes than German or Italian.
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
Heart shattering to learn an Israeli drone has targeted and assassinated Mahmoud Almadhoun, one of the founders and chefs behind the Gaza Soup Kitchen.
What started as four pots and essential ingredients in Bait Lahia had grown into a remarkable effort to feed 3,000 people daily.
Committee to Project Journalists: 'Palestinian journalists have continued reporting despite killings, injuries, and arbitrary detention at the hands of Israeli forces, none of whom have been held accountable.'
Source: cpj.org/2024/11/jour...
Remarkable collapse of Assad forces in Aleppo as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham advances.
FT: 'The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said that HTS had taken control of more than half of the city of Aleppo in the just a few hours “without any resistance from regime forces”.'
New mapping of Israeli attacks on Beirut.
The mapping done by Beirut Urban Lab shows that Beirut's southern suburbs, Dahiya, have been the target of 186 Israeli announced strikes, demolishing at least 262 buildings between 27 September and 17 November 2024.
beiruturbanlab.com/en/Details/2...
