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The Arab Uprisings - a Collection of Essays

A decade of struggles Credit: Transnational Institute
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Joe Biden’s Clear Sight

“ Whilst attempting to show his leadership on climate, Biden was at the same time trying to persuade the OPEC oil producers to increase production, so as to keep petrol prices down for US consumers.” — Jon Sopel, the BBC Then Biden was seen asleep. ‘Mission accomplished’.
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One of the Most Casualised Sectors of the UK Economy

“The University and College Union says the plight of young academics who are desperate to get a firm footing on the career ladder is getting worse. Staff at 146 higher education institutions have until Thursday  to vote  on whether to strike once again – potentially before Christmas – over unfair pay, “untenable” workloads and casualised contracts.” Vicky Blake, the president of UCU, said: “Many people are still shocked to learn that higher education is one of the most casualised sectors in the British economy. There are at least 75,000 staff on insecure contracts: workers who are exploited, underpaid, and often pushed to the brink by senior management teams relying on goodwill and a culture of fear.” Related HE’s casual approach to employment
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Free Speech?

Bullying and hostile environment made a Sussex University professor resign . Related
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Afghanistan: Isis-K vs. Taliban

A déjà-vu? Many Afghans, and some foreign analysts, believe Isis-K is being supported by foreign forces, such as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI wants leverage to persuade the Taliban to co-operate in suppressing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a jihadist insurgency that has targeted the Pakistan government. Others suspect US intelligence agencies, anti-Taliban warlords and even former members of the Afghan army of collaborating with Isis-K. “We know there are intelligence agencies and networks supporting Isis-K to challenge and create problems for the Taliban government,” Haqpal said. In India, government and intelligence officials have suggested that inter-Taliban rivalry — between the Haqqani network and a powerful Kandahar faction led by Mullah Baradar, the deputy prime minister — is stoking the violence. “There is clear factionalism in the Taliban,” an Indian intelligence source said. “It is possible that one faction is supporting the Isis-K to wipe out the dominance o...
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The Two Faces of ‘Jihad’

This  article requires individual or institutional subscription. Here is an excerpt: “ The West’s focus on armed violence gets in the way of understanding the phenomena of radicalisation and the commission of acts in its name. It presupposes a continuum between religious radicalisation, proclamation of jihad and international terrorism, as though going from the first to the third stage were inevitable, and conversely, as though international terrorism   created   local jihadism. Such reasoning leads to any reference to sharia law and any call for holy war being read as a precursor to global attacks. In this view, Islamist movements’ supposed proximity to terrorism is the sole criterion for determining western policy towards them. This proximity is defined on a scale of intensity that measures references to religion as much as — if not more than — actual acts of violence: the more Islamist groups mention sharia and the more they challenge the policies of the great powers,...
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