Environment

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi traveled this week to Tehran to confer with Iranian officials. Mr. Al-Kadhimi’s first official trip abroad was meant to come on the heels of a visit to Saudi Arabia.

The economic and political outlook in Lebanon continues to worsen as government policies and assurances fall short of the demands of the people protesting in the streets as well as of the global financial markets.

The collapse of oil prices has increased the pressure on the regional economies, many of which were already reeling from domestic instability and the global health pandemic.

Cut off from the rest of the region and the world for more than a decade, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could have counted the absence of any Covid-19 cases in the territory as one of the unintended ‘blessings’ associated with the siege.

As the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic wreaks havoc throughout the world, perennial regional debates and disagreements seem to dwarf in comparison to the challenges lying ahead. That is not to say they are forgotten.

Iranians went to the polls last week to vote in the country’s parliamentary elections. The turnout, despite government reports, was quite low compared to previous elections.

I was born on the shores of a desert, a harsh unforgiving environment where even polluted sour-tasting ground water was scarce and had to be hauled daily from distant man-made wells.