Arab Digest podcasts

Newlines Institute senior analyst Caroline Rose joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss how Syria's Assad family runs a narco state built on captagon, the illicit drug of choice for the Levant, the Gulf states and the wider Middle East. Working with Hezbollah, the family oversees the manufacture, distribution and sale of a drug that is cheap and easy to produce and is generating billions for the family and their associates. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Qatar University Gulf analyst Dr Ali Bakir to discuss what's at stake for the region and beyond as the JCPOA talks, which appeared close to reaching the finish line, now seem bogged down in Vienna. What the Iranians see as a weakened US administration may allow them to drag the negotiations out and ultimately doom the deal, a scenario that could trigger a MENA nuclear arms race. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Andreas Krieg of the Defence Studies Department, King's College London and their conversation focusses on the battle that liberal democracy now finds itself engaged in as its MENA partners play the neutral card while quietly backing their ideological ally Putin in his war in Ukraine. It is an existential struggle, one encumbered with a stark hypocrisy. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Francis Ghilès, a leading expert on energy and politics in North Africa. Their conversation revolves around the huge opportunities and the challenges the war in the Ukraine has given Algeria and its state-owned energy corporation Sonatrach. As Europe scrambles to find alternatives to Russian gas, Algeria is well placed to play the advantage. The question is will it and will Europe realise that finally it needs to treat Algeria and North Africa as equals? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

In this the 100th Arab Digest podcast editor William Law is in conversation with Aslı Aydıntaşbaş a journalist and a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Their focus is on the remarkable volte-face of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Middle East. An economic crisis and collapsing popular support have forced him into a major rethink and in the case of Saudi Arabia a significant climbdown. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the author and MENA analyst Christopher Davidson. Their conversation focusses on how Russia's invasion of Ukraine is proving beneficial for the region's autocratic leaders and not simply because the price of hydrocarbons has soared. Amongst other windfalls Russia's oligarchs are finding new homes in the Gulf and bringing their wealth with them. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest’s editor William Law welcomes back the journalist and researcher Sirwan Kajjo. Sirwan is an expert on Kurdish issues and their conversation explores the challenges, aspirations and issues facing a people without a country. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with Aviv Tatarsky. He works with Ir Amim, a Jerusalem-based NGO fighting to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes in the farming village of Al Walaja where terraced agriculture has been practiced for hundreds of years and a way of life is being besieged by the full force of the Israeli state. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Project on Middle East Democracy's Amy Hawthorne. And their focus is Tunisia. While the world's attention is riveted on Ukraine and Putin's war, Kais Saied, the Tunisian president is quietly putting the finishing touches to a new dictatorship in North Africa. So what is the Biden administration, which claims to put democracy at the heart of its foreign policy, doing about it? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is Dania Akkad, an investigative journalist with Middle East Eye. Their conversation is about the practice of mahram, male guardianship, in the tiny and enormously wealthy Gulf state of Qatar. Despite the image it projects of an ultra-modern society embracing tolerance and openness, Qatar holds on to a practice that treats women as second-class citizens and that can enable domestic abuse and even murder. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.