In Istanbul as the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople handed a Tomos – a decree granting independence, or autocephaly – … More
Author: Isobel Thompson
After Palermo – What Next for Libya?
On the 18thNovember, a conference to discuss the future of Libya was held in Palermo, Italy. The previous conference had … More
Idlib buffer zone: diplomacy at last?
As Syria’s seven year war ostensibly draws to a close, there is still a great deal of uncertainty over the … More
NCF update: Libya’s lurch from one crisis to another
Since the death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has remained in a persistent state of crisis. Western politicians … More
FGM in the UK: how to prevent this tragedy
Although it has been over three decades since FGM was made illegal in the UK, UNICEF estimates that it is … More
Who would be a better Prime Minister for the Middle East?
In these turbulent times for British politics, one can be forgiven for some mild hypothesising over potential successors to Prime … More
Why does France support General Haftar in Libya?
On 29th May 2018, France convened an international meeting on Libya, bringing together representatives from its four divided political factions. … More
Reconstruction in Raqqa
The city of Raqqa in northeast Syria, the one-time de facto capital of ISIS, was first captured by ISIS in … More
Why is Syria so important to Russia?
From the 1950s onwards, Syria received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and economic assistance from the Soviet … More