Everyone appreciates a good list! TeachMideast presents nine significant developments in the region from 2018. What did we miss? The War in Yemen Part 1 In 208, the United Nations called the war in Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The facts are sobering: 75 percent of the population is in need of some form […]

Bethlehem is enjoying its busiest Christmas season on record, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism said on Monday, with hotels in the birthplace of Jesus almost fully booked for the holiday. Tourism has recovered following a fall in knife and car-ramming attacks which helped push visitor numbers in the biblical city to a 10-year low in […]

Qatar will withdraw from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in January, Qatar Petroleum (QP), the state-owned oil company announced on Monday. The decision to quit the bloc of 15 oil-producing countries, which account for a significant percentage of the world’s oil production, reflects Qatar’s desire to focus its efforts on plans to […]

Above: A banner in Tunis depicts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed holding a chainsaw and reads “No to the desecration of Tunisia, land of the revolution.” Credit: Asma Ajroudi/Al Jazeera On Tuesday, Egypt and Saudi Arabia jointly announced that the ongoing blockade of Qatar would remain in effect until further notice, according to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television channel. The […]

A court in Turkey jailed an Istanbul academic pending trial following several raids on professors and activists deemed to have links to imprisoned prominent financier of civil society activities, Osman Kavala. Turkish prosecutors had issued arrest warrants for 20 people, with 14 suspects rounded up in the raids. Twelve of the suspects were released after giving […]

Egypt’s ministry of antiquities says dozens of cat mummies and around 100 wooden, gilded cat statues were unearthed in recently discovered 6,000-year old Pharaonic Age tombs. The find also turned up a collection of statues of other animals including a lion, cow and falcon. The seven tombs were discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission at […]

TeachMideast took a summer vacation and is back in business for the new school year! Here are some of the latest developments across the region:  On Monday, reports were published on Saudi Arabia’s alleged plan to turn rival nation Qatar into an island. A senior Saudi official — Saud Al-Qahtani, a senior adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed […]

On Tuesday, in last week’s primaries, two Muslim women beat out their competitors to earn the Democratic nominations for congressional seats in Minnesota and Michigan. Minnesotan Ilhan Omar could become the first Somali-American in Congress if she succeeds in filling the seat left behind by Rep. Keith Ellison — also Muslim — who is running for state […]

On Monday, Saudi Arabia suspended economic ties with Canada in response to a tweet from Canada’s foreign ministry criticizing the kingdom’s treatment of human rights activists. The kingdom has frozen new trade and investment with Canada, suspended flights to Toronto, put its educational exchange programs with Canada on hold, and discontinued sending Saudi patients to Canadian hospitals with […]

On Monday, the Syrian government regained control of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border for the first time in seven years after an ISIS-linked group retreated from their last area of territory. Although there are still pockets of ISIS-held territory scattered along the border of southern Syria, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that […]