There’s a lot of discussion around about whether or not it’s "already a civil war” in Yemen, but unquestionably the country is in deep crisis. President Saleh’s tanks are on the streets of the capital Sana’a, the security forces have...

You might have missed the remarks made by an Egyptian general to CNN this week. He was talking about the army's treatment of a group of women who had formed part of a protest in Tahrir Square on 9 March. The general, who apparently...

Awards sometimes get a bad rep. If it's (say) Ronnie Wood getting the Lifetime Achievement Award For Consuming Copious Amounts Of Drugs Whilst Being In A Top Stadium Rock Band, then you can kind of see why. (I exaggerate, but you know...

Reaction to President Obama’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa looks pretty mixed to me. For example, BBC News Online’s vox pop of some voices from the region was an interesting snapshot. Mohammed in Tobruk in Libya (ie not...

As I've said on this blog before, there's always a tendency for media organisations to "move on" from an issue once the story’s been "done". This is basically what’s happened with Egypt. From those heady February days when images from...

Is Gaddafi going to end up paying an unintended visit to The Netherlands in the near future? It certainly looks possible. Of course he and others in the Libyan government are now busy sounding off about how the International Criminal...

Interestingly the Today programme’s big 8.10 interview this morning with US Attorney General Eric Holder went from the killing of Osama Bin Laden onto the issue of Guantánamo and also the fate of former UK resident Shaker Aamer...

The appalling attacks on St Mena’s Coptic Christian church in the Imbaba suburb of Cairo at the weekend have, understandably, got everyone rattled. Violent clashes between Muslims and minority Christians are obviously the last thing...

If, like me, you caught this week’s gripping Channel 4 News report on the aid ship trying to get into the besieged port of Misratah in Libya, you’ll know what this post is about (if you didn’t, see it here ). Reporter Alex Thomson...

As the debate continues over "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie torture) and how they have supposedly been shown to be effective because of Osama Bin Laden’s detection and death, here are ten reasons why we shouldn't accept the...

The row over the royal wedding invitation to Syria's ambassador to the UK has been an overnight media sensation (who knew the wedding was going to throw up these news angles?), but with Dr Sami Khiyami now persona non grata at the...

The Steve Bell cartoon in the Guardian today depicts President Obama in an orange jumpsuit being dragged off by Guantánamo guards to an uncertain fate … Indefinite detention? Interrogation? Torture? Powerful, arresting stuff. The idea...

News of the deaths of photo-journalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya yesterday is unbelievably sad. Two men in the prime of their lives wiped out in the middle of doing dangerous but incredibly important work. It must be...

The media caravan has moved on and Egypt is yesterday’s news. Which is precisely why it’s so important to focus on what’s actually happening now that former president Hosni Mubarak and others are under arrest and the country has...

I’ve been viewing a lot of entries in Amnesty's media awards recently and I was reminded of the way that sometimes it takes months or even years before the truth about human rights abuses finally emerges. It's feeling a little like...

It's becoming almost passé to mention it (very 2005 ) but sometimes you realise the whole "war on terror" issue still has the capacity to hit home hard. At least that's sort of what I experienced watching parts of "Essential Killing"...

The Arab Spring has sprung. Peoples’ protests for better living conditions, political change, an end to corruption and greater human rights are a powerful reality across the Middle East and North Africa. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria...

As I've said before when blogging on these pages, the emotional upheaval of dealing with the fact that a loved one has disappeared must be horrendous. Really horrendous. I usually find even those clips of distraught family members...

If a police investigator helped put together a big case file but later told a newspaper he'd altered some of his views on the investigation that would, I think, be unusual. But it wouldn't invalidate the original findings. This – the...

Ever since Saturday when she burst into a press conference in a hotel in Tripoli, the world’s media has been riveted. Iman al-Obeidi , a previously unknown but apparently fearless Libyan woman, had the nerve to barge into a government...