Spotlight
A Cafe That Smells Like Home
A form of Middle Eastern nightlife is gaining popularity in the West, with late-night cafes popping up across North America. Offering a space for socializing that fosters culture and community, they represent an alternative to the more expensive, alcohol-infused scene of bars and clubs.
Who Owns the Arabian Horse?
For centuries, tribes recorded matrilineal pedigrees for Arabian horses, forged by migration and anchored in communal memory. But the rise of global stud books redefined authenticity through centralized paperwork, transforming both the horse’s form and its social meaning.
Pakistan Is Quietly Shopping for New Proxies in Afghanistan
As Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban deteriorates, Islamabad is discreetly courting Afghan opposition groups in search of a new ally. Interviews with figures such as Yasin Zia and Ahmad Massoud reveal how Pakistan’s Afghan policy is shifting — and why a cycle of proxy politics may be doomed to repeat itself.
Syria Begins Its Coastal Massacre Trial
Syria is holding its first public trial since Assad’s fall, a live-broadcast reckoning over the coastal massacres in March that brought alleged perpetrators on both sides before the same judge in Aleppo.
Jeita Grotto and the Price of Heritage
When videos surfaced of a private wedding held inside Lebanon’s Jeita Grotto, the country erupted in outrage. But the story goes beyond one event: It speaks to a wider crisis in the Arab world, where heritage sites are being turned into spectacles of privilege.
Replanting Syria’s Lost Heritage
Across the fields and ruins of Idlib, a farmers’ initiative is taking root: to restore Syria’s agricultural autonomy by reviving the ancient practice of saving and replanting traditional “baladi” seeds — a practice nearly erased by war, displacement and industrial seed giants.
Nuclear War Movies Are Back
Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, “A House of Dynamite,” signals a revived concern with the risky realities of nuclear weapons — while the treaties meant to contain them are allowed to lapse and the memories of the devastation they can cause recede.