Spotlight
Modern Issues Tangle Traditional Fishers
The perilous combination of climate change, pollution and overfishing means that the catches themselves have been dwindling as well. There are fewer commercially viable species like snappers, tuna and prawns in the more shallow waters adjacent to the coast — places that have sustained thriving communities for centuries.
Blasphemy Laws and Life on the Margins
In 2010, Asia Bibi became the first woman in Pakistan to be sentenced to death under the country's controversial blasphemy laws, in a case that sparked global outrage. After eight years on death row, she escaped to Canada in 2019 following her acquittal. She tells New Lines how she has since lived a life of poverty in exile.
Aleppo Residents Pick Through the Wreckage of Their Earthquake-Shattered Lives
It would not be easy to draw a simple line differentiating between the physical, material and psychological destruction wrought by the earthquake and the war that has lasted for 12 years, after a few hours touring the city’s neighborhoods, especially its eastern districts. The two events intertwine in an intractable way. “Not one disaster but two,” was a common refrain I heard from residents of Aleppo when describing what had happened to their city.
Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh Destroys History as Well as Lives
The decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan — two ex-Soviet republics wedged between Russia, Turkey and Iran — has been fought not only on the battlefield, but also in history books, where partisan scholars on both sides portray the other group as interlopers on “their” native land.
Caught up in the Ukraine War, Indian Medical Students Face Uncertain Future
The presence of 18,000 medical students from India in Ukraine highlighted the fight for a medical education in India, making students look for alternatives. However, since the war broke out, students have been struggling to find ways to complete their education, while dealing with the red tape in India.
Real Life Sectarian Drama Upends a High Stakes TV Show
Even though the show could be an attempt to mend wounds, it has already backfired before its first episode has aired. Millions of dollars and decades of work to spread tolerance and acceptance between Sunnis and Shiites have been undermined by a TV show that no one has yet seen.
Six Year Prison Term for Singer Saad Lamjarred Divides Public Opinion
But for every activist criticizing and resisting the attempts to whitewash the singer’s past, there were legions of fans, male and female, in addition to Arab entertainers who defended Lamjarred against the charges and continued to support him. This solidarity continues today despite the verdict in France.