Middle East and Africa

YOU may think that after a dozen years of blockade by Israel, three devastating wars and the rule of a harsh Islamist government, life in Gaza could hardly get worse. But the prospect of another war and a dire shortage of cash to pay for…

SIXTEEN years ago Hannah Taylor woke up with a fever. Her legs began to swell to four times their normal size. They have been that way since. People shunned her because of their putrid smell. “For six years, I thought my big fut was caused…

A NEW Syria is emerging from the rubble of war. In Homs, which Syrians once dubbed the “capital of the revolution” against President Bashar al-Assad, the Muslim quarter and commercial district still lie in ruins, but the Christian quarter…

ZIMBABWEANS shuddered when a bomb went off on June 23rd in Bulawayo, the country’s second city, a few yards from President Emmerson Mnangagwa as he left the podium at the end of an election rally. Would the explosion, which killed two…

NO ONE seized by pirates can be considered lucky. But many of the seamen taken hostage by Somali pirates have at least been set free fast, once fat ransoms have been paid. At the height of the piracy scourge off the coast of Somalia almost…

TO THE casual observer, all seems well in Senegal. Visitors to Dakar, the capital, fly into a new world-class airport. The economy grew by 6.8% last year and the discovery of natural gas heralds an even brighter economic future. To boot,…

SIX months after the last round of protests over their country’s anaemic economy, Iranians are at it again. But unlike the demonstrations in December, which began in the provinces, the latest unrest erupted in Tehran’s bazaar on June 25th…