Arab Digest podcasts

Arab Digest editor William Law's podcast guest is Giorgio Cafiero, the CEO of Washington-based Gulf State Analytics. Their conversation focusses on US-Saudi relations and the awkward situation US president Joe Biden finds himself in needing to reach some sort of accommodation with the Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman as petrol prices rocket and America's domestic economic...

Bahraini human rights activist Maryam Alkhawaja is Arab Digest editor William Law's guest. Her father Abdulhadi is serving a life sentence in Bahrain. His efforts on behalf of the struggle for rights in the Gulf kingdom, and his unjust incarceration, have been acknowledged with a 2022 Martin Ennals award honouring exceptional human rights defenders. For more than a decade Maryam has campaigned tir...

The European Council on Foreign Relations' Cinzia Bianco joins Arab Digest editor William Law to talk about the partnership deal that the EU is proposing to the Gulf states. Large in ambition and sweeping in scope, it was released in Brussels in mid-May and titled 'Joint Communication to the European Parliament and Council: a strategic partnership with the Gulf.' So is the proposal a gamechanger o...

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with the Saudi human rights activist Areej al-Sadhan. Her brother Abdulrahman, a humanitarian aid worker, was forcibly disappeared in Saudi Arabia in 2018. She has been fighting ever since to secure his release and that of the many other prisoners of conscience sentenced to long terms by a politicised judiciary who then vanish into the kingdom's la...

Yemen expert and author Helen Lackner joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss a ceasefire that is largely holding as all sides begin to acknowledge that a protracted stalemate, rather than leading to further fighting, could prove the path to dialogue, negotiations and an end to a more than seven year war that has brought untold suffering to the people of Yemen. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.or...

Newlines Institute senior analyst Caroline Rose joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss how Syria's Assad family runs a narco state built on captagon, the illicit drug of choice for the Levant, the Gulf states and the wider Middle East. Working with Hezbollah, the family oversees the manufacture, distribution and sale of a drug that is cheap and easy to produce and is generating billions f...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Qatar University Gulf analyst Dr Ali Bakir to discuss what's at stake for the region and beyond as the JCPOA talks, which appeared close to reaching the finish line, now seem bogged down in Vienna. What the Iranians see as a weakened US administration may allow them to drag the negotiations out and ultimately doom the deal, a scenario that could trigger...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Andreas Krieg of the Defence Studies Department, King's College London and their conversation focusses on the battle that liberal democracy now finds itself engaged in as its MENA partners play the neutral card while quietly backing their ideological ally Putin in his war in Ukraine. It is an existential struggle, one encumbered with a stark hypocrisy....

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Francis Ghilès, a leading expert on energy and politics in North Africa. Their conversation revolves around the huge opportunities and the challenges the war in the Ukraine has given Algeria and its state-owned energy corporation Sonatrach. As Europe scrambles to find alternatives to Russian gas, Algeria is well placed to play the advantage. The questio...

In this the 100th Arab Digest podcast editor William Law is in conversation with Aslı Aydıntaşbaş a journalist and a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Their focus is on the remarkable volte-face of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Middle East. An economic crisis and collapsing popular support have forced him into a major rethink and in the case of Saud...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the author and MENA analyst Christopher Davidson. Their conversation focusses on how Russia's invasion of Ukraine is proving beneficial for the region's autocratic leaders and not simply because the price of hydrocarbons has soared. Amongst other windfalls Russia's oligarchs are finding new homes in the Gulf and bringing their wealth with them. S...

Arab Digest’s editor William Law welcomes back the journalist and researcher Sirwan Kajjo. Sirwan is an expert on Kurdish issues and their conversation explores the challenges, aspirations and issues facing a people without a country. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with Aviv Tatarsky. He works with Ir Amim, a Jerusalem-based NGO fighting to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes in the farming village of Al Walaja where terraced agriculture has been practiced for hundreds of years and a way of life is being besieged by the full force of the Israeli state. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join t...

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Project on Middle East Democracy's Amy Hawthorne. And their focus is Tunisia. While the world's attention is riveted on Ukraine and Putin's war, Kais Saied, the Tunisian president is quietly putting the finishing touches to a new dictatorship in North Africa. So what is the Biden administration, which claims to put democracy at the heart of its forei...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is Dania Akkad, an investigative journalist with Middle East Eye. Their conversation is about the practice of mahram, male guardianship, in the tiny and enormously wealthy Gulf state of Qatar. Despite the image it projects of an ultra-modern society embracing tolerance and openness, Qatar holds on to a practice that treats women as second-class citizens and t...

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by Chatham House's Renad Mansour. Their conversation begins with the impact of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine on Iraq and other MENA countries who may find themselves forced to take sides. They then explore the current challenges the Iraqi people face in a country where politically sanctioned corruption flourishes at a rampant pace. Sign up NOW at Arab...

Arab Digest editor welcomes back Sami Hamdi, editor-in-chief of The International Interest and their conversation explores a surprising rapprochement between the UAE and Turkey as President Erdoğan grapples with an economic crisis at home and setbacks to his efforts to assert leadership ascendancy in the MENA region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our d...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back author and analyst Jim Krane. Jim is energy research fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute and an expert on Gulf energy matters. Their conversation focusses on the quest for net zero. Are Gulf hydrocarbons producers serious about hitting their ambitious targets or is this little more than a PR mirage? Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Annelle Sheline, a Research Fellow in the Middle East Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Their conversation explores the role that the Yemen war has played in making the already demanding challenge of bringing Iran and the US back into a nuclear deal just that much more difficult and how various actors are like pieces of...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Francis Ghilès, a leading European expert on the Maghreb and a senior associate research fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. Their conversation explores the missteps of France in North Africa and the persistent failure to arrive at coherent policy approaches towards countries that are crucial to Europe's security. Sign up NOW at Ar...

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with Lina al-Hathloul about the fight for freedom for her sister Loujain whose crime was to lead the struggle for women's rights in Saudi Arabia, including the right to drive. Loujain was seized in the UAE and turned over to Saudi authorities. She was imprisoned and tortured before being released last year but with severe restrictions, including a...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back the Baker Institute's Kristian Coates Ulrichsen for a conversation about how the UAE and Saudi Arabia are on the sidelines but acutely watching how talks to revive the nuclear deal with Iran are faring in Vienna. Also on the table: Yemen, Syria, the Biden White House and the growing competition between the two GCC neighbours on the economic front. Sign...

Arab Digest editor William Law kicks off the Digest's first podcast of 2022 with the Egyptian analyst and writer Maged Mandour who argues that President Sisi has tethered Egypt's foreign policy to the domestic imperative of strengthening his harsh authoritarian grip. Through massive borrowing and weapons purchases Sisi has lured Europe and America into turning a blind eye to human rights abuses an...

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt about his efforts to find justice for Palestinians through the Israeli and international justice systems. He is he says "done with false hope" and the way forward now is to use the courts to right historic wrongs commmited against the Palestinian people. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club...

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the European Council on Foreign Relations' Cinzia Bianco. Cinzia takes an insightful look at the year just past in the Middle East and North Africa, from coups, to Covid, to MbS and MbZ, to alliances abandoned and new ones forged. And she offers her predictions for 2022.