Arab Digest podcasts

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes Gulf analyst and author Kristian Coates Ulrichsen back to the podcast. Their conversation is a preview of Kristian's latest, soon to be released book The Kingdom of Football. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has used the purchase of Newcastle United FC and the stocking of the Saudi premier league with expensive foreign talent to refurbish an image badly tarn...

The broadcaster, journalist and filmmaker Zeinab Badawi joins Arab Digest editor William Law to talk about her new book An African History of Africa which charts the history of Africa from the very beginnings of human life on earth to the present. In a wide-ranging conversation with a focus on North Africa and Sudan Zeinab Badawi explores the history of the continent from an African perspective em...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics. The Washington-based geopolitical analyst considers how America's enemies are strengthening their presence in the Middle East even as President Biden weakens his bid for re-election by continuing to back Israel as voters who would otherwise support him turn away angered that he is allowing and arming...

Arab Digest editor Wiliam Law's guest this week is the Kurdish American journalist Sirwan Kajjo. Their conversation focusses on the Kurds in three countries - Syria, Iraq and Iran - as they explore the impact of the Gaza war and the ongoing pressures Kurdish people are experiencing from both outside forces and in the case of Iraq and Iran the governments that rule over them controlling so many asp...

Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about the war in Sudan which has become the world's worst humanitarian disaster. While global attention has focussed on Ukraine and Gaza a vicious civil war grinds on with outside players becoming increasingly prominent and the people of Sudan paying an appallingly high price. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest...

Renad Mansour joins Arab Digest editor William Law as his podcast guest this week. Renad is a Senior Research Fellow and the Project Director of the Iraq Initiative at London's Chatham House. Their conversation looks at the flaws in US and other Western nations' managing of the challenges posed by the Axis of Resistance and notes that even as the region descends further into instability sparked by...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back Dania Akkad, Senior Investigative Editor at Middle East Eye. Their conversation focusses on the extraordinarily high death toll of aid workers in Gaza and the claim by the IDF that it does not target aid organisations or their employees, a claim the facts belie. Dania examines the recent attack on World Central Kitchen that killed seven and notes the si...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is Caroline Rose, the Director of the Strategic Blind Spots Portfolio at Washington's New Lines Institute. In the midst of the Gaza war America continues to weigh up whether to remove its remaining troops on the ground from Syria and Iraq. A difficult call at any time but with growing uncertainty about the direction the Middle East is headed towards...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the human rights campaigner Areej al-Sadhan. Her brother Abdulrahman al-Sadhan languishes somewhere in a Saudi jail. Forcibly disappeared for more than six years, his family have had no word of him save for a one minute phone call. He is but one of thousands of prisoners of conscience detained in the kingdom. Meanwhile the world's democracies emb...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the European Council on Foreign Relation's Cinzia Bianco. After a tumultuous and violent start to his de facto leadership of Saudi Arabia the crown prince has pivoted the kingdom toward a new diplomacy at a challenging and dangerous time in the world's most volatile region. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our dai...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Iranian historian Arash Azizi whose latest book What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom has just been published. Their conversation focusses on the struggle of ordinary Iranians against a theocratic dictatorship and how it is in the interests of both Arab states and America to rethink strategies in order to defuse the multiple threats the Kh...

Mona Seif is the sister of the jailed Egyptian-British writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. Her audio profile of him speaks of the person that he is, the injustice of his sentencing and incarceration and the inept failures of the UK government to support efforts to secure the release of a British citizen whose name has been described as synonymous with the 25 January 2011 Egyptian revolution. S...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Middle East analyst and Chatham House Associate Fellow Lina Khatib. With so much focus on the war in Gaza little attention has been paid to how the conflict is affecting the countries of the Levant. The conversation reflects on impacts in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and, as Israel weighs up a northern front engagement, what could happen should...

The European Council on Foreign Relations' Tarek Megerisi joins Arab Digest editor William Law for a conversation about North Africa. The people living in the Maghreb and Egypt are facing severe challenges but their governments, supported by Western institutions and political leaders, are disconnected from the citizens they rule over. Nowhere is that more starkly clear than in how North African re...

The Yemen expert Helen Lackner joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss the ways in which the war in Gaza have impacted on Yemen including the Huthis targeting of Red Sea shipping, the impact on efforts to finally secure a peace deal in Yemen's nearly ten year old war and how the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as well as crises elsewhere have placed Yemen's people into an even more precarious...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes back the Middle East and North Africa analyst Francis Ghilès. Their conversation focusses on how persistent misreadings of the Middle East over decades have lead both America and Europe down a road that has repeatedly led to disasters culminating in the current war in Gaza where, unless rational thinking prevails, an unimaginable bloodbath will follow with t...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the energy analyst and author Jim Krane. In a wide ranging conversation they discuss how shifts in global energy patterns are altering relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, how Gulf hydrocarbon producing states' move towards transition is proceeding and how the Gaza war is impacting the Gulf energy sector. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for f...

Middle East security, foreign affairs and defence analyst Tobias Borck joins Arab Digest editor William Law to talk about his new book Seeking Stability Amidst Disorder, an examination of how Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have used foreign policy sometimes to good effect, sometimes not, to attempt to secure stability in a volatile neighbourhood that with the war in Gaza has become ever more unst...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Syrian analyst Malik al-Abdeh. As with the earthquake that devastated northwest Syria one year ago Bashar al-Assad is once again using disaster to strengthen his grip on the roughly two-thirds of the country he controls. Carefully steering his regime clear of any support for Hamas or for the Palestinians trapped and being massacred in the Gaz...

Arab Digest Editor William Law is joined by Middle East analyst Sami Hamdi to talk about the growing threat to the region and the world as Israel continues its brutal prosecution of the Gaza war. Their conversation looks at outside players and how they are responding to the scorched earth policy the IDF is carrying out. Will diplomatic pressure and the world's outrage be enough to stop the Israeli...

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes Sanam Vakil director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. Their conversation focusses on the role of Iran and the Axis of Resistance in the Gaza war. As Israel continues its brutal assault there is a growing risk that tit for tat responses in other theatres of action will blend into a full-blown regional war. The podcast was record...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest is the author and Gulf states analyst Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. Their conversation focusses on the cycle of violence that has hit Red Sea shipping lanes as the region slips into a wider arena of conflict with the Gaza war as a catalyst. They interrogate the assumptions in Washington, London and other Western capitals that bombing the Huthis will end the thre...

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the Sudanese political analyst and broadcaster Kholood Khair. Sudan's civil war has been ongoing since April as two generals battle to see who will prevail in a brutal struggle that has shown no regard for the people of Sudan. Their peaceful revolution of 2018-19 that threw a dictator out has been usurped by two men driven by greed and a lust for...

On 27 September we podcast Helen's Lackner's insightful analysis of Yemen as the now almost nine year conflict continues to ravage the Yemeni people. Helen, a regular AD newsletter contributor is one of the world's foremost Yemen experts and the author of several books on a country she has worked in over several decades. Her most recent book published by Routledge is Yemen: Poverty and Conflict. W...

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Brooking Institute's Aslı Aydıntaşbaş for a look back at a tumultuous and violent 2023. It was a year that has seen the Middle East and North Africa riven by multiple wars that challenge not only the region but the world's security. Aydıntaşbaş concludes our year-ender with her predictions for 2024. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the...