With over thirty years of experience as a war reporter in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Kurt Pelda is well acquainted with the terrors of armed conflict. In this podcast, he shares his perspectives on the war in Syria, challenges the propaganda emerging from the conflict, and shares his personal experiences of life on the frontlines of some of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history.

February 20, 2016—Egyptian writer and novelist Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison on Saturday after publishing "obscene sexual content" from a chapter in his novel, The Guide for Using Life, in a state-owned literary magazine in August 2014.

In the aftermath of the brutal murder of Giulio Regeni, Egypt’s Ministry of Interior released a statement denying that it had arrested the Italian graduate student on the day he disappeared, ten days before his body was found in a ditch outside of Cairo.   The ministry’s denial came after …

February 17, 2016—Prominent Egyptian writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal passed away today at the age of 92, state television reported.

With the demise of the second Arab autocrat within a month, people power seemed on the verge of revolutionizing the Middle East, a region known for its monarchs and presidents for life. Abdalla Hassan's book unpacks Egypt’s media and political dynamics—tracing events leading up to the 2011 revolution, the 18 days of uprising, military rule, an Islamist president’s year in office, his ouster by the army, and the reestablishment of the military presidency. Expanded freedoms of expression, in the press and on the streets, have contracted with the skillful reinvention of repression. This is the story of an uprising.

Protect your borders – one critical lesson of the Syrian war that Saudi Arabia is taking close to heart. The Syrian regime proved lethally effective in the art of crushing internal dissent. Its use of informal militias among multiple agencies of security and military, its Arab nationalist propaganda, the projection …

February 3, 2016—American media company Fusion and the office of Bassem Youssef announced on Sunday that the Egyptian heart surgeon turned award-winning television show host will be working with the network.

February 3, 2016—“One of two Egyptian music idols has just returned from Dubai, the other from Germany, to shoot a video for a duet sung in praise of a Cairo that they cannot actually stand living in,” wrote a young Egyptian dentist in a Facebook post that was shared more than 7,600 times and liked by 26,000 people as of Wednesday.

February 1, 2016—After questioning this morning, Egyptian prosecutors ordered the release of Islam Gawish the day after his arrest. No charges were filed against him. (Aswat Masriya)

January 31, 2016—Egyptian cartoonist Islam Gawish was arrested today while working in the Egypt News Network offices. The official cause for the arrest remains unclear, but a source inside Cairo's Security Directorate has told Aswat Masriya the reason.