Arab world

Novinite is publishing the first of three articles about Morocco, where a group of journalists was invited to spend more than a week in November and get to know a country which is not far from Europe, looks fantastic on tourist billboards and draws millions of visitors every year, but Europeans don't know about it as much as one would expect. 

While the ideals of the Arab Spring are still alive among the young generation, the Syrian war has made some Arab youth fearful of revolution, according to a Western-based Arab political scientist. The tactics have changed, says Bessma Momani, adding that they prefer ?a slower system change from within?

Istanbul?s Galerist is presenting ?The Arab Spring Notebook? by Ibrahim El Salahi, one of the most important living African artists and a key figure in the development of African modernism. ?The Arab Spring Notebook? is a series of 46 black, ink drawings originally made in a single sketchbook, that comprise El Salahi?s artistic response to the Arab Spring. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will seek to reassure Gulf Arab officials at a meeting in Qatar soon that Washington will work with them to "push back" against Iranian influence in the region, he told the pan-Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat.

A UN envoy called for an extension of a humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen due to expire on May 17 as the Huthi Shiite rebels boycotted political talks in Riyadh.

The Union of Arab Banks (UAB) is mulling a plan to finance reconstruction activities in four war-torn Arab states - namely, Syria,  Iraq, Yemen and Libya - according to a senior UAB official.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted on Thursday the gravity of the situation in Yemen and called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to the conflict.

This comes as Jamal Benomar, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Yemen, announced his resignation from the position, the news centre of UN informs.

When Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi called March 9 for the creation of a "unified Arab force" to battle the spread of extremist groups, he actually used a rare figure of speech: A triple oxymoron.

Unified?

Turkey announced on Feb. 16 that it has suspended the operations of its embassy in Yemen and evacuated all of its diplomats, including Ambassador Fazl? Çorman, because of the worsening situation in the capital Sanaa due to intensified clashes between Shiite militia and Sunni groups.

An Egyptian court ordered on Jan. 13 a retrial in an embezzlement case against Hosni Mubarak, dropping the only remaining conviction faced by the ousted former president and potentially leading to his release.