Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Fascinating report. "Today, with Gadhafi dead and a provisional government of former rebels in charge, we can begin to uncover the secret, high tech spying machine that helped the dictator and his regime cling to power"
Gripping report on a turning of the tables in Libya. Many of the Gaddafi regime's jailers and torturers are now themselves in prison. Where their victims may confront them, and in some cases exact retribution
The man in charge of Libya's highly corrupt oil industry during the last five years of Gaddafi's rule is dead – his body found floating in the Danube. His death makes uncovering truth about Libyan oil scandals much more difficult
Stories of the women who helped overthrow Gaddafi, and the challenges they face in a free Libya. “I was really thinking it was the end. I had given away so much information to the fighters I thought that they would rape and kill me"
Ex-Mossad boss casts baleful eye back on Libyan intervention. Are Libyans any better off? West should have kept powder dry, and nurtured alliances with Russia and China. Struggles in Syria and Iran are much more vital
A revolution founders. Libya is being carved up by hundreds of rival militias. There's a veneer of normality in the capital, but it's an impotent, ineffectual government. No rule of law, economic development, human rights
Islamists in the Arab world are benefiting from a democratisation they didn't trigger. Ghost of Islamic totalitarian state is raised, but is unlikely prospect. Islamists have changed. Political realism rules; Turkey's AKP inspires
They're not "taking over" anywhere in fact. And nor, certainly, have Arabs chosen "the path of Islam", whatever that may mean. Here's a useful analysis of just what gains Islamist groups have made in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere
At number one: The overthrow of Saddam Hussein helped inspire uprisings against authoritarian rulers elsewhere. Wrong. No Arabs see anything in Iraq they want to replicate. So who spearheaded the uprisings and who's benefiting?
Concise review of the year that shook the Arab world. Youth who went onto the streets saw the nepotistic elites as predatory. They've now ended the prospect of sons of dictators coming to power. And that's no mean achievement
It began in Tunisia in December 2010. "My son set himself on fire for dignity," says Mannoubia Bouazizi. If only that frustrated and despairing young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, knew what his action had helped inspire
A few months ago, Tawergha in northern Libya was a town of 30,000 inhabitants. Now it lies empty. What happened to the people who lived there? And what does it say about reconciliation in post-Gaddafi Libya?
Simon Jenkins, on bombing Libya
"The iron law of plunging into someone else's civil war is choose the side most likely to win and make sure it does"
