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Egypt is requiring all NGO's to seek permission from a government appointed committee before being able to receive foreign funds. The government is attempting to filter out those organizations that promote the western vision.

THERE is nothing Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, likes more than taking everyone by surprise. Except, perhaps, demonstrating that his country is an independent actor on the world stage that has to be taken seriously. Thus, the announcement from the Kremlin on March 14th that Russia was partially withdrawing its forces in Syria was vintage Putin.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are allies, intervening to support Sunnis against the Houthis. Also Saudi Arabia in indirect conflict with Iran, which imposer the Huthis

WHEN Hind Al-Otaibi went to the Riyadh Personal Status Court to have her father struck out as her , or guardian, the judges seemed sympathetic. Her father had raped and bruised her, Ms Otaibi, who was a teenager at the time, told the court.

Charting five years since the onset of the Arab spring.The Arab revolutions produced few leaders, few credible programmes for action, and few ideas.

"THE amounts of oil are incredible, and I have to rub my eyes frequently and say like the farmer: 'There ain't no such beast.'" So wrote an American oilman in the Persian Gulf a few years after the discovery in 1938 of a gusher of oil from Saudi Arabia's Well Number Seven, 4,727 feet (1,440 metres) below the desert floor.

Since the overthrow of Qaddafi nearly five years ago, good news from Libya has been in short supply. But on March 30th some came at last. Fayez al-Serraj, the prime minister of a new Government of National Accord (GNA) nominated by a UN-backed negotiation process, entered Tripoli with six ministerial colleagues.