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Is your identity as a Palestinian at the root of your drive, inspiration and self-expression? It’s an interesting question. My inspiration has come naturally since childhood, I’m like a kid who never stops drawing. But I think there’s a drive in all of us to make pictures, it’s a human …
Known for her savvy political commentary and rhetoric on international news networks, Raghida Dergham is following up a stellar journalistic career with a turn on the other side of Middle East policy. The first time I met Raghida Dergham was at a summer party in the charming modesty of …
Take a new look at Saudi cities.
Listening to Yasmine Hamdan’s music, her soaring and unique voice and vocal style, reminds me of listening to John Coltrane blow his horn. When she sings – as when Coltrane plays sax – Hamdan improvises, she creates, and it comes from within. It’s her soul. It’s the one space, as a Leba…
Inflation, salaries, property maintenance, upgrades, introducing new curricula, let’s be honest, running an institute of higher education is very expensive. You can turn to tuition fees and alumni associations, revenues from intellectual properties and, if you have a healthcare arm, hos…
If you happened to be looking for a rock archetype you’d be hard pressed to find a better specimen than Faris Badwan. The lead singer of hard-to-describe British five-piece The Horrors, is a sort of Gothic Mick Jagger with more swagger – tall, thin, a big mop of black hair framing his b…
DJ Khaled is a Grammy-award winning Palestinian-American record producer, radio personality, DJ, record label executive, and author with seven million followers on Instagram. He’s big, he’s loud and the world is listening. There are many cultural phenomena historians will struggle to ex…
Could it be the smoked salmon? The citizens of Norway are the happiest in the world – at least according to the index published in the World Happiness Report by the United Nations. Despite what we’ve heard about the benefits of Omega-3s, researchers in fact attribute the high level of h…
WHEN DID YOU GET INTO CLIMBING? I grew up in Saudi until I was 16 at which time I moved to the UAE to go to university. I then got a job in Dubai at an advertising agency and it wasn’t until I was 25 that I got into climbing. That’s considered pretty late yet, […]
WHEN DID YOU REALISE YOU COULD BE A PROFESSIONAL SINGER? -I never realised I could be one, I just followed my heart and my intuition. I always loved music and the arts and it is something I grew up learning and nourishing culturally and technically. The turning point though was when I m…
WHEN DID YOU REALISE YOU WANTED TO BE A JOURNALIST? I’ve always been that kid who asked questions, only to get answers that would prompt ten more questions. In the summer of 1990, my family flew from Kuwait to Berkeley, California for a summer vacation. A few weeks later, Saddam Hussein…
Looking at Marc Quinn’s most recent work in the Middle East, as part of an inaugural ‘The World Meets Here’ group show in Dubai’s Custot Gallery, it’s difficult not to reflect on what a far cry it is from that which first brought him to fame. If “blood head” doesn’t sound familiar, then…