PODCAST · news
Mid-East Junction
by RFI English
A monthly look into the different political, social and cultural events affecting the region.
Episodes
-
Can anyone lay claim to hummus?
It's the universal chickpea and tahini dip that almost everyone loves, whatever their diet, culture or religion. Many countries in the region are keen to claim it as their own, but can any one of them truly lay claim to the much-loved dip? Just a few simple ingredients, yet they have the power to...
-
A city at the crossroads of history: Unearthing Gaza's ancient heritage
Before Gaza became synonymous with conflict, it was a place where merchants sold wine from local vineyards, pilgrims crossed continents, fishermen set out before dawn, and generations of families lived between sea and desert. RFI explores its deep history. Sitting on the coastal corridor linking...
-
Why Female Genital Mutilation must end
The practice of Female Genital Mutilation, FGM, is so deeply ingrained in some cultures that it has only recently been brought into question. But what are its origins? Where is it practiced? And why does it need to stop? This month's edition of Mid-East Junction looks into Female Genital...
-
What Tunisian olive oil and its history means to the Middle East
The rising star in the world of olive oil, or liquid gold to some, is not found in Europe but in North Africa in the small and often overlooked country of Tunisia. Here olive trees are intertwined with its culture and history for thousands of years. Production in Tunisia is considered to be the...
-
Capturing Mosul's liberation through a lens
In October 2016, Iraqi Special Forces launched an operation to take back Mosul and parts of Iraq from the Islamic State armed group. Since 2014 they had subjected the Iraqi people to their extreme and harsh interpretation of islam. But the operation to liberate them proved equally dangerous as...
-
The lasting legacy of Ayotollah Khomeni 30 years after his death
Iran is again in the headlines in an increasingly tense spat with the US and a number of other western countries. This is nothing new, however. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been involved in almost continuous diplomatic rows since its creation in 1979. Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini drove the...
-
How women's football has evolved inside and outside the Middle East
Even though no Middle Eastern countries qualified for this year's Women’s World Cup , the sport is alive and growing across the region. In this edition of Mid-East Junction, we meet Honey Thaljieh, the woman behind the first women's national Palestinian team. Click here to read the full article…
more -
Where vegans have been leading the way for centuries
In this month's Mid-East Junction, we delve into the culinary delights across the region that have been miles ahead of the vegan trend for decades, even centuries in some cases. Click here to read the article. Click the 'play' button above to listen or subscribe to the podcast by searching 'RFI...
-
Oud for thought
In this month’s podcast, we’re going to take a break from politics. And social anxiety. And uprisings and laws. Because the Middle East doesn’t just make headlines. It also has a sensitive musical soul. And this side to the region often comes out in the musical instrument the oud. Or the oriental...
-
The power of radio during British-mandated Palestine
On 30 March 1936, the Palestinian Broadcasting Service hit the radio waves. The new service, referred to as PBS, catered to the growing population in British-mandated Palestine that included Palestinian Arabs, Palestinian Jews and the British. In this month's Mid-East Junction, we take a look at...
-
Freedom at any cost: Saudi woman escapes to France
In this week's Mid-East Junction, we meet Julia*, a young woman who escaped her life and marriage by force in Saudi Arabia to find freedom in France. She, like hundreds of others of women caught in the oppressive male guardianship system in the kingdom, are choosing to risk everything for a life...
-
Retracing Bahrain's activism
On December 31st, Bahrain’s high court upheld a five year jail sentence against human rights activist Nabeel Rajab.His sentence was in response to posts he made on social media in February of 2018 accusing the government of torture and criticising Saudi Arabia’s air strikes in Yemen. Campaign...
-
Egypt's arms fair boosts military's image as regional superpower
Earlier this week, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi opened the country's first international security and defense expo. The event, which took place over three days, featured more than 350 contributors from 40 countries. By anyone's standards it was a big show, but does it really mean…
more -
Why defining security in Israel is such a challenge
Over the weekend of 11 November, tensions between the Gaza strip and Israel peaked once again, when the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, led a botched raid in Gaza. It was the first known time the IDF had set foot in Gaza since the war of 2014. This has raised questions within Israel about the...
-
Female and atheist in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, remains one of the most conservative and rigid countries, particularly for women, and for anyone who goes against Islam. Rana Ahmad knows all too well those constraints as she fled her home country after declaring herself an atheist and after having endured...
-
Peeling back the layers of Yemen's civil war
For nearly four years now, the civil war in Yemen has raged with no end in sight. Civilians have fallen victim to the fighting with some 15,000 killed or injured, while a humanitarian crisis spreads and threatens to claim more lives. Yemen, is located on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula....
-
Escape from Aleppo: one man's journey
From Aleppo to Paris. A freelance journalist who posted a video of the evacuation of the Syrian city as Bashar al-Assad's forces took control of it recounts his journey from a war zone to the French capital. In December 2016 the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad agreed to a mass evacuation of...
-
Iranian women go online to protest forced wearing of hijab
In Iran, it has been obligatory for women to wear a head scarf, or hijab, since 1983, in the wake of the 1979 revolution. Since then, women have been forced to wear the long, loose-fitting chador, and the hijab. To make sure the law is respected, morality police patrol the streets. But two major...
-
Israeli band Orphaned Land spreads message of peace across Middle East
Heavy metal music with a middle eastern twist is not common place, but since 1991, the pioneers of such a genre, the Israeli band Orphaned Land has been using its music to spread the message of peace and tolerance across the often tense Middle East. In this month's Mid-East Junction, RFI's...
-
What lies behind Mosul Eye
"What happened after 2014 is another chapter of what happened to this city" say Omar Mohammed, when speaking about his home city of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. Mohammed was born in Mosul during some of the worst moments of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “I was born on 8 April, the...
-
What is Sufism and why does it bother some Muslims?
When a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai region was attacked by affiliates of the Islamic State armed group in November leaving over 300 people dead the attackers said they were targeting what they described as 'heretics of Islam', known to the wider world as Sufis.Who are the Sufis and why have they been...
-
Art imitating power: Why the Louvre Abu Dhabi is more than just a museum
When the French President Emmanuel Macron opened a new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi this month, he said it would show how beauty was more powerful than hate. The museum wants to promote cultural exchange between West and East – as Amanda Morrow found out, when she was one of the very first visitors...
-
Who are the Kurds?
Iraq’s Kurds have been making international headlines since September after forging ahead with their independence referendum, despite regional and international warnings. They are the only one of the Middle East's Kurdish communities to have their own regional government. The other notable...
-
Study reveals surprising habits of Middle Easterners' access to news
The climate of media, particularly across the Middle East, is constantly changing and facing different challenges than in other regions. But up until now, no one has ever tried to put the habits of Middle Eastern nationals onto paper to truly understand what’s going on in terms of how people are...
-
Power struggle behind Saudi-led Qatar embargo
Saudi Arabia and its allies have ramped up pressure on Qatar since declaring a diplomatic embargo of the the small Gulf state earlier this month. They say the action is because of Qatar's links to Iran and support for the Muslim Brotherhood group but analysts see it as a power struggle over the...
-
Egypt’s 5,000 year old secret art: tahtib
The drums beat a hypnotic rhythm. The fighters, each armed with a bamboo-like rod, display their footwork as they keep an eye on their opponent, accelerating or slowing down in time with the music. They move in circles around one another, often in duels between two, sometimes three or four at a...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Mid-East Junction have?
Mid-East Junction currently has 26 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Mid-East Junction about?
A monthly look into the different political, social and cultural events affecting the region.
How often does Mid-East Junction release new episodes?
Mid-East Junction has 26 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Mid-East Junction?
You can listen to Mid-East Junction on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Mid-East Junction?
Mid-East Junction is created and hosted by RFI English.
URL copied to clipboard!