Over the last few decades, the Kurds have had an increasingly influence over regional developments in the Middle East. They are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the region, with between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabiting a mountainous region overlapping the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. However, the Kurds have never obtained a permanent nation state of their own. As they fight for autonomy in Turkey, and play a major role in the resistance against Daesh in Iraq and Syria , the Kurds have established themselves as ...

Slumped oil hasn't dampened the Gulf nations' appetite for all things shiny and new and outrageously expensive. Have you heard of Big Boys Toys (BBT)? Self-billed as the Middle East's premiere luxury, innovation and technology expo, it's held in Dubai each November to promote high-end lifestyle products . T here's also Arab Luxury World, an annual Dubai conference "on the business of luxury in the Middle East" , and 2Luxury2.com, an international luxury lifestyle magazine "for an affluent audience". BBT states that one in every 80 Emiratis is a USD ...

Perhaps you’re familiar by now with Cairo’s gritty persona, you’ve met the historic yet tense alleyways of Jerusalem, been dazzled by Dubai’s glitzy surface, and witnessed a number of war-zone-meets-nightlife cliches in Beirut. But what about Amman - Jordan’s traffic-clogged capital of over 4 million people? If you’re planning a trip to this vibrant, historic city, these are the things you need to prepare yourself for that TripAdvisor won’t add to your travel itinerary!

Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (L), President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and Sheikh Nahyan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (C), Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Sports Council, present Omar Abdulrahman (R) with a trophy after being named the AFC Men's Footballer of the Year during the Asian Football Confederation's Annual Awards ceremony on December 1, 2016 in Abu Dhabi. NEZAR BALOUT / AFP

Sociologists have long claimed that civilization has used fear, shame and guilt as the social building blocks for societies worldwide. In the Middle East in particular, leading sociologists describe countries of the region as ‘honor/shame societies’ as opposed to the ‘guilt based’ cultures in their Western counterparts. In such social paradigms, behaviour and reputation is everything as it plays a key role in upholding the honor of the family or tribe. On the other hand, not living up to the standards set for maintaining one’s honor is what brings shame ...

Xenophobia seems to be everywhere these days: Brexit in the UK, Trump is headed to the White House, and too many countries in the Middle East are embroiled in sectarian conflict. Jordan, home to a sizeable Christian population, and which plays host to millions of refugees, has its points of tension - and the needle swings both ways on this - but for the most part, the tiny Kingdom shows the rest of the world how to get along. And luckily, Jordan isn’t the only place this is happening. In ...

The Middle East is known these days as the home of an Islamic civilization which developed in the sixth century in Arabia, and which spread incredibly quickly through military conquest to reach between India and Morocco. It is easy to forget that the region was once home to a plethora of other incredible ancient civilizations and cultures. In fact, Daesh would rather we overlook the pre-Islamic history of the region. But destroying the ancient sites of Nimrud in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria will not erase the rich ancient heritage ...

Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team's German driver Nico Rosberg celebrates at the end of the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit on November 27, 2016. Nico Rosberg won his maiden Formula One world title by securing second place behind his Mercedes arch-rival Lewis Hamilton in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP

Want to kickstart your Arabic conversational skills ? Move beyond the basics of marhaba (hi!), yalla (let's go!), and walla (OMG!), with eight useful phrases that will make you instantly appear more fluent. Learning Arabic usually involves a choice beween the classical/standard language and a local/colloquial version, a decision made more complicated by the range of regional dialects to choose from (Wikipedia counts 31 variations). Ba-see-ta! (no problem!). Take a shortcut with these terms that are fairly universal in the Arabic-speaking world , easily learned (we include Arabic spelling and ...

Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team's German driver Nico Rosberg (L) and British driver Lewis Hamilton (R) pose for a picture during the drivers press conference ahead of the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit on November 24, 2016. ANDREJ ISAKOVIC / AFP

Libya is rarely covered in the mainstream news, but that doesn’t mean the North African country is stable with nothing to report on. Quite the opposite in fact. Five years after the start of social unrest and the NATO intervention that lead to the ousting and killing of Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains without a single government, embroiled in political divisions and violent infighting. Successive governments and parliaments have failed to secure a national consensus and prevent secessionist trends, especially between the west and east, leaving the country on ...