FOLDED CORNER - ‘Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe’ by Charles Glass (Verso, 192 pages, £9)

Locals from predominantly-Alevi populated villages in the southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş continue to rally against plans to build a container city for around 27,000 Syrian refugees, citing fears that ethno-religious tensions may be stirred with the potential arrival of extremists

A Bangladeshi law student who posted against Islamism on his Facebook page has been murdered, police said on April 7, the latest in a series of killings of secular activists and bloggers in the country

US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Iran on April 7 to help end wars in Yemen and Syria, where Tehran and its Gulf Arab rivals are backing opposing sides

Many Iraqi entrepreneurs are finding restaurants and eateries a safe business bet, despite the country’s slumping economy, prevailing violence and an ongoing war with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group

A leading Arab satellite operator cut transmission of Hezbollah's television channel Al-Manar on April 6 amid soaring tensions between the Lebanese Shiite group's backer Iran and Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia

Plans to build a container city for around 27,000 Syrian refugees near predominantly-Alevi populated villages in Turkey’s southern province of Kahramanmaraş has led to uneasiness among villagers

ISIL militants attacked Syrian army troops with mustard gas in an offensive against a Syrian military airport in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor that borders Iraq, state media said on late April 4

A much-anticipated meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took place late on March 31 on the sidelines of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit following the latter’s talks with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry on March 30

Stories of the sexual abuse of minors have been pouring in for the last couple of weeks

Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on March 27 night after beginning a sit-in in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone intended to be a show of force following his calls to combat government corruption

Rebels who control the Yemeni capital Sanaa have released nine Saudis in exchange for 109 Yemenis, the Riyadh-led coalition fighting them said on March 28, in the latest sign of tensions easing before peace talks

Saudi Arabia has sentenced a journalist to five years in jail for insulting the kingdom’s rulers and “inciting public opinion” on Twitter, Amnesty International said

At the time of the early video productions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu suggested a rather soft, kind and empathetic diagnosis for the bloodshed

Beirut’s Hippodrome has survived wars and relentless upheaval but the iconic racetrack, where rival fighters once gathered to bet on their days off, is approaching its centenary facing an uncertain future

Turkey today has been overpowered by a toxic mix of domestic political infighting and a misguided foreign policy that has bred the kind of terrorist attack that we saw once again in Istanbul over the weekend

Given that Syria is now an internationalized and regionalized quagmire that has been free to evolve for more than five years, it is to be expected that any diplomatic effort to endorse peace in Syria will eventually be confronted with complications

A fledgling U.S. base in northern Iraq came under attack again on March 21 from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and even drew a threat from an Iran-backed Shi’ite militia, two days after a U.S. Marine there was killed in a rocket attack

Given that Syria is now an internationalized and regionalized quagmire that has been free to evolve for more than five years, it is to be expected that any diplomatic effort to endorse peace in Syria will eventually be confronted with complications

If the U.S. congress had not imposed a two-term limit on the presidency in 1947 after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s record four electoral victories, U.S. President Barack Obama would be a safe bet for a third term this November