Above the Fold. Anthony Shadid, a New York Times foreign correspondent, died yesterday while covering the ongoing political upheaval in Syria. He wasn’t cut down by the violence of what is becoming a…

Turkey’s Islamist president is the first civilian with control over his country’s military—and you can tell by the results.

UN passes AI resolution; DOJ sues Apple; Google demonstrates new AI system; Supreme Court hears Murthy v. Missouri arguments; Secretary of State Blinken announces new information resilience initiativ…

Nigeria and South Africa are the giants of Africa, with the two largest economies on the continent.  Both have had long-term relationships with Iran, though South Africa’s has been the closer. Thus far, the official reaction to Soleimani’s death from Nigeria and South Africa has been muted or non-existent, reflecting caution. Though the Nigerian inspector general of police has put his forces on “red alert,” likely fearing action by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) or other alleged Iranian proxies, there has been no apparent word from the government. In South Africa, the fiercest reaction came from the African National Congress (ANC), while Naledi Pandor, the South African foreign minister, called for calm.

The two finalists for the position of director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are Yoo Myung-hee, Republic of Korea, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian and (since 2019) an American citizen.

International efforts to combat ISIS dominated the recent debate in New York when world leaders converged for the UN General Assembly’s sixty-ninth session. Middle East Matters has excerpted passages…