This week's reading

I have a feeling this may be quite extensive - my preliminary collection is quite full!

Let me start with some very unusual topics for this blogg, the voice of new African literature and the identity of the modern Indian man!

From the Swedish debate I would like to highlight a few points. This is from Expressen, on a documentary from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by a young man of probably quite ambitious cultural and political ideas, seeking to get away from being a "slave under occupation".

Another interesting feature is this, from Dagens Nyheter, on the danger of self-proclaimed experts crying "wolf" and "al-Qaida" at the first chance... and this Expressen op-ed on the education-level of terrorists.

On Turkey-EU relations and Turkey's grappling with their identity and future, this report was recently published. Carnegie Endowment released this on the need for economic reform in Arab world, always a very important and under-reported topic. Human Rights Watch called attention to the security forces behaviour in the Iraqi Kurdish region.

An essay from Svenska Dagbladet on Gertrude Bell and the fight for Iraq that she took part in.

Also on Iraq, the statistics for June speak of a death-figure not rising for the first time in months. It's still monstrously high, but let us hope we can later loook back at some point at think "there the tide turned".

After having linked the latest ICG report on Basra in a previous post, I'd like to show you this site especially focussed on southern Iraq. Norwegian historian Reidar Visser with a longstanding interest in Iraq and the Gulf there collects analyses, resources and even photo galleries. Visser also wrote this article in Middle East Report earlier this year.

Happy reading and hope you can surf to something you will enjoy!