Regional Voices

Regional Voices: A professor’s unease, a student’s uncertainty. Old Man Hassan runs a small internet cafe in Shiraz, Iran. It’s a relic of a time before smartphones, but still bustling with students needing reliable connections for research. I watched him one afternoon meticulously cleaning the keyboards, a familiar ritual. “These young ones,” he chuckled, adjusting […]

Regional Voices: “We’ve heard promises before; trust is a luxury.” The scent of jasmine hangs heavy in the Cairo air, a deceptive sweetness clinging to the dust and the worry. Old Man Hassan, a coffee seller near the hotel where Kushner and the Hamas representatives met, watches everything with eyes that have seen decades of […]

Regional Voices: Fear and frustration echo amidst broken promises. Old Man Hassan sits on a plastic chair outside his home in Qusra, the chipped paint mirroring the cracks in his hope. He remembers a time when the olive groves surrounding the village were accessible to all, when water flowed freely, and the distant hum of […]

Regional Voices: Lives interrupted, futures uncertain in Yemen’s conflict. Old Man Saeed sits on a crate, watching the empty harbour. Usually, this time of day, Mocha thrums with life – the shouts of dockworkers, the rumble of lorries, the scent of coffee beans heading to market. Now, just the waves and the mournful cry of […]

Regional Voices: Shared anxiety, dwindling hope for normalcy. The chipped Formica tabletop felt cool under Omar’s hands as he stirred his chai, the sweet scent doing little to lift his mood. He owns a small dhow repair shop in Bandar Abbas, Iran, a town heavily reliant on the ebb and flow of traffic through the […]

Regional Voices: Fear and frustration echo through a trapped community. The scent of dust and desperation hangs heavy in Qusra. Old Man Khalil, a farmer with hands like gnarled olive branches, sits on a plastic chair outside his home, watching the road. For days, it has been blocked by figures in military garb and determined […]

Regional Voices: Fear and resilience in the Red Sea & Gulf. The scent of diesel and salt hangs heavy in the air around Aden’s small fishing port. Old Man Hassan, a wiry Yemeni man with eyes that have seen too much, sits mending nets, his movements slow and deliberate. He hasn’t taken his boat out […]