Book Reviews

Reviewed by: China's Rise in the Global South: The Middle East, Africa, and Beijing's Alternative World Order by Dawn C. Murphy Jiarui Wu Murphy, Dawn C. China's Rise in the Global South: The Middle East, Africa, and Beijing's Alternative World Order. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022. [End Page 237] China's rise as an economic powerhouse competing with the United States for power and influence globally is a development that has received mixed reactions from different players on the global scene. While to African nations, China's interest and support of developmental projects have been received as a blessing by these nations, the Western world and especially the United States remain wary and critical of China's growing influence in these developing nations. Fears of neocolonialism and the support of nations of interest that might lead to the resurgence of terrorist groups are some of the areas of concern raised by the United States. China's interest in the Middle East also concerns the United States. The Middle East is a central national interest area for the United States, which is concerned with fighting ISIS, preventing Iran from gaining nuclear power, and providing support to Israel. Competition for resources is also a critical factor in the emerging competition between China and the United States. Africa and the Middle East are rich in valuable resources, and China's interest in them raises concerns about the United States' future access to the resources. Additionally, it is still unclear whether China will be a cooperative or competitive player in the global market. Dawn Murphy's book provides an in-depth analysis of China's increased involvement in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa and the implications from a global perspective. Although China's relations with Africa are not a new development, the increase in its involvement in Africa and its increased influence on Africa's politics, economy, and provision of foreign aid and military engagements have raised Western nations' interest as they try to figure out how China's increased involvement will shift the global power dynamics. Similarly, China's increased sway in the Middle East threatens to shift the power dynamics in an area where the United States previously held much sway. The book looks at China's approach in relating to African and Middle Eastern nations. It also provides an in-depth look at the tools China employs in its foreign policy, including China's cooperation forums, United Nations (UN) Security Council voting, foreign aid, and free trade agreements. By providing a detailed look at China's approach, the book objectively compares China's and the United States' approaches and notes areas of similarity and divergences between the two. This comparison provides an excellent basis for predicting future China–US relations. Studies by various authors have reached vastly different conclusions on the impact of China–Africa relations, while the impact of its relations with Middle [End Page 238] Eastern nations has largely been understudied. The book argues that despite China not aggressively attempting to interfere in US–Africa relations, its rapid growth puts it in a competitive place with Western nations and makes it challenge the "rules of the liberal international system as it increasingly builds spheres of influence in these areas" (8). In essence, although not in outright competition, China–Africa/Middle East interactions are creating an alternative international order that might eventually lead to the collapse of the existing system and the emergence of a new order primarily influenced by China's model. The possibility of such development provides ample basis for the global interest in studying China's activities in African and Middle Eastern nations. In a departure from previous studies that have focused on the arising China–US tensions in their look at China's increasing influence in Africa, Murphy adopts a new approach. The author proposes a more wholesome approach to understanding China's growing influence in these regions. Rather than just focusing on the competitive relationship between the two nations, the book also analyzes the areas of cooperation. For example, some areas where China–US cooperation can be observed are participation in UN peacekeeping operations, limiting arms sales...

Energy dialogue between Russia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became an issue of current importance in many respects, due to transformation of the whole system of international relations in the Middle East, caused by several military and political crises as well as the new political and military role assumed by Russia in Syrian crisis settlement. The energy dialogue between the two oil-producing countries is considered as one of the key mechanisms promoting crises settlement in the Middle East, regulating disputable issues in energy pricing and as adjusting infrastructure, social and environmental problems in the region. The author’s position is that international relations are not a “zero-sum game”. So, the political will of states to find the compromises contributes to the stabilization of the situation in the Middle East that, in its turn, can provide sustainable social and economic development of Russia and Saudi Arabia. The aim of this article is to identify the features of the energy dialogue between Russia and KSA and to determine the factors affecting it. The author uses methods of the comparative analysis and system approach. This paper analyses the conceptual basis of energy policy of the Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia, international treaties and the functioning of the “OPEC+” format, compare the approaches of Russia and KSA to the formation of the dialogue in the energy sector. The opinions of leading Arab and Russian experts in the energy field are taken into consideration. As a result, the following key features of the energy dialogue between Russia and the KSA were marked out. Firstly, in many aspects it is determined by regional political and military crises and fundamental difference in Russia’s and the KSA’s approaches to the final settlement of the Syrian conflict. Secondly, by introducing the concept of “the alliances overturn” the author draws attention to important changes in the way KSA forms partnership with the USA and Russia. In the context of conceptual changes in KSA’s approach to the strategic partnership with the USA and Russia. Thirdly, the author emphasizes the willingness of the parties to make mutual concessions in matters of principle, such as the conflict in Yemen and Syria. The fourth key feature of the dialogue between Russia and the KSA is using energy as a universal platform to find mutually beneficial solutions in ensuring regional economic security and military and political stability.

Legal, economic, geographical and demographic analysis of the acquisition of Real Estate by foreign nationals in Turkey

The information society, late capitalism, and globalization raise serious questions about many tidy categories through which the world has conventionally been understood. Resistance, the subject of this essay, is one of these categories. The proliferation of globalizing means of communications such as the satellite dish and the internet has added new dimensions to our world. One is the collapse of premodern conceptions of space and time. Our phenomenological world is one that compresses time and in turn annihilates space, as Harvey suggests,David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989). or delineates space and time and liberates them from their local markers, asGiddens argues.Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 21. As space shrinks phenomenologically, people in different places experience the same events at the same time.The globalized world and modernity and their impact on our understanding of the social phenomenon are not tied to the works of Harvey and Giddens alone. Other theorists such as Roland Peterson, Ulrich Beck, and Scott Lash are central to the globalization debate. For a good summary of the Globalization debate, see Malcolm Walters, Globalization (New York: Routledge, 1995). In light of the confusion stemming from the increase in global political, economic, and social activities, the world seems beset by the paradox of homogenizing and fragmenting impulses. Complicating this picture even further is our increasing dependence on the mediaFor a debate on the media, information society, and globalization, see Karamjit S. Gill, ed., Information Society: New Media, Ethics and Postmodernism (London: Springer-Verlag London Limited, 1996); Lance Starte, Ronald Jacobson, and Stephanie B. Gibson, Communication and Cyberspace (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., 1996); Sandra Braman and Annabelle Mohammadi, Globalization, Communication, and Transnational Civil Society (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., 1996); and Andrew King (ed.) Postmodern Political Communication: The Fringe Challenges the Center (Westport, CT: Braeger, 1992). to bring world events to our homes, giving us the illusion that we were taken there to witness these events. In this heavily mediated world, the “signs for the real,”This is Baudrillard's argument. For more, see Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations,” in Mark Poster, ed., Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writing (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 166–84. text and image alike, seem more real than the real itself. Nowhere has the impact of globalization been felt more intensely than in the Middle East. Data from the Gulf states in particular raise new questions about our understanding of resistance, national boundaries, and territoriality as well as other social science concepts such as sovereignty, the nation state, and citizenship.

Hanley, Susan B., and Arthur P. Wolf, eds. Family and Population in East Asian History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985, xx + 360 pp. including reference notes and index. $45.00 cloth. Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock, ed. Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, xii + 356 pp. including chapter notes. $24.50 cloth, $11.95 paper. Schrijvers, Joke Therese. Mothers for Life: Motherhood and Marginalization in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka. Delft: Eburon, 1985. xiv + 273 pp. including photographs,. glossary, and references, (n.p.)

Review

On September 23, 1955, Pakistan announced its formal adherence to the alliance formed on February 24 by Iraqand Turkey, and adhered to by the United Kingdom on April 5 (Baghdad Pact). On October 11, the government of Iran announced its intention to adhere to the Pact; following parliamentary approval of the decision, Iran formallyadhered on November 3. Both before and after Iran's formal adherence to the Pact, the Soviet Union, according to press reports, protested strongly. In a note of October 12, the Soviet government declared that the accession of Iran was incompatible with the interests of consolidating peace and security in the near and middle east, and contradicted certain treaty obligations of Iran with respect to the Soviet Union. In a subsequent note, the Soviet Union repeated its protest, alleging that Iran's adherence to the Pact “inflicted serious damage” to relations between Iran and the Soviet Union, and that Iran would have to bear the full consequencesof joining. In a reply to the earlier Soviet note, Iran had declared that its object in adhering to the Pactwas the consolidation of peace and security in the middle east; the Pact was for defensive purposes, and Iran'sadherence should not mar Iranian-Soviet friendly relations, nor did it conflict with the terms of existing agreements between Iran and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, both the United States and United Kingdom had formally welcomed Iran's decision.

AUSTRALIA – Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression share genetic roots: study. INDONESIA – Bio Farma launches pentavalent vaccine, combining 5 antigens. JAPAN – Researchers uncover brain molecule regulating human emotion, mood. KOREA – Meeting booming Asian pellet demand: How competitive are regional players? SINGAPORE – New strategy to disarm the dengue virus brings new hope for a universal dengue vaccine. SINGAPORE – An organized approach to 3D tissue engineering. SINGAPORE – Thermo Fisher Scientific opens its first dry powder media facility in APAC region. SINGAPORE – World's largest supplier of custom nucleic acids opens SGD 6 million manufacturing facility in Singapore. EUROPE – CeMM and Haplogen make available the world's largest collection of engineered human cell lines. EUROPE – Shaping the stem cell genome. MIDDLE EAST – Off-grid solar sterilizers could aid remote areas. NORTH AMERICA – Exercise improves sleep, but not overnight. NORTH AMERICA – GM rice delivers antibodies against deadly rotavirus. NORTH AMERICA – Lampreys hint at how immune cells evolved. UNITED KINGDOM – Anxiety may start in the womb.

The confect in the Yemeni in state and its internal repercussions and the tragedies suffered by the Yemeni people and the divisions and problems that have occurred and political in stability and its impact on the stability of the middle East was the talk of all thinkers and researchers as the internal conflict turned into a regional conflict intersecting and different objectives and interests between the conflicting forces on the middle East As a result the Yemeni arena has become a constant and politically unstable arena.

This study attempts to show the role of translation in giving meaning to conflicts whether by reproducing the dominant political beliefs of a particular media society or by resisting counter-ideologies that come from foreign sources of information. It utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis as an effective method for the analysis of power relations behind news reporting. The research uses a corpus from international media and their equivalent texts into Arabic between 2013 and 2017. The data covers events on conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, each article reporting issues about conflict and its impact on arenas of struggle. Through this case study of transediting, I will explore how textual analysis can unravel power relations and hegemonic orders of discourse. The study shows that translation is a site of conflict and has much to say about reasons for conflict and the complex relationship between language and power. The proposed tools of analysis in this study are based on functional language analysis and will show how language structuring, in particular transitivity analysis, articulates the logic created by the media outlet regarding reasons for conflict. The case study concludes that different media structure the current wars in the Middle East in different chains of causal dependence that can impact the reading positions of the readers.

In the midst of theoretical debates and traditions concerning “materialism” (also new), “realism” (speculative) and “objects” (object-oriented philosophy), one of the most important things to reali...

While the (upcoming) withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) has been heavily discussed in Europe, this debate revolves mainly around the future of the UK and UK–EU relations. By contrast, little attention has been paid to the reactions of third countries and the effect of their perceptions on the role of the changing EU in the changing world. However, only if the EU is seen as attractive and its actions as legitimate, valuable, credible and coherent, will European (public) diplomacy and external action be effective. This volume investigates how the planning of the “divorce” between the EU and the UK, and specifically the “period of uncertainty” that ensued after the June 2016 referendum in the UK, impacted on third countries’ perceptions of the EU-27, on their policy options (with regard to the bilateral relationship with the EU), and on EU external policy-making. This introductory chapter will set the scene for the subsequent contributions that analyse perceptions of the EU-27 after the Brexit referendum in the key world regions as defined by the EU Global Strategy 2016: the Wide Atlantic, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, as well as the EU’s neighbours to the east and south. We elaborate on the common conceptual approach that guides all contributions, specify the methods employed to explore perceptions in individual countries/regions, introduce the structure of the volume and outline the main arguments and key results of the contributions to this volume.

The dramatic escalation in the price of oil over the past seven years has allowed the Middle East and the Gulf states in particular to reap an incredible windfall. Early indications suggest that the region may be optimising these rewards with greater prudence than during past oil booms, by reducing debt, increasing savings and launching meaningful economic reforms. Still, it is hardly certain that mounting revenues will enable the region to successfully overcome the political and economic vulnerabilities inherent in oil-led development. The oil boom has neither saved nor doomed the Middle East, but rather opened new possibilities and heightened existing problems. International interest in ensuring the free flow of energy resources should prompt serious efforts by Washington and other capitals to enhance regional integration, encourage meaningful reform and promote long-term cooperation in cultivating a more stable, prosperous and sustainable future for the Middle East.

World Graphic Design is the first-ever survey of contemporary graphic design and designers outside the United Kingdom, mainland Europe, North America and Australasia. Organized into four main geographical regions or cultural zones - Africa, the Far East, Latin America and the Middle East - and then alphabetically by country and designer/studio within each zone, it focuses on the work being carried out today within the most popular genres of graphic design: posters, book and album covers, packaging and promotion. As graphic design in the developed world becomes increasingly focused on the same small pantheon of designers and the same canonical approaches, World Graphic Design seeks to expose it to the energy, vitality and diversity of a vast body of work that has long co-existed alongside it, but that has hitherto been all but ignored. It is a deliberate attempt to do for graphic design what has been achieved for world music. With an informative critical profile and full contact details of each designer and studio, and more than a dozen illustrated examples of their recent output, World Graphic Design is a ground-breaking survey and an essential reference for anyone involved in graphic design worldwide.

Summary Muslim women have a long-standing history of faith-based social engagement, philanthropy, and leadership. Khadija bint Khuwaylid, a successful 7th-century Arabian entrepreneur and the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, is among the earliest documented figures to use wealth and influence for social reform. Her actions included supporting vulnerable populations, promoting education, and strengthening communal care networks. Scholarship on her legacy highlights a foundational model of faith-driven leadership that informs the work of Muslim women across diverse historical and cultural contexts. Case studies from the late 20th and early 21st centuries illustrate how Muslim women, following the model of Khadija, continue to serve as change agents in areas such as education, economic empowerment, and social advocacy. Examples include interfaith educational philanthropy by Dilnaz Waraich, grass-roots economic initiatives led by Sayyeda Jafri, an inclusive religious education program for hearing-impaired congregants in the United Kingdom, and the An-Nisa Hope Center in the United States, which addresses domestic abuse through Islamic frameworks of care and justice. These initiatives demonstrate the ongoing relevance of religiously grounded commitments in shaping community-based activism. Scholarship in this field also addresses the challenges of recovering women’s historical contributions from patriarchal and sectarian narratives. Researchers continue to examine how Muslim women negotiate religious identity and feminist praxis in both Islamic and secular spaces.