Omar Souleyman, a 49-year-old farmer-turned-wedding-singer from north-eastern Syria and a father of 9, is an unlikely electronic music star. This month he drew big crowds to KOKO, one of London’s most iconic music venues. Donning the jalabiya andkeffiyeh, traditional Arab garments, along with his signature aviator shades, he performed to a packed out venue full of white middle-class youth. 

The loss of Palmyra, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, was one of ISIS’s biggest setbacks since the group declared itself a caliphate in 2014. […] [Maamoun] Abdulkarim said he and other historians and archaeologists would travel to Palmyra to more deeply assess the damage, and to plan how they’ll restore the ancient ruins and sites. 

Kuwait is one of the masters of soft power in the Middle East. As I was having dinner with two Emiratis, two non- Kuwaiti Arabs were having dinner at a table beside ours; the two non-Kuwaiti Arabs were stuck to one phone watching the second episode of “Swar Shuaib,” Kuwait’s Shuaib Rashed’s popular talk show. 

The prominent network has been seen as a foreign policy tool during Qatar’s attempts to play an influential role in the region. But many say Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has pursued a quieter approach to diplomacy since becoming Emir.

President Obama has produced a video every Nowruz in which he directly talks to the Iranian people inside Iran as well as the Iranian diaspora. His messages have not always been the most appealing, but in the last couple of years, they have drastically improved to connect with the majority of his audience.

Over the long term, it will be crucial to turn off the IS recruiting faucet. Doing so will require counterterrorism officials to better understand that that the “snuff videos” for which IS has become so well-known are not the principal enlistment tools. Rather than “come kill,” the strongest message is “come build the caliphate.”

The Dubai expo, themed 'Connecting Minds, Creating the Future', will run from October 2020 to April 2021 and will mark the first time the event is held in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.