Joyce Karam, Al Arabiya
46.6 billion U.S. dollars is the average estimate for arms sales from the United States to the world in 2015. Big chunk of those receipts have gone to the Middle East where four wars are simultaneously being waged and military spending is at an all-time high.
Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph
Mr Cameron is a former PR man, and PR men spend much of their lives on behalf of their clients arranging elaborate pretences to create impressions that are entirely false. Normally, though, these will be false in the opposite direction: the client, or his product or service, is represented as being of higher quality and esteem than it actually is. Mr Camerons obsession is with doing quite the opposite, but he makes a poor fist of it.
Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
If hardliners succeed in portraying Nimrs execution as a deliberate, national provocation that must be forcefully avenged, hopes of Syrian peace this year could be seriously damaged.
Reuters
Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran early on Sunday and Shi'ite Muslim Iran's top leader predicted "divine vengeance" for Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric.
Kamel Daoud, New York Times
Throughout the Muslim world, a harsh campaign was conducted against people who celebrate Christmas. In Algeria, Islamists worked the streets under the regimes tolerant eye, distributing leaflets denouncing the day as unholy, discouraging customers in pastry shops from buying Yule logs and cakes, and sermonizing in mosques. In Brunei and Somalia, celebrating Christmas could lead to imprisonment.
Borzou Daragahi, BuzzFeed
The biggest mosque in Turkey is currently being built on a hill overlooking Istanbul. It’s just one of hundreds that have gone up in recent years, raising questions about who they’re for, and who’s making money from them.
