New Lines Magazine

New Lines Magazine New Lines Magazine – a local magazine for the world. Essays run daily online and quarterly in print.

What happens when a country you call home begins to imply you are not wanted?New Lines Associate Editor takes readers o...
10/31/2025

What happens when a country you call home begins to imply you are not wanted?

New Lines Associate Editor takes readers on a deeply personal journey into what it means to belong — or not belong — in today’s England.

While visiting an asylum hotel in the country’s southeast, Hussein sees parallels with his own life story, which spans issues of identity and migration, and reveals the limits of inclusion in an age of political upheaval.

As Hussein writes:

“I’d like to think that I have, in my own small way, contributed to the cultural and intellectual life of this country. If not that, then at best, my taxes have helped to build society, and at worst, they have helped finance a war or two and sustained the country’s debt obligations. But does naturalization give me security, given that the U.K. has little problem in citizenship-stripping its own citizens of the brown and Black variety?”

Read the full story at the link in our bio.

✍️Tam Hussein
📸 Michelle McMahon via Getty Images

In NYC’s mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani has been actively engaging the South Asian community, including through temple vis...
10/30/2025

In NYC’s mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani has been actively engaging the South Asian community, including through temple visits, Diwali outreach and social media. But as reports, his campaign has sidestepped the issue of caste discrimination, despite it being real and documented in the U.S.

As writes: “The question of caste would ordinarily not come up in a local election in the United States. But given the prominence of South Asian New Yorkers in this election, animated by Mamdani’s efforts to canvass in communities he shares a background with, caste has become a valid talking point, especially because Hindu temples, where Dalits, like this reporter, often don’t feel welcome, have emerged as fertile ground for canvassing by New York’s mayoral candidates.”

Read the full story at the link in our bio.
✍️Yashica Dutt
📸 Neil Constantine/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Russian intelligence officer and back-channel diplomat Alexander Zorin recently turned his career into a memoir, now...
10/28/2025

The Russian intelligence officer and back-channel diplomat Alexander Zorin recently turned his career into a memoir, now being adapted into a Kremlin-backed film. But as Michael Weiss reports, “The Negotiator” and the draft scripts for the film, which Weiss has exclusively accessed, reveal more than was intended. Behind Zorin’s self-mythologizing lies an unguarded glimpse into Moscow’s military operations in Syria, disinformation techniques and the messy reality of Russia’s intervention.

Zorin’s stories about the Syrian civil war, writes Weiss, deal with “one of the most well-documented and interrogated conflicts of the 21st century. Zorin loses track of his lies about that war, and the lies of his government, because he’s indifferent to both in pursuit of his own delusions of grandeur.”

Read the full story at the link in our bio.

✍️Michael Weiss

📸 From Zorin’s memoir, “The Negotiator”

As Indian-American New Yorkers become an increasingly visible political bloc, candidates across the spectrum are vying f...
10/28/2025

As Indian-American New Yorkers become an increasingly visible political bloc, candidates across the spectrum are vying for the support of the city’s Hindu voters, from Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams to Zohran Mamdani -— whose campaign has faced attacks from Hindu nationalist groups in the U.S. Yashica Dutt traces the community’s rising political influence for .

Many American politicians have stuck to the “right-wing Hindu playbook and toe the line on Modi, in exchange for their support,” Dutt writes. “Unlike them,” she continues, “Mamdani has had a history of challenging the policies of the current Hindu nationalist Modi government, which has been harmful to Indian Muslims.”

Read the full story at the link in our bio.

✍️ Yashica Dutt

What happens when democracy teaches others how to kill and then forget what it taught? In this investigation for New Lin...
10/28/2025

What happens when democracy teaches others how to kill and then forget what it taught?

In this investigation for New Lines Magazine, Frank Smyth traces how the US military advisers helped Colombia’s armed forces covertly employ outlawed right winged paramilitaries in the 1990s - a campaign that blurred the boundaries between counter insurgence and state sponsored murder.

“America’s role in documented war crimes in Colombia decades ago may shed light on how U.S. generals and admirals today must grapple with the dilemma of serving to protect the Constitution or the president.” Smyth writes.

The tactics once exported abroad now haunt the US itself, as Trump and his defence secretary court militias and challenges the rule of law.

Read the full story at the link in our bio.
✍️Frank Smyth
📸 LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images

The mood was cordial as Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, arrived in Moscow last week. Once enemies on opposit...
10/22/2025

The mood was cordial as Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, arrived in Moscow last week. Once enemies on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war, Vladimir Putin and al-Sharaa shared jokes at the Kremlin: a stark contrast to the years Russia spent bombing his forces.

In her Spotlight essay, Amie Ferris-Rotman writes that the visit underscores “all that Russia has lost” since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from regional influence to military strength, and reveals the limits of Moscow’s diplomacy in the changing landscape of the Middle East.

Al-Sharaa’s visit comes amid “a decline in Russian geopolitical clout” and rising calls for Bashar al-Assad’s extradition, writes Ferris-Rotman — a reminder of how changes in Syria continue to reverberate.

Read the full story at the link in our bio.

✍️

📸 Contributor/Getty Images

“When I remember the days with my friends before 2023, I realize how deeply the war has changed not just our lives, but ...
10/20/2025

“When I remember the days with my friends before 2023, I realize how deeply the war has changed not just our lives, but our dreams themselves.”

Hassan Herzallah reflects on the ceasefire in this first-person essay for , describing it not as an end but a tenuous beginning, a moment of uncertain peace.

In Gaza, the ceasefire feels like the first deep breath after years of suffocation, he writes, detailing his reunification with three of his friends as they ponder what comes next.

Herzallah writes, “after years of war, my dreams have become much simpler. The first thing I want to do is sleep for a long time like Ali, eat and regain my health like Nazmi, see the people I miss like Mahmoud and just sit in peace, away from the daily struggle and chaos — like Ramez.”

“Our dreams have been reduced to the simplest human wishes: rest, food, safety and belonging.”

For more, please go to the link in our bio.

✍️ Hassan Herzallah
📸 Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images; Alaa Herzallah

Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea has become a byword for ecological catastrophe. The rusting ships str...
10/20/2025

Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea has become a byword for ecological catastrophe. The rusting ships stranded in the desert sands are part of the images of ruin that lies in the living landscape. But as Diana Kruzman reports for , those who live along its now dry basin continue to fight for its future.

Kruzman writes that, “far from belonging to the distant past, the Aral Sea is the site of countless choices in our present: what kinds of economies we prioritize, what forms of nature we value and what we want our future to look like.”

From tree planting campaigns to experimental dams, Kruzman documents the attempts to reclaim what was lost or build something new in its place.

For more, go to the link in our bio.

✍️ By Diana Kruzman
📸 Illustration by Joanna Andreasson

We’re honored to announce that The Lede has won a Gold Signal Award in the Interview/Talk Show category for our episode ...
10/16/2025

We’re honored to announce that The Lede has won a Gold Signal Award in the Interview/Talk Show category for our episode "The War We Don't See" with and .

This recognition is a testament to our commitment to deep, impactful journalism. Thank you to the for this incredible honor, and to our listeners for your continued support.

🎙️Hosted by Faisal Al Yafai featuring Arwa Damon
🎧Produced by Finbar Anderson

To watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/HzF4NK8M1JI

Listen to more: https://linktr.ee/theledepodcast

In Chicago, under “Operation Midway Blitz,” federal agents have filled school parking lots, raided apartment buidlngs an...
10/15/2025

In Chicago, under “Operation Midway Blitz,” federal agents have filled school parking lots, raided apartment buidlngs and detained families. 

Reporting from the Windy City, Politics Editor writes, “There is a pervasive sense across the city that ICE agents could be anywhere. People are afraid.”

Across Chicago, residents are documenting the raids and responding both spontaneously and through organized channels, leading ordinary citizens to become involved with rapid-response networks.   

“This corner is a crime scene,” one resident said at a protest. “ICE committed a crime here. And the whole neighborhood has reclaimed and cleansed the energy of that crime.”

For more, please go to the link in our bio.

✍️Danny Postel

📸Scott Olson/Getty Images

First performed in 1874, Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” is an opera about a tsar haunted by guilt and the corruptin...
10/14/2025

First performed in 1874, Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” is an opera about a tsar haunted by guilt and the corrupting effects of power. 

Across Europe, directors have reinterpreted the work as an allegory for Vladimir Putin’s rule, with some productions featuring modern imagery like AK-47s, Kremlin propaganda and soldiers killed in Ukraine.

In Amsterdam, exiled Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov depicted Godunov’s coronation as Putin’s rise to the presidency, while others, like British director Keith Warner, explore the opera’s broader reflections on tyranny and truth. In Russia, where dissent from the regime is perilous, the same work is staged as a patriotic defense of strong leadership.

As Tomasz Konieczny, the Polish bass who has played the role of Godunov, tells writer Howard Amos, “Boris Godunov is an opera about power and politicians, and about the problems of humans who are put in an impossible situation. You can make a direct comparison with the situation today.” 

For more, please go to the link in our bio.

✍️ Howard Amos

📸Mirco Magliocca, Yevgeny Koryukin

In the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s fall, Syria’s sectarian fault lines have resurfaced. Alawite villagers displaced f...
10/13/2025

In the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s fall, Syria’s sectarian fault lines have resurfaced. Alawite villagers displaced from northern Hama currently face an uncertain future, with families unable to return to homes and lands now occupied by their former Sunni neighbors. Once at the heart of the country’s thriving pistachio belt, these villages have been torn apart by years of war, forced displacement and revenge-driven property seizures.

While one community has established a reconciliation committee to mediate disputes, efforts to do the same have stalled nearby, leaving former Alawite inhabitants in exile and their lands confiscated by the state. As pistachio orchards wither untended, the collapse of reconciliation efforts risks further deepening divisions and destroying one of Hama’s last shared sources of livelihood.

For more, please go to the link in our bio.

✍️ Natacha Danon

📸 Natacha Danon

Address

Washington D.C., DC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when New Lines Magazine posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to New Lines Magazine:

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Introducing Newlines

Newlines Magazine, published by the Center for Global Policy, is a forum for the best ideas and writing about the Middle East and beyond.

We specialize in long-form essays, including reportage, arguments, and memoirs, which bring together politics, culture, and history.

The Middle East is central to our focus, with an emphasis on voices that have an intimate relationship with the region. But we aim to include work from or about other parts of the world. Our only requirement is thoughtfulness and good prose.

With Newlines, we aspire to create a platform for original writing and thinking about a complex and often misunderstood and caricatured region. We consider the popular Arab uprisings of 2011 and their turbulent aftermath to be pivotal points of modern history.