Mideast in shambles, but the world has moved on for now

By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — There was a time not long ago when uprisings and wars in the Arab world topped the agenda at the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York. With most of those conflicts having fallen into a stalemate, the world’s focus has shifted to new crises in the Tigray region and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, as well as the still raging coronavirus pandemic and climate change. But the situation in the Arab world has deteriorated in more countries and along more parameters in the last two years. Countries like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen are all teetering on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe with an economic implosion that threatens to throw the region into even deeper turmoil.