CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks about the dramatic events in Syria and the sudden collapse of the 53-year old Assad regime to author and journalist Con Coughlin, the executive defence and foreign affairs editor of the Telegraph, and author of several books, including his latest book, Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny.

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie is at the 2024 Doha Forum and discusses latest events in the Middle East & North Africa, including the lightening collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, with ex-ambassador Nicholas Hopton, Director-General of the Middle East Association, the Right Hon. Victoria Prentis, former Attorney-General, Chris Doyle, Director of the Council for Arab -British Understanding, the Syrian historian Amr Al-Azm, professor of Middle East history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in the U.S, and the Rt. Hon. Tobias Ellwood, former Middle East minister of state at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

Charlotte Leslie talks to renowned scholar and security specialist Dr H.A Hellyer FRSA FRHistS - Senior Associate Fellow in International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defence and Security (UK). He is also a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

What can the Middle East & North Africa expect under what is expected to be a turbulent 2nd Trump presidency? Dr Hellyer believes Israel may annex parts - if not all - of the occupied West Bank, and possibly even settle parts of Gaza. The years ahead should prove a testing time for a testing time for International rule of law and the bodies and courts established to uphold it.

Dr Hellyer has more than 20 years of experience in governmental, corporate advisory, and academic environments in the West, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to celebrated Lebanese journalist and editor Nayla de Freige, who is also president of the world-renowned international annual Baalbek Festival, held among the ancient ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, north east of #Beirut..

Nayla, CEO of L'Orient-Le Jour media group, describes the terrible impact on Lebanon and the grave threat posed to her home - the historic city of Baalbek - by the current, devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Israeli strikes have killed at least 3,400 people in Lebanon and have displaced around a million people. It has also jeopardised the extraordinary and ancient legacy of Baalbek as well as its international festival that has witnessed performances down the years by great artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Placido Domingo. As this podcast goes live, a ceasefire has been announced between Israel and Hezbollah.

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks Ex-Defence Secretary Sir Liam Fox about the growing global water crisis - the subject of Sir Liam's latest book, "The Coming Storm, Why water will write the 21st Century."

The combination of an ever-increasing global population, climate change, industrialisation, urbanisation and limited natural resources means that one difficulty, above all, will shape the political, economic and security environment in the years ahead: that is water.

By 2030, an astonishing 47 percent of the entire global population will live in high water stress areas. It is inevitable in conjunction with rising global temperatures - that water shortages will drive future conflict and migration.

Water is finite and more than 97.2 per cent of it is undrinkable sea water. Desalination creates highly toxic brine that cannot be dumped into the sea. From the Jordan basin to the River Nile, water is becoming ever more precious, ever more important and ever more fought over.

In a fascinating interview, Sir Liam talks about the possible future solutions to this growing crisis - he rightly describes as The Coming Storm.

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to The Right Hon. Alistair Burt, the highly respected former Foreign Office Minister of State for the Middle East and North Africa on the first anniversary of the October 7th terror attacks by Hamas on Israel which resulted in the murder of around 1,195 Israelis, with another 251 taken hostage.

The attacks in turn have led to a massive 12 month-long military response by Israel against Gaza and the deaths of at least 41,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, with thousands more feared dead under the rubble. A further 479 Palestinians have also been killed - mostly by settler extremists - in the occupied West Bank in the last year.

Attacks by Israel on Lebanon have so far killed an estimated 2,000 people including a reported 110 health workers.

A year later, the conflict shows greater potential of spreading with Israel's current intensive campaign of airstrike on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and Iran's recent missile attack on Israel. Alistair Burt is an acknowledged expert on the Middle East and openly discusses his own fears and hopes for the region.

Conservative Shadow Foreign Secretary The Right Hon. Andrew Mitchell MP was a special panel guest at CMEC's second conference event in Birmingham for CPC24 - "Tackling migration starts in North Africa" - does it?"

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie chaired the panel discussion which also included Middle East experts Ghanem Nuseibeh, the businessman and Chairman of Muslims against Antisemitism, and Major General Jonathan Shaw CB CBE, the retired soldier, author and consultant.

Our experts discuss the issues such as war, climate change, food and water shortages which are driving migrations flights from the Sahel area of Africa and North Africa. What can the West do to help make these countries sustainable and staunch the flow of misery - aided and abetted by ruthless people traffickers to Europe and the UK?

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie introduces a an impressive panel of Middle East experts at the Conservative Party Conference 2024 to discuss "The UK's global presence after October 7th".

In the chair for the discussion is The Right Honourable Alistair Burt, the highly respected former Former Office minister for the Middle East. (@AlistairBurt UK.)

The other distinguished members of the panel were Dr Lina Khatib, Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute and Associate Fellow of Chatham House(@LinaKhatibUK), Lt. General Sir Simon Mayall CB KBE, author, soldier and Middle East expert (@SimonMayall) and Nicholas Hopton, the Director General of The Middle East Association and former British ambassador to Iran, Libya, Qatar and Yemen. (@NicholasHopton)

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to Lt. General Sir Simon Mayall CB KBE - also an author, historian and an expert on the Middle East - about the current crisis in Lebanon.

In recent days Israel has assassinated the head of Hezbollah - Hassan Nasrallah, and launched a series of airstrikes against Hezbollah and Hamas targets within Lebanon, killing Hamas's leader there, Fatha Sharif. An estimated 1,600 people have been killed in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict since October 8th, 2023, the day after the Hamas attack on Israe.

Israel has also attacked Iranian proxies the Houthis in Yemen. What does all this mean for the MENA region and the world? Could, for example, Israel soon strike at Iran's nuclear infrastructure as part of its current military campaign?

Sir Simon's latest book, House of War, is a history of crucial battles affecting the history of the Middle East and Europe

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to award-winning journalist and Arabist Gareth Browne who reports from #Beirut about the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasralllah and the implications for the Middle East and the world.

@BrowneGareth talks to @CharlotteLeslie about what the effective decapitation of #Hezbollah? Has Israel destroyed the group that first emerged from its own occupation of southern Lebanon 40 years ago or will a more radicalised group emerge in its place?