Motez Bishara

Marathon­er Sarah At­tar has in­spired oth­er women in Sau­di Ara­bia to take up run­ning as a se­ri­ous sport.

With Kuwait banned by the IOC, Faye Sul­tan will par­tic­i­pate along­side oth­er dis­placed ath­letes at the Rio Games.

Kuwaiti artist Shurooq Amin has re­turned home four years af­ter a ban on a pre­vi­ous show la­belled as “anti-Is­lam­ic”.

For Egypt­ian po­lit­i­cal satirist Bassem Youssef, de­flect­ing heck­lers is part of his rou­tine.

Two re­cent fes­ti­vals grant­ed valu­able ex­po­sure to Arab film-mak­ers, delv­ing into is­sues of mi­gra­tion, ex­ile and gen­der.

Prized works by new and old sell for record sums at re­cent Christie’s and Sothe­by’s auc­tions in the UK.

His­toric UK stu­dio used by Bob Mar­ley, Led Zep­pelin and Bono is be­ing torn down and turned into lux­u­ry flats.

Hol­ly­wood stereo­types tend to por­tray Mid­dle East­ern char­ac­ters in neg­a­tive light.

Two con­trast­ing films from the Arab world – an eye-open­ing doc­u­men­tary about teenage street life in Cairo and the first ever Sau­di Ara­bi­an fea­ture film – have tack­led con­tro­ver­sy at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.