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CMES Spyros Sofos was awarded a PhD in Regional and Cross-cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen after the examination of his thesis entitled “The Meanings of the People in Turkish Politics: A Genealogy” on Monday 7 December. This thesis is intended to make a contribution to ongoing efforts to enhance our understanding of the “popular” in the study of politics through a critical examinat

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-phd-thesis-meanings-people-turkish-politics-genealogy - 2025-12-19

Local weather often is not what news reports for cities and counties. As transient, local, and intense as a cloudburst, rainfall can be highly variable, impractical to measure for usual rain-gauge networks. Frequent extreme events with climate change call for fundamental knowledge developments on rainfall. With the new X-band weather radars initially installed to avoid urban flooding, high-resolut

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-hasan-hosseini-has-got-pre-seed-funding-2021-lu-innovation - 2025-12-19

The article has been published in Sustainability and is available online. Co-writers are Khaldoon A. Mourad and Hasan Hosseini, also from CMES. Farmers know much more than we think, and they are keen to improve their knowledge in order to improve their farms and increase their income. On the other hand, decision-makers, organizations, and researchers are increasing their use of citizen volunteers

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/role-citizen-science-sustainable-agriculture-new-article-cmes-helen-avery - 2025-12-19

Co-writer Lisen Dellenborg. The article is published in the book "FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING The Global North and South" (Malmö University). Open access. In recent decades, female genital mutilation has come to be regarded as a major breach of human rights. International anti-FGM agencies such as WHO, UNICEF and The Red Cross/Red Crescent have drawn up strongly worded documents designed to protect wom

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-maria-frederika-malmstroms-new-article-female-circumcisiongenital-mutilation-and-human-rights - 2025-12-19

It is during a difficult time that Akiça Bahri has taken over the responsibility as Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries in Tunisia. But with a doctorate in water management from Lund University and many international missions on her CV, she was ready for the assignment. Since 2011 and the start of the Arab Spring, leading politicians in Tunisia have been trying to persuade Akiça

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/lu-doctor-water-focus-and-cmes-connections-new-minister-tunisia - 2025-12-19

Middle Eastern research news from Lund University Message from the director Seasonal greetings from the team at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies  This has been a strange and challenging year. We have just closed down the Centre temporarily due to escalating Covid-19 pandemic.  However, in 2021 we hope to be moving towards brighter times! CMES is set to launch some new initiatives to consolida

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-16-december-2020 - 2025-12-19

The majority of the new dust sources are due to environmental degradation caused by human activities. To prevent further dust source generation, the first step is to identify the new dust sources and predict the dust source occurrences in the vulnerable areas. We developed a novel approach that combines machine learning algorithms and remote sensing techniques for dust source detection and suscept

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-cmes-research-about-dust-source-detection-and-dust-source-susceptibility-mapping - 2025-12-19

This study identifies obstacles and barriers in distance learning and the use of electronic exams, comparing them to pursue success in the distance education system during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). It also aimed to determine the similarity and differences between the two main components of distance education. This is based on a sample of evaluations from professors and students at unive

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/obstacles-distance-learning-and-applying-electronic-exams-during-covid-19-new-cmes-research - 2025-12-19

The demand for water supply is continuously rising due to population growth and development across the world. In arid and semi-arid areas, particularly the Middle East, aquifers form the central freshwater reserves, hence are being uncontrollably exploited to meet water demand for an ever-increasing population and industrialization. To achieve sustainability in groundwater supply, the potential of

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/application-advanced-machine-learning-algorithms-assess-groundwater-potential-using-remote-sensing - 2025-12-19

Groundwater resources provide a large share of the world’s water demand for various sectors such as agriculture, industry, and drinking water. Particularly in the Middle East's arid and semi-arid regions, with surface water scarcity and high evaporation, groundwater is a valuable commodity. Yet, groundwater data are often incomplete or nonexistent. Therefore, it is a challenge to achieve a groundw

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/application-extreme-gradient-boosting-and-parallel-random-forest-algorithms-assessing-groundwater - 2025-12-19

In this article CMES Spyros A. Sofos and Nazanin Shahrokni present a case analysis of Sahar Khodayari’s transformation into a global injustice icon, the #BlueGirl, after she set herself ablaze outside a courthouse in Tehran, Iran, allegedly in protest against the ban on women entering football stadiums. We focus on the ways in which ‘pity’ was generated, mobilized, and transformed into indignation

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/mobilizing-pity-dialectics-narrative-production-and-erasure-case-irans-bluegirl - 2025-12-19

The present article by CMES Orwa Ajjoub provides a thematic analysis of Hadid’s essay titled “Between Chechnya and al-Sham … Lessons and Examples: A Brief Political Study of the Chechen Experience and the Future of al-Sham,” which was published on the AQ-affiliated website Bayan in July 2020. In his recent article for Jihadica, Aaron Zelin proposed the emergence of a tripolar jihadi world consisti

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/reading-kadyrov-al-sham-adnan-hadid-chechnya-syria-and-al-qaidas-strategic-failure - 2025-12-19

CMES Helen Avery has published a chapter (together with Birgitta Nordén) in the book "Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals". Urgent structural change is required in higher education to allow collaboration both within and across universities so that achieving a rapid sustainability transition can become the overarching and main

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/we-can-only-do-it-together-addressing-global-sustainability-challenges-through-collaborative - 2025-12-19

Watch Rola El-Husseini give a talk on her current research project at the Winter doctoral school of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha.  "Theorizing Gender and the Sectarian State: Evidence from Iraq and Lebanon."  (a film on Youtube) Winter doctoral school of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar The objective of the winter school/program is to provid

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/theorizing-gender-and-sectarian-state-evidence-iraq-and-lebanon - 2025-12-19

Message from the director Starting off the new year with an exciting seminar program for the spring! CMES continues to be closed until 31 March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we start off the new year with an exciting seminar program for the spring 2021. CMES program covers a broad range of topics ranging from the Arab Spring ten years on to the protection of refugees and environmental sec

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-17-january-2021 - 2025-12-19

Small passerine birds, such as blue and great tits, avoid breeding in urban areas where there are many non-native trees. Chicks also weigh less the more non-native trees there are in the vicinity of the nest. This is shown in a long-term study from Lund University in Sweden. City trees contribute to several important ecosystem services such as lowering local temperature and purifying air but are a

https://www.cec.lu.se/article/urban-birds-prefer-native-trees - 2025-12-19

Nature-based solutions offer excellent opportunities to address environmental and social challenges. They can help mitigate climate change and protect biodiversity. However, better governance and funding, complemented by clear political priorities, are needed to scale up such solutions in the Nordic region. This is the finding of a new research report from the Nordic Council of Ministers, in which

https://www.cec.lu.se/article/opportunities-scale-nature-based-solutions-nordics - 2025-12-19

With the arrival of spring, bumblebee queens take their first wing beat of the season and set out to find new nesting sites. But they are flying earlier in the year as a result of warmer climate and changing agricultural landscape, new research shows. – The risk is that we will lose additional bumblebee species and have reduced pollination of crops and wild plants, says researcher Maria Blasi Rome

https://www.cec.lu.se/article/climate-change-means-early-flight-start-risk-fewer-bumblebees-and-reduced-pollination - 2025-12-19

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a synthesis report summarizing the reports of recent years. Markku Rummukainen, Sweden's contact person for the IPCC and also Professor of Climatology at the Center for Environmental and Climate Science at Lund University, answers five question about the new report. What does the new synthesis report say? - The Synthesis Report

https://www.cec.lu.se/article/markku-rummukainen-new-ipcc-report-near-term-action-crucial - 2025-12-19

The world is changing; we have experienced societal disruption due to global hazards such as pandemics and climate change. Environments or institutions that were taken for granted are suddenly at risk, forcing us to consider new risks that require careful development of concepts and theories, as well as novel approaches to assessment.  This is the theme of the upcoming international conference SRA

https://www.cec.lu.se/article/sra-conference-lund-discover-risk-research - 2025-12-19