Kim Sengupta

A year and eleven months ago, Iran’s parliamentary elections ended in a resounding victory for the reformists. Last May, the reformist candidate Hassan Rouhani convincingly defeated his hardline rival, Ebrahim Raisi, in the Presidential election. Rouhani's inauguration was presented as a celebration of the country’s democracy and stability. But last Thursday demonstrations began at the city of Mashhad and then rapidly spread across the country, growing in clamour and violence with, so far, 21 dead and 450 injured. Earlier this week, the Grand Ayatollah, Ali Khameini, who had sought to stay above it all, intervened to accuse foreign powers of sabotage.

The deadline imposed on Qatar to agree to the demands made by the Saudi-led Sunni coalition has passed without Doha caving in. This was to be expected -- the main stipulations, among the 13 made, had no chance of being accepted. The deadline has now been extended by 48 hours and the Kuwaitis are trying to mediate. The Saudis and their cohort meanwhile are threatening more sanctions against Doha and possibly even extending  them to countries which continue to trade with Qatar. Qatar may also be expelled from the Gulf Cooperation Council. There is, for the time being, no threat of military action. To recap: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain accuses Qatar of a variety of charges, including supporting terrorism.

In August 2011, I was in Sabratha, the latest city on the road to Tripoli to fall to the rebels. After months of fighting, there was now a clear sense that the endgame was approaching in Libya’s bloody civil war: the trap was closing around Muammar Gaddafi. While admiring an ancient basilica in Sabratha, a Unesco heritage site - built on rich layers of Phoenician, Roman and Byzantine history - an American colleague and I were approached by an armed fighter dressed in combat fatigues. He was Akram Ramadan, from Manchester, who had given up his job as an MOT inspector to join the revolution in the country of his birth. Ramadan wasn't the only one to have made the journey from the north west of England: we met other fighters, many from Manchester.

Tehran Waiting to vote in Iran’s parliamentary election last year, Navid Karimi told me about his plans: to get a well-paid job with his recently acquired engineering degree, go on a road trip in the US and avoid dying fighting in Syria. Fifteen months on, as the country votes in a presidential election, I met him again in Tehran.  He is yet to find a job; the road trip, the result of being introduced to Jack Kerouac by an uncle educated in Illinois, is not going to happen anytime soon with the uncertainties surrounding Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban; but he has so far managed to avoid conscription and being sent to Syria. It is the lack of a job which is having the most direct impact on the life of 23-year-old Navid.