CMEC's fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference at Manchester, on "Global Britain and the Middle East - Challenges and opportunities." Chaired by CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie. Guest speakers included H.E Sheikh Fawaz Al Khalifa, Bahrain's Ambassador to the UK, H.E. Nabil Ben Khedher, Tunisia's Ambassador to the UK, Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, Chair of the Iraqi-British Business Council (IBBC) and Ashley Goodall, also from the IBBC.

CMEC AT CONFERENCE '21

As the UK hosts COP26, CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie speaks to Dr Hoda Al-Helassie - a member of the Kingdom's advisory Shura Council, and Dr Yousef Alshammari - an expert in the future of oil and in alternative energy at OPEC, about the rapid change Saudi Arabia is currently under going through its Vision 2030 strategy.

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Climate change is forcing the world to wean itself off fossil fuels, and this means huge change in particular for the oil-reducing countries in the Middle East.

Saud Arabia is playing a key role in the region with its own strategy called Vision 2030. This is primarily aimed at diversifying and de-carbonising the Saudi economy, which is currently heavily reliant on oil. Saudi Arabia has a target of Zero Carbon emissions by 2060. As part of this, the Kingdom is building a giant smart city called Neon, and has earmarked $1 trillion to invest in tourism.

Saudi Arabia has managed massive change before, in the decades following the discovery of oil. But what impact could the rapid change and transformation envisaged in Vision 2030 have on a country where Islam is so important and where conservative voices still have influence?

Charlotte Leslie discusses these changes with Dr Hoda Al-Helassie, a member of the Kingdom's advisory Shura Council, and Dr Yousef Alshammari, an expert in the future of oil and in alternative energy at OPEC. Dr Alshammari is the CEO and Head of Oil Research of CMarkits, London.

This podcast is the first in a series related to Vision 2030 which CMEC is producing in partnership with the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies.

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 Strategy

Charlotte Leslie reports from the IISS Manama Dialogue and talks to Tobias Ellwood, Conservative MP and Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, Baria Alamuddin, celebrated writer and journalist, H.E Roddy Drummond, Britain's Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Mina Al-Orabi, Editor-in-chief of the Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper.

CMEC at the 17th Manama Dialogue in Bahrain 2021

CMEC'S Director Charlotte Leslie explores the central role of women now and in the future in Saudi Arabia, as the Kingdom evolves away from its dependence on oil, with two influential Saudi figures.

Dr Thoraya Obaid was the first Saudi woman to head up a UN agency when she was appointed as Under-Secretary General of the UN Population Fund. In 2013, she was one of the 30 women to join the King's Shura Council.

After a successful business career, principally in the energy and steel sectors, Ibrahim Almubarak was appointed deputy minister in the Ministry of Labour and Social Development - responsible for social security. Here he's spear-headed reforms of social security, partly aimed at getting women into the workplace.

WOMEN'S ROLE IN SAUDI ARABIA'S VISION 2030 STRATEGY

Almost 19 years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, CMEC's Charlotte Leslie interviews senior Iraqi official Mr Mohamed al-Daraji about the necessity of maintaining security in Iraq.

Mr Al-Daraji - the President of the country's National Defence Industries Commission, effectively Iraq's arms department - speaks candidly about the current security and political challenges facing Iraq, particularly following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resurgence of the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh.

Mr Al-Daraji says the UK in particular has an important role in engaging with #Iraq and helping the country maintain security against the many threats against it.

H.E Mr Mohamed Al-Daraji talks to CMEC about Iraq's security

This is the third in a series of CMEC podcasts on Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategy – being done in conjunction with the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies based in Saudi Arabia.

At the heart of Vision 2030 is Neom, the astonishing and carbon neutral city being built along the Red Sea Coast in northern Saudi Arabia. It has been described as the Kingdom's "new oil". 

CMEC's Director Charlotte Leslie talks about Neom to  
Dr Aisha Al-Sarihi, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, and Dr Rami Alharbi, a senior research specialist at the Ministry of Culture in Saudi Arabia.

NEOM - THE DAWNING OF A FUTURE SAUDI ARABIA

CMEC's Director Charlotte Leslie talks to Roger Macmillan, Director of Safety & Security at Iran International, an independent Persian speaking news service. Roger Macmillan talks about the sustained campaign of threats and intimidation waged by the regime against staff at Iran International, which has reported fearlessly on the extensive human rights abuses in Iran.

Iran has accused Iran International of inciting recent protests against the regime and even levelled false allegations that the station was "a terrorist organisation." The threats posed by Iran were so severe that in February 2023, Police in London could no longer guarantee the safety of staff and so Iran International decided to base its operation in Washington DC. Mr Macmillan explains how Iran has attempted to to export its repression of the media to encompass overseas journalists.

Iran's threat to journalists overseas

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to Air Marshal Martin "Sammy" Sampson CBE DSO, experienced fighter jet pilot and military-diplomat extraordinaire to the Middle East and North Africa.

Air Marshal Sampson's official job title is UK Defence Senior Advisor Middle East North Africa (DSAME) and visits countries throughout MENA. He is also the Armed Forces Muslim Champion and Trustee of the National Muslim War Memorial Trust.

Charlotte caught up with Sammy at the 2023 IISS Manama Dialogue in Bahrain and talked to him about the extraordinary diplomacy he conducts in the MENA and the impact that the Gaza crisis is having on the region.

CMEC TALKS TO  AIR MARSHAL MARTIN "SAMMY" SAMPSON CBE DSO

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to renowned attorney Daniel Seidemann. Since 1991, Daniel Seidemann has focused on the geopolitics of contemporary Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him an honorary MBE for his work.

Daniel talks to Charlotte about the Gaza crisis and how it has impacted his home city of Jerusalem and Israel as a whole. He singles out Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for the response to the Hamas's shocking October 7 terror attack - which he says has led to war crimes - and also discusses the current state of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and what he says has been "the collapse" in support for Israel caused by its assault on Gaza..

DANIEL SEIDEMANN TALKS TO CMEC

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to Amr Ramadan, a climate change young advocate and activist from  Egypt who has been working with thew British Council.

Amr talks about his work in tackling this enormous challenge. His own city of Alexandria is one of the cities facing the threat of climate-changed induced rising sea levels.

Of all the threats we face, climate change is perhaps the greatest and most urgent. 

Record temperatures are now the norm, and a recent survey of many of the world's leading climate scientists showed that most of them expected temperatures to rise to at least 2. 5 degrees above pre industrial levels. That's far in excess of the 1. 5 degrees rise the world had hoped to remain below. 

Meanwhile, our attention is drawn by war in Gaza and Ukraine, and elections at home and in the US.

Climate change with the British Council

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?

Assassination of Hassan #Nasrallah with Gareth Browne

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 AT CPC24 - ON TACKLING MIGRATION

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.

What can the Middle East expect with Trump?

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to Saudi sports star, in the ring, on the pitch, and in management, Rasha Al Khamis about the success and popularity of women's sports in Saudi Arabia and the extraordinary cultural and societal changes that have made it possible. 

Rasha Al-Khamis is one of the women leading the way in Saudi sport. She served for more than five years on the board of directors of Alula Sports Club. She is ex vice-president of the board of directors at the Saudi Boxing Federation and currently sits on the board of directors at the Asian Boxing Co-federation. She spearheads the women committee at the Arab Boxing Federation. She holds 4 Guinness World Records and is the first female certified boxing coach from the Saudi Boxing Federation.

Rasha has +10 years in leading consulting firms in Riyadh. During this time, she specialised in designing and implementing dynamic strategies, business re-engineering, target operating models, performance management, and conducting in-depth cost analyses within the Sports, Culture, and Entertainment industries. Rasha’s experience also includes working at a design engineering firm in Los Angeles, where she played a pivotal role in the success of various LA-based metropolitan projects. 
 
 Rasha is a graduate of the University of Southern California, holding a Master’s in Public Policy and Management.

Saudi women's boxing star, Rasha Al-Khamis, talks to CMEC

CMEC Director talks to Cameron Hudson about the civil war raging in Sudan. Cameron Hudson is Senior Fellow in the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington, DC. He has served in a number of high level roles in think tanks, NGOs and with the UN and in the U.S. government specialising in Sudan and genocide. Cameron began his government career as an intelligence analyst in the Africa Directorate at the CIA.

Explaining Sudan's civil war with Cameron Hudson

Expert & insightful discussion on what happens next in post-Assad Syria

Con Coughlin & Prof. Lina Khatib discuss Syria at CMEC

Damien McElroy, the London Bureau Chief for The National newspaper, introduces the distinguished MENA expert Prof. Lina Khatib (Chatham House, SOAS, Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center) for a fascinating CMEC-hosted talk at the House of Lords about Lebanon, which is now under new political management. Important contributors to the discussion include H.E. Mr Rami Mortada, Lebanon's ambassador to the UK.

What happens next in this all-important Levant nation following years of chaos and trauma which have witnessed both the destruction of Hezbollah's military leadership, an incursion by Israel, a deep economic crisis, political turmoil and the devastating Beirut Port explosion? Can Lebanon recover from its omni-crises and what can its neighbours and the West do to help?

MENA expert Dr Lina Khatib talks about Lebanon to CMEC

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie talks to Tom Helm, Jerusalem Correspondent for The National Newspaper. Tom reports from his home in The Old City, in Jerusalem, about the current and growing Middle East omni-crisis with Israel attempting to knock out Iran's Uranium enrichment capacity and seemingly non-stop slaughter in Gaza. What happens if the US joins Israel's attack on Iran and what happens to Netanyahu at any eventual conclusion of the conflict?

Tom Helm reports from Jerusalem

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie hosts a discussion between two distinguished MENA experts, the soldier & scholar, Lt. Gen. Sir Simon Mayall, and Lebanese-British academic Professor Nader El-Bizri. The wide-ranging discussion covers #Lebanon and its relations with Syria, extremism, economics and how religion also acts as a key driver of identity. They also discuss the ongolng crisis and tragedy of #Gaza.

Lt Gen. Sir Simon Mayall & Professor Nader El-Bizri discuss Middle East

Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, former MENA Minister, gives CMEC members a private briefing on the "12-day war" strikes by Israel and the USA, against Iran in June 2025.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon gives a briefing on Israel-USA strikes on Iran

CMEC Special: The UK joins 149 other countries in recognising the state of Palestine. CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie attends a raising of the flag at the Palestinian Mission to mark this historic event. These edited highlights of the commemoration include excerpts from speeches by His Excellency Dr Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Ambassador, Hamish Falconer MP, minister for the Middle East and the Rt Hon. Kit Malthouse MP,  CMEC's Chairman. There are also interviews with Kit Malthouse MP,  the distinguished former diplomat Sir Vincent Fean KCVO, and Chris Doyle, Director of CAABU.

UK RECOGNITION OF PALESTINE

"The future of Christianity in a changing Israel" is the subject for  the first of 3 CMEC debates at the 2025 Conservative Party Conference. CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie introduces 4 distinguished speakers: Mr Ghanem Nusbeibeh, Chairman, Muslims Against Antisemitism; Maj. Gen. Jonathan Shaw CB CBE - former Assistant Chief of the General Staff; Jamie Eyre, CEO, Embrace the Middle East;  & - speaking remotely from her home in occupied East Jerusalem is the Palestinian Christian Mrs Hana Kirreh, consultant, researcher and peace activist .

CMEC at CPC25 Pt. 1: Future of Christianity in a Changing Israel

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie chairs a distinguished panel of experts and asks them how does the UK tackle the chronic under-reach of its soft power in the MENA region. The panel includes Omar Bdour, author and Founder & CEO, London Arabia; Tony Davis, boxing coach for the Bahrain national team; & Nicholas Hopton, Director-General of the Middle East Association and ex-ambassador to 4 MENA countries. 
From the UK's media & creative industries to London's global appeal, our ancient education establishments, famous military training schools, and our Royal Family, Britain really is great. No wonder so many in the region ask, "Why doesn't Britain assert itself more?"

CMEC  at CPC25 Pt.2 -  The under-reach of UK soft power in the MENA region

CMEC Chairman The Rt Hon. Kit Malthouse MP chairs a panel of distinguished experts examining the future of the Levant & its people. The panel  comprises Emir Majid Arslan, academic & leading member of the Lebanese Druze community; Prof. Lina Khatib, Associate Fellow of the Chatham House MENA programme; & Lt Gen. Sir Simon Mayall KBE CB, soldier, author & former MENA advisor to the Ministry of Defence.

CMEC AT CPC25 Pt.3: The future of the Levant & its people

CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie reports on Middle East current affairs from the 2025 Manama Dialogue and talks to Iain Lindsay OBE, former UK ambassador to Bahrain and now advisor to the country's prime minister Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa; Shayan Talabani, geopolitics analyst with the Tony Blair Institute; and Ibrahim Hamidi, Editor-in-Chief of Al Majalla magazine.

CMEC AT THE MANAMA DIALOGUE 2025

One year on from the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, CMEC Director Charlotte Leslie reports from the 2025 Doha Forum. She talks to Michael Lawrence OBE, Chief Executive of Asia House; Baria Alamudddin, respected commentator and journalist; Nicholas Hopton, Director General of The Middle East Association and former UK ambassador to Qatar, Iran, Libya and Yemen, and to Alicia Kearns, shadow Home Affairs minister and former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

CMEC at The Doha Forum 2025

In this podcast, former UK Middle East minister Alistair Burt discusses with HE Dr. Husam Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, Palestinian perspectives on the upcoming Israeli annexation of parts of the Occupied Territories.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers alone.

CMEC annexation series: Alistair Burt in conversation with HE Dr. Husam Zomlot

In this podcast, former UK Middle East minister Alistair Burt discusses with HE Mark Regev, Ambassador of the State of Israel to the UK, Israeli perspectives on the upcoming Israeli annexation of parts of the Occupied Territories.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers alone.

CMEC annexation series: Alistair Burt in conversation with HE Mark Regev

In this podcast, former UK Middle East minister Alistair Burt discusses with Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, UN perspectives on the upcoming Israeli annexation of parts of the Occupied Territories.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers alone.

CMEC annexation series: Alistair Burt in conversation with Nickolay Mladenov

In this podcast, former UK Middle East minister Alistair Burt concludes his series on the issue of annexation with historian and journalist Ian Black, author of many books on the Middle East, the most recent being the seminal 'Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017' which was published in 2017.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers alone.

CMEC annexation series: Alistair Burt in conversation with Ian Black

In an exclusive CMEC three-part series this week, former UK Defence Minister and Foreign Office Minister and Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee The Rt Hon Tobias Ellwood MP, speaks to the UK’s top defence experts about the imminent Strategic Defence and Security Review, and the UK’s future global role.  

1. The Global Picture: Tobias Ellwood in conversation with Professor Michael Clarke, Professor of Defence Studies and author of 'Tipping Point: Britain, Brexit and Security in the 2020s.'

Defence Series: Professor Michael Clarke in conversation with Tobias Ellwood

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