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The Turkish government has ordered the transfer of billions of dollars in state assets to a sovereign wealth fund, in a huge shake-up of holdings aimed at financing ambitious infrastructure projects championed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.The assets being transferred to the sovereign wealth fund range from wholly state-owned Ziraat Bank, the government's minority shareholding in flag carrier Turkish Airlines, as well as smaller firms like the state tea-making company.Ozgur Altug, economist at BGC Capital in Istanbul, said in a note to clients he estimated the value of the transferred assets to be $33 billion and the wealth fund would enjoy the dividends rather than the budget.

When the fund was founded in August, the state-run Anadolu news agency said it would be used to finance "mega projects" such as the planned Istanbul shipping canal and a new three-level tunnel under the Bosphorus.

But the plan did not meet universal approval, with the spokeswoman of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Selin Sayek Boke calling it a "palace mortgage fund" in reference to Erdogan's presidential complex.CHP MP Faik Oztrak meanwhile compared it to the excesses of 19th century Ottoman bureaucracy.

Like other Gulf states, Oman does not grant citizens freedom of expression or the right to choose their leader, but it does provide citizens a range of material advantages: public sector jobs, subsidies, free health care and education, a free plot of land, a pension and no income tax.

Oman’s public debt has skyrocketed since oil prices declined in 2014, going from less than 5% of Oman's gross domestic product to nearly 60% last year. Until 2023, annual budgets were already expected to be in the red. But the 2020 fiscal deficit is expected to be four times higher than previously forecasted because of the double shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and plunging oil prices, credit rating agency Fitch estimated.

the cash-strapped Omani government is expected to cut down on public expenditures and impose austerity measures. But such a move would revamp the model of governance that has prevailed since the late Qaboos bin Said ascended to the throne in 1970

The civilian wing of the Sudanese state is bankrupt but unwilling to confront powerful generals, who control a sprawling network of companies and keep the central bank and the Ministry of Finance on life support to gain political power

Chronic shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation have come to define the life of ordinary Sudanese. In villages and towns that rely on gasoline pumps – such as Port Sudan – the taps have often run dry, forcing people to queue to buy barrels of water.

Western countries and international institutions have let the civilian wing of the government down: they failed to provide the financial and political support that would allow Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to hold his own against the generals

Saudi Arabia’s history with WWE, like much of its frenetic investment in sports and entertainment over the past few years, is a study in how little diplomacy is needed when you control one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in history. Using their Public Investment Fund, valued at more than $776 billion, the Saudis have effectively bought some of the world’s most loyal fan bases, bent opponents to their will and wildly shifted the economics of international sports.

In the sports world, overcoming a reputation as a global pariah — condemned by human rights organizations for alleged war atrocities and its links to the 9/11 hijackers, the imprisonment of activists and the Khashoggi assassination — has been as simple for Saudi Arabia as advancing claims of innocence or autonomy.

The Saudi Pro League has become the default destination for aging soccer legends seeking unprecedented paydays, including Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly is paid roughly $220 million per year to play for Al Nassr. Lionel Messi turned down a similar bounty in favor of playing in the United States. But he still agreed to promote Saudi Arabia for a reported $25 million under a contract that mandates he is not permitted to make any remarks that “tarnish” the kingdom.

The Avant TV video, released on social media five days after protests erupted in Iran, which have thus far spread to dozens of cities and almost every province, carefully stitches together an emotional array of interviews of people unhappy with the economic situation and President Hassan Rouhani’s policies. With scarce public information available about Avant TV, and with the great pains its producers have taken to present it as an independent station, the video is intended to appear to be transparent, a true representation of the will of the Iranian people. Glaringly absent from the video are any criticism of the political establishment as a whole, which has been one of the main themes of the current demonstrations. Avant TV is in fact not independent at all. Al-Monitor has not been able to contact it, but two pro-regime media producers confirmed that it is only the latest example of a new media outlet backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seeking to reinforce the narrative of the supreme leader above the politics of Iran.

Avant TV stems from the media wars at the heart of political factionalism both inside and outside Iran

The tactic that producers developed was to move away from content solely made for state television — which potential audiences almost automatically consider regime propaganda — to creating small production studios that develop content not easily identifiable as pro-regime. These ad hoc production studios receive funding from the IRGC and the government's cultural budget, but they remain small and unidentifiable on purpose.

In the final days of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, Kram was among the neighborhoods where groups of disenfranchised youth took to the street calling for jobs, freedom and national dignity. A decade later, its streets filled once again with youth protesting police violence in January 2021.

the nation’s civic consciousness hasn’t dissipated, as many people have bemoaned, “but until it’s translated into a political movement capable of entering the Tunisian political scene, it won’t lead to any substantial change.”

Kram has three candidates running to represent it. By contrast, in Sherifa’s home district of La Goulette — the wealthiest municipality in the country, containing sea ports, airports and the capital’s main business district — there is only one: the former Member of Parliament Hichem Hosni.The same is true in 10 other districts in the country, six of which are in the capital. The seat is already allocated because only one candidate is running. The phenomenon is partly a result of political apathy and partly by design. In September, Saied rewrote the country’s electoral law in what he said was a bid to level the playing field by moving away from a party list-of-candidates system and instead focusing on individual candidates. In order to stand in the election, a candidate had to collect 400 signatures notarized by the municipality — a method that should in theory have shortened the distance between voters and candidates, but in practice only increased it.

The tacit contract that has defined the North African country since its independence in 1956 is the ‘bread’ provision - mostly subsidies - in return for political deference. With modest resources, Tunisia has historically funded subsidies of strategic commodities - bread, sugar, tea, coffee, kerosene - and education, health, housing in some cases, and even recreational activities, such as sport. The National Solidarity Fund and the National Employment Fund, still under centralised control, have had some successes. They have partly shifted the burden of providence from the state to society. Tunisians dug into their pockets to volunteer what little of their non-disposable income they have to the cause of poverty alleviation, and improvements of the so-called ‘shadow zones’ (bidon-villes), the misery belt suffocating the rich towns and suburbs. But even this system of quid pro quo bread and political deference has failed many Tunisians, leaving many hopeless and jobless.

The state is a control-freak to the point that it disallows the existence of any hint of an informal economy. There is one in Italy - even in America - but not in Tunisia. If the state is partly failing in its provision of jobs, then it is unwise to ban informal trade and work. A youth empowered by education but disempowered by marginalization can be the spark that ignites social upheaval and social tension. In Tunisia, marginalization is today being translated into irrational and tragic suicides.

the notion of ‘total state’ and ‘total politics’ may not be apt for successful social engineering and re-distribution. Total control can translate into loss of control.

Tunisia has secured greater press freedom than many of the Arab Spring countries, but local journalists told CPJ that with elections slated for this year, challenges including funding, transparency, and government pressure remain

Despite a ban on foreign funding, many of the independent journalists who spoke with CPJ said they believe Gulf money is secretly pouring in to campaigns, although they often lack the means to expose it. Businessmen and politicians are also using privately owned media companies and the government is harnessing public broadcasters to further their political agendas.

Journalists speak privately of money from the United Arab Emirates flowing to establishment politicians and funds from Qatar to Islamists but there is little published evidence of this.

Until recently, there was little practical knowledge about what it meant for an academic to analyze the military activities of the Gulf states because there wasn’t much to study, other than some symbolic joint training exercises, sociological inquiry about the composition of the region’s armed forces, and limited Emirati participation in non-combat operations in places like Kosovo. The bulk of scholarship examined the Gulf in the context of petrodollar recycling (the exchange of the Gulf’s surplus oil capital for expensive Western military equipment) or the Gulf as the object of military intervention, but never as its agent.

Academic research is not espionage—but many parties (notably US and European governments) are implicated in the process that has allowed them to be conflated

The history of the United States and European states undermining regional governments—including its only democratically-elected ones—using covert agents posing as scholars, bureaucrats and businessmen is well-documented. Its legacy is clear in the region’s contemporary politics, where authoritarians and reactionary nationalists frequently paint democratic opposition forces as foreign agents and provocateurs. It’s also visible in the political staying power of religious conservatives, who were actively supported by the US and its allies in order to undermine leftist forces that threatened to nationalize oil fields and expropriate Western corporate property.

the major issues that have dominated the first year of Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah’s leadership and the prospects for Kuwaiti politics, which is once again in a state of ferment with no clear resolution in sight

Sheikh Sabah’s time as ruler was marked by an initial period of political deadlock that saw six parliamentary elections and more than a dozen cabinets come and go between 2006 and 2013, and then a calmer spell that culminated in the election of the National Assembly in November 2016, which became the first in nearly 20 years to serve its full four-year term.

relations between the government and the National Assembly have deteriorated in recent months to the point that, now, there is barely a working relationship at all

The earthquake ravaged an already suffering population. Syrians lost family members, homes, livelihoods, the little sense of stability they may have had amid the continuing war. Over the past year, the number of Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance has surged from 15.3 million to 16.7 million, the highest since the start of hostilities about 13 years ago. And yet, the greater need has not been met with adequate funding; to the contrary, contributions have dwindled.

A staggering 90 percent of households struggled to cover essential needs, leaving families to make tough decisions for their children.

There’s almost no mental health support available for young people, despite almost 70 percent of children struggling with sadness, according to a survey by Save the Children. Around one-third of Syrian households have children showing signs of mental distress, the UN reported.

the continuing costs of inflation since the revolution of January 2011

the current government is only a transitional body and that according to constitutional bylaws, it is not allowed to make any crucial decisions that have direct effects on consumers and the country’s economy. Zarouk went on to explain that the decision will harm consumers; The cost of household consumption has already increased by 5.9% between January 2012 and January 2013. Fuel is also vital to various segments of the economy, averaging 13% of general production costs in areas such as clothes and food. It also accounts for 50% to 60% of total expenses in the production of cement and bricks, which represent an important element of the country’s economy. “So it [the rise in fuels prices] harms such sectors,” he said. “And they are crucial in our economy.”

savings rates are insignificant in Tunisia – 17% – and decreasing, according to Zarouk. “People can no longer afford to save,”

Judge Makram Awad gave five-year sentences in absentia to at least 15 U.S. citizens who left Egypt last year. He sentenced an American who stayed behind to two years in prison, and gave the same sentence to a German woman.

The Egyptian investigation focused on charges that the groups were operating without necessary approvals and had received funds from abroad illegally. Eleven Egyptians who faced lesser charges were handed one-year suspended sentences.

Egypt was run at the time by a military council that assumed power from deposed President Hosni Mubarak. Although the case is a legacy of that era, analysts say it further darkens prospects for an open society after the Islamist-led administration drew up a new NGO law seen as a threat to democracy.

one top Saudi official admitted to me, “We misled you.” He explained that Saudi support for Islamic extremism started in the early 1960s as a counter to Nasserism—the socialist political ideology that came out of the thinking of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser—which threatened Saudi Arabia and led to war between the two countries along the Yemen border. This tactic allowed them to successfully contain Nasserism, and the Saudis concluded that Islamism could be a powerful tool with broader utility.

their support for extremism was a way of resisting the Soviet Union, often in cooperation with the United States, in places like Afghanistan in the 1980s

Later it was deployed against Iranian-supported Shiite movements in the geopolitical competition between the two countries.

The security logic seems to suggest that one cannot be sure that a researcher working on Islamic endowments in the 15th century isn’t really a spy — he might be looking for maps of Siwa, Halayib and Shalatin, the Yaghbub Oasis, or Tiran and Sanafir. Since we have border disputes with all our neighbors, not only can you not copy maps related to any border issue, you can’t conduct research on any topic vaguely connected to borders.

The security logic doesn’t stop at maps and borders. It casts suspicion on every topic. An Egyptian colleague working on Mamluk history was denied a research permit. An American colleague was denied a permit for a project on the history of private presses in the 19th century. A student of mine studies the history of the Labor Corps during World War I; his permit was also rejected

The official’s response (I paraphrase) was:Here’s someone studying the history of irrigation, and we have a dispute with Ethiopia over the Nile waters. We have no doubt that this student is honest and isn’t a spy, but how can we be sure that his thesis won’t fall into malicious hands, that it won’t contain information that could harm us — for example, info about Ethiopia’s right to the Nile waters? Such details could damage our negotiating position. Of course, we know employees at the National Archives are sincere patriots, and the same is true of most professors and students doing research there, but we have considerations that no one understands but us.

The British government has admitted it funded training that taught Bahraini police how to "command and control" demonstrators, after its denials were exposed by a human rights group.Rights organisations warn that the UK’s support for the Bahraini police force, which is frequently accused of abuses and using excessive force to quell peaceful pro-democracy protests, risks "helping arrest and execute people who are guilty of nothing more than calling for reform."

internet freedom program focused on Iran is called the Near East Regional Democracy (NERD). Bureaucrats have all the fun. 

when pressed, the head of the officers’ delegation became red-faced with anger. Apparently, laying the groundwork for more open and just politics did not include human rights organizations, good-governance groups, environmentalists, private associations that provide aid to people in need, or other NGOs.

in Egypt, employees of NGOs have become virtual enemies of the state. In keeping with its reputation as the lone Arab Spring “success story,” Tunisia has created a more welcoming environment for these groups, but even there, the ability of NGOs to carry out their work can be constrained given that a state of emergency and other laws place restrictions on the right to assemble

the relentless pressure Middle Eastern governments have long applied to NGOs. Leaders in the region do not do well with ideas like “self-organizing,” “relatively autonomous from the state,” and the creation of associations and “solidarities” — and it is hard, without justifying repression, not to see why. Civil society groups have the potential to help people with common interests overcome the considerable obstacles to collective action that many Middle Eastern governments have put in place and, in the process, give greater voice to people’s grievances.

the takeover today by a government-affiliated body of one of the last remaining pro-Kurdish national dailies

Istanbul police in the early hours broke into a building in Beyoğlu district that houses Özgürlükçü Demokrasi and its printer, Gün Printing House. Police told the daily's legal team that Saving Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), a government-controlled insurer and fund manager, had taken over the newspaper and its printing house, but did not provide further explanation, according to the reports.