authoritarianism in MENA

The ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, has rejected complaints of poor governance and failing to crackdown on attacks on liquor stores and art exhibits by hardline Salafists. Instead, it has blamed Tunisian news media, secular elites and elements of the old government for its decreasing popularity.

Islamists in both Tunisia and Egypt have overplayed their electoral victories and underestimated the secular opposition they face

“If Ennahda designates one of its hawks, there will be a conflict with the secular parties,” Labyed said. “At that moment the atmosphere would be very tense and could move to the streets.”

The inquiry at hand focuses on larger narratives that have managed to discourage uprisings from happening in the first place. It focuses on aspects of the country's spatiality that are usually accorded little attention - large, pervasive, and enveloping initiatives that are seen to improve the old and bring about the new - aspects which are often overlooked either because they are thought of in positive terms, even by local Moroccans, or because they are so gargantuan in scale, literally spanning the entire country in some instances, that academic analysis often finds it difficult to relate them to more localized and isolated events. It is the ambition here to at least shed some light on these larger, perhaps banal, aspects of Morocco’s physical environment, where, upon examination, the state's spatial tactics are found to be most evident and most effective

The inquiry at hand focuses on larger narratives that have managed to discourage uprisings from happening in the first place. It focuses on aspects of the country's spatiality that are usually accorded little attention - large, pervasive, and enveloping initiatives that are seen to improve the old and bring about the new - aspects which are often overlooked either because they are thought of in positive terms, even by local Moroccans, or because they are so gargantuan in scale, literally spanning the entire country in some instances, that academic analysis often finds it difficult to relate them to more localized and isolated events. It is the ambition here to at least shed some light on these larger, perhaps banal, aspects of Morocco’s physical environment, where, upon examination, the state's spatial tactics are found to be most evident and most effective

This perceived link is capitalized upon by the Moroccan monarchy; it employs, in sync with the country’s landscape of indigenous architecture, an elaborate system of state rituals and ceremonies, traditional fashion choices, titles and honors, among other strategies, all in order to preserve a constructed image in which the monarchy is not only inseparable from the nation’s Islamic heritage, but also from the very historical foundations of Morocco

a sticking point remains the attribution of the key posts of interior, justice and foreign ministers -- portfolios which the government's opponents want to go to independents

"We are going to enter the phase of forming a new government that will be for all Tunisian men and women, taking into account the fact that men and women have equal rights and responsibilities," he said.

Extremely adverse labour market conditions lead many youth to give up the job search altogether or to decide to postpone it and continue their stay in the education system. According to the ILO's 'Global Employment Trends for Youth 2012', the crisis induced withdrawal from the labour force amounts to 6.4 million young people worldwide.

Adjusting the youth unemployment rate to account for reduced labour force participation can be obtained by comparing pre-crisis trends in youth labour force participation and the ILO’s estimates of the economically active population. In the figure below, such a comparison is made for each region in 2011, and separately for young men and women.

The London School of Economics and Political Science abruptly canceled an academic conference on the Arab Spring it planned to hold over the weekend at the American University of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, citing "restrictions imposed on the intellectual content of the event that threatened academic freedom."

cancellation took place after Emirati authorities requested that a presentation on the neighboring kingdom of Bahrain—where a protest movement was harshly repressed with the support of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates—be dropped from the program

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a scholar on Arab politics at the London School of Economics who was scheduled to give the presentation, was stopped and briefly detained on Friday at the Dubai airport's passport control. A security official told him he was on a blacklist and not allowed to enter the country

Yemen's ousted autocratic leader Ali Abdullah Saleh pleaded for "forgiveness of the past" on Wednesday amid warnings of U.N. sanctions and calls for prosecution of those responsible for the deaths of protesters during the 2011 uprising.

With Saleh pictures and flags, tens of thousands of Saleh supporters gathered near the presidential palace, chanting "the people want Ali Abdullah Saleh." Saleh arrived in an entourage similar to the presidential convoy while a top Saleh party politician, Sultan al-Barakani, addressed the crowd by saying, "welcome the brother, the leader."

Saleh, who stepped down in 2012 as part of power transfer deal that gave him immunity from prosecution in return, appeared to be attempting to show that he still has the support of the masses, after the United Nations Security Council threatened to impose sanctions on him for allegedly trying to impede the country's democratic transition.

On Wednesday, Mr. Khalil canceled a higher-education conference that was to launch the new online publication because of concerns about academic freedom in the United Arab Emirates, where the event was to be held this weekend. That step came less than a week after a similar move by the London School of Economics and Political Science, which canceled a conference it had planned in Dubai after Emirati authorities requested that a presentation on Bahrain, which is facing political upheaval, be dropped from the program. A scholar on Arab politics from the London institution who was to speak at the event was briefly detained at the Dubai airport and barred from entering the country

"We can't talk about upholding academic freedom and launch in Dubai. I don't think it sends the right message."

Al Fanar will start as planned on March 3. It is the first major project of the Alexandria Trust, the charity Mr. Khalil founded in 2012 to improve education in the Middle East and North Africa