Syria has called on its Russian ally to expand in the Middle East, by expanding its small pier in the city of Tartus and turning it into a base
Armed police surround Townhouse building despite authorities' intervention | Mada Masr - 0 views
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Art in Egypt's Revolutionary Square | Middle East Research and Information Project - 0 views
www.merip.org/...rt-egypts-revolutionary-square
egypt revolution art literature film cairo street graffiti
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This article discusses the way the revolutionary uprisings from January 25th have shaped the art community. It focuses not just on street art (which is used as an act of defiance), but also on film, literature (mainly non-fiction works, but poetry as well). Lindsey discusses how the uprisings have shaped all of the art forms that "demonstrate a support for the uprising through cultural activism."
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Syria warns against foreign intervention - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
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This is a response by several groups about Obamas adress regarding the attacks on ISIS within Syria. Damascus and the Assad regime and the Coalition of Syria are fighting for control of Syria and are at odds with the Presidents words. Also a Russian minister accused these proposed atatcks of being "an act of agression" and would violate international law. Yes, because Russia ALWAYS abides by international law
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Syria keen on Russian expansion in Middle East - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views
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This has coincided with Saudi Arabia leading a coalition against Ansar Allah in Yemen, with a cover by the United States
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meeting with a group of Russian journalists March 27, and in response to a question on Damascus’ desire to see a wider Russian activity in the Middle East, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he certainly welcomes “any expansion of Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, precisely on the Syrian shores and ports.
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Assad said: “The Russian presence in different parts of the world, including the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus, is very necessary, in order to create a sort of balance, which the world has lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.
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Syrian president welcomed the Russian presence in his country and the region. “For us, the stronger this presence is in our region, the better it is for stability [in the region], because Russia is assuming an important role in world stability,”
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Syrian nod is only a repetition of a former call made under the rule of late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who saw that the presence of a Russian military representation in Syria in the Mediterranean region contributes to the promotion of the idea of “the balance of terror” against Israel and the United States
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The talk was, however, halted, until the last two years, when an actual need to promote Russian presence in the Mediterranean emerged in light of the reignition of the Cold War.
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deployment of missile systems on the Mediterranean coast, as a sort of “symbolic deterrence.” The rumors were repeated as the NATO missile defense project was announced, which was supposed to be deployed in different countries, including Turkey and other countries bordering Russia
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e US invasion of Iraq, as the US desire to change the face of the Middle East seemed free of any rational considerations. Assad made several visits to Moscow, and although this has not been publicly mentioned, Syrian diplomats and officials stressed to As-Safir that Syria expressed its desire to expand the Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly through Tartus, so that it turns into a military presence with limited standards
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, Russia and Syria signed the biggest deal of its kind to explore oil in the Syrian waters, which covers a 2,190 square-kilometer surface area, and to achieve economic ambitions, namely extracting 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 8.5 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, the oil and gas magazine said back then
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“any decision to modernize the infrastructure of the Russian Material-Technical Support Point in Tartus can only be made after a political decision is taken in this regard, in coordination with the Syrian side.” He explained that any modernization should “take into account the political and military situation in the Mediterranean region,” and therefore “it will include the promotion of all sorts of protection in the facility, including surface-to-air missiles and anti-riots weapons, and will be in coordination with the Syrian side.”
Tehran's Boots on the Ground - 0 views
The Syrian refugee crisis: New research on a problem of historic proportions - 0 views
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Putin brings China into Middle East strategy - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views
www.al-monitor.com/...-consequences-middle-east.html
putin china middle east syria strategy politics
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one of China’s main strategic regional projects was the economic region (or belt) of the 21st century Great Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, which intends to create a wide area of Chinese economic presence from China’s western borders to Europe
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Chinese leader opened the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum on June 5 in Beijing
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energy cooperation; infrastructure construction and creation of favorable conditions for trade and investment; and high-tech domains of nuclear energy, the space rocket sector and new energy sources
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suggested that the creation of a free trade zone between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) be accelerated
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China supports the peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, "enjoying full sovereignty."
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, why shouldn’t Russia and China in the current situation — given the proximity of their interests and positions — undertake joint initiatives to unblock the peace process, while initiating steps to "introduce this activity within an institutional framework?
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, the unilateral efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not bearing fruit
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Russia is interested in using this unprecedented convergence with China in its operations on the Middle East arena, where Moscow has in many ways already been acting in unison with Beijing
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, the Middle East Quartet is one of few international platforms where Russia can constructively engage with the United States and the EU
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China's growing economic cooperation with Arab countries not a cause for concern in Moscow, but it is also viewed in a very favorable light
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will not one day replace the United States as the security guarantor for the transportation routes of these resources
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Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests converge in the joint countering of terrorism, extremism and separatism
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. Among the militants from radical groups fighting against government troops in Syria, there are people hailing not only from Russia and Central Asia (fewer in numbers to those coming from Arab and Islamic as well as Western countries), but also from the Uighur minority in China.
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recently, Beijing came under harsh criticism from Ankara for its actions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region against the Uighur population, which the Turks believe to be their next of kin
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. Disappointed by the failure of EU accession, the Turkish leadership has even started talking about the desire to join the SCO as an observer
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Ankara expresses its willingness to cooperate with China in the fight against terrorists and condemns the separatism coming from some groups in Xinjiang
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There is no doubt that a comprehensive strategic partnership, in which Russia and China would act in concert along the political consensus reached by their two leaders, would in the short term
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According to both, this convergence is neither a union nor a tournament of predators, but a very pragmatic integrationist instrument of protection and projection of interests by the two powers, including in the Middle East.
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roughly 50 agreements ushering in a period of unprecedented convergence between the two countries
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Such consensus includes Syria, despite Beijing’s lesser involvement on this issue, relative to Moscow; Iran, within the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program; the fight against terrorism and extremism; the creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free Middle East; the condemnation of external intervention and the strategy of "regime change" as well as the push for "color revolutions;" the policy to reach a settlement in the Middle East; and relations with the new Egyptian regime and with respect to the Sudanese issues.
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Everything you need to know about the drone debate, in one FAQ - The Washington Post - 0 views
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"drone" has come to refer to unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), which are UAVs equipped with combat capabilities, most commonly the ability to launch missiles.
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Predators were deployed to Afghanistan almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and on Oct. 7, 2001 they conducted their first armed mission there.
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The current program is jointly administered by the CIA and the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC).
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Predator drones can carry up to two Hellfire missiles. Those have warheads of about 20 pounds, which are designed to pierce tank armor;
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Reapers are another story. They feature a maximum payload of 3,000 pounds, or 1.5 tons. That means they can carry a combination of Hellfires and larger 500 pound bombs like the GBU-12 Paveway II and GBD-38 JDAM. Those have an "effective casualty radius" of about 200 feet.
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From 2008 through October 2012, there were 1,015 strikes in Afghanistan, 48 in Iraq, and at least 105 in Libya
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Primarily al-Qaeda and its affiliates. That includes al-Shaabab in Somalia, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (which works in Yemen), and the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born al-Qaeda operative in Yemen, was killed in a drone strike in 2011, as was his American-born 17-year-old son
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The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) will prepare lists of potential targets, which will be reviewed every three months by a panel of intelligence analysts and military officials. They are then passed along to a panel at the National Security Council, currently helmed by CIA director nominee Brennan, and then to Obama for final approval.
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There is, however, substantial evidence that the percentage of casualties borne by civilians is much lower with drone strikes than with just about any other kind of military intervention
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It derives the authority for the strikes from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in the wake of 9/11, which grants the government broad powers against al-Qaeda.
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Critics, like UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions Christof Heyns, say that this defense is a stretch, and the killings plainly run afoul of the laws of war and international human rights treaties.
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Only the United States and the United Kingdom (which assists in the Pakistan drone effort) currently use drones in combat
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there are deeper doubts as to whether the strategy is recruiting more militants than it kills, by turning local populations against the United States.
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Timeline: What's Happened Since Egypt's Revolution? | Egypt in Crisis | FRONTLINE | PBS - 0 views
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This article lays out what has happened in Egypt since the 2001 revolution. Starting from when Mubarak stepped down, the article gives a timeline of significant events up until September 12th of 2013. It highlights events such as Morsi being voted into presidency in 2012, The first draft of the constitution on Nov. 29th 2012, when protestors return to Tahrir Square on Jan. 25 2013, to when Sisi warns Mubarak of military intervention, to when Morsi is removed from office, to when Supreme Court Chief Justice Adly Mansour is chosen by Sisi to step in as Egypt's interim president, etc.
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Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views
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It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
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the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
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Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
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In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
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Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
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he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
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The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
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Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
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tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
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The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
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He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
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Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
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the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
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In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
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In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
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The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
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Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
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Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
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Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
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Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
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So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
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The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
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General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
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the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
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Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
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Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
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threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
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The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
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And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
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ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
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On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
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have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
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Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
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If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
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Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
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the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
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July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
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In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
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Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
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opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
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Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
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In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
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G.O.P. Senators' Letter to Iran About Nuclear Deal Angers White House - 1 views
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Open letter sent from Republican members of congress to Islamic Republic of Iran about nuclear deal said to be "an unprecedented violation of the tradition of leaving politics at the water's edge." Republicans said that by styling it as an "open letter," it was related to a statement, not an overt intervention in the talks.
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Why is Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen? - CNN.com - 0 views
www.cnn.com/...saudi-arabia-offensive-why-now
Yemen Saudi Arabia military intervention Houthi Rebellion
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Syria: The story of the conflict - BBC News - 0 views
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It has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect,
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both sides of the conflict have committed war crimes - including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances.
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A further 6.5 million people, 50% of them children, are believed to be internally displaced within Syria,
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Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support,
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rise of radical Islamist militia in rebel ranks and the arrival of Sunni jihadists from across the world has led to a marked cooling of international and regional backing.
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This article delves into the issues of war crimes, chemical weapons, humanitarian issues, and the rise if islamist groups interventions
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This website offers eight steps to understanding the Syrian conflict. The sections include: uprising turns violent, descent into civil war, war crimes, chemical weapons, humanitarian crisis, Syrian refugees in the region, rebels and the rise of the jihadists, peace efforts, & proxy war
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More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State.
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How long can Saudi Arabia afford Yemen war? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 14 views
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long history of political animosity; this is a history that continues until our present day.
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Yemen's treasury was burdened by the costs of unification such as paying for southern civil servants to move to the new capital, Sanaa, and paying interest on its massive debt. On top of its other economic challenges, Yemen was to absorb the shock of 800,000 returnees and their pressure on the already weak job market. With their return, the estimated $350 million a month in remittances
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Civil war broke out in the summer of 1994 in what could be interpreted as a symptom of economic failure.
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By 1995 the Yemeni government implemented a program of macroeconomic adjustment and structural reforms with support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and reduced spending on defense and civil service and cut subsidies. The Yemeni economy started showing signs of recovery and stability.
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Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, wrote in 2012 that “fiscal sustainability will be an issue” for Gulf Cooperation Council countries. In its 2012 regional economic outlook, the IMF recommended to “curtail current expenditures while protecting the poor” as a response to the risk of declining oil prices.
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Policies to cut spending were unlikely to be introduced in a monarchy like Saudi Arabia, especially after the Arab Spring, where tax-paying citizens along with non-tax-paying Bahrainis and next-door Yemenis went out on the streets to claim their rights in shaping the policies that govern their daily lives. The risk of people demanding more political rights was growing and cutting spending was not the optimal strategy for the kingdom.
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As the kingdom continued its generous fiscal policy by providing more benefits to its citizens in response to the people’s dissatisfaction with the economic and political situation, it ran a deficit of 3.4% of GDP in 2014 due to a fall in oil revenues.
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The kingdom's economic reforms of raising gas and diesel prices, cutting fuel subsidies in half and supporting the introduction of a GCC-wide value-added tax might ease the pressure of sustaining a war for nine months and perhaps longer. These structural reforms were long overdue and their introduction at this time is revealing.
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CIG pg. 120 -> "We live in a world with many layers of linkages between countries. Nations will exchange goods and services through trade and will engage in cross-border investments from bank loans to setting up businesses. Each of these linkages can serve as a transmission mechanism in a time of crisis."
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the political inclusion of the taxpaying citizen. It's a price the kingdom is now willing to pay, as we have seen Saudi women not only
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and suffered an uprising fueled by anger at economic failure. The Saudi economy is trying to absorb
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As they introduce revenue-collecting mechanisms, they should also reform mechanisms of capital transfer to the public to minimize the gap between the rich and the poor, as it is known that the poor are the most affected by tighter revenue-collecting policies. Otherwise, the Saudi war on Yemen will mark the beginning of an economic downturn that will surely spill over onto its political system in the long run.
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"So the young revolutionaries fight on, until all their demands are met and they are free to build their State: a state founded on social justice and equality between all citizens where Saleh's reign is just a page in the history books." pg 129
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CIG pg. 116 -> "Globalization, in the shape of freer trade and multinational investments, has been generally a force for good and economic prosperity. But it has also advanced, rather than harmed, social agendas"
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But it became apparent that Saleh was not going to leave me to my own devices. He declared war in mid-1994, occupying the South and defeating the Socialist Party. Everything was finished, or so I believed. Its property stolen by the regime, the paper shut down, and once more I found myself broken, defeated and without hope. Worse, I was a known employee of the Socialist Party through my work at the paper. In the region where I lived agents for the regime had been hunting down and detaining anyone who had belonged to the Socialist Party or getting them fired from their jobs. Although I had not been a party member myself, just worked at a party newspaper, the regime made no distinction. My mother intervened, however, and hid me. She wouldn't let me out of the house. My mother always protects me. (2013-12-31). Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution: Voices from Tunis to Damascus (p. 115). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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Civil War: in 1994 Jamal currently in high school, describes the times as a world, when the color of his skin would define him. The Civil War, "interpreted as a symptom of economic failure", was evident in the reading when Jamal described the lack of jobs as a college graduate, members of the socialist party were completely shut out when Saleh took the presidency, depriving hard workers the ability to integrate into the economy.
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This paragraph, while not highlighted, is important to the idea of globalization and why the war is not stopping. There is a flow of revenue from these oil prices that Yemen is reliant on, but they are also competing with countries that produce higher amounts of oil. This would have happened during the time Sanaa was in College writing scathing articles
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Putin says his Syrian campaign shows that Russia cannot be isolated - 0 views
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Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted on Thursday that the West has failed to isolate Russia, especially in light of the latter's military intervention in Syria, independent news agency Interfax reported. "To begin with they were talking about the need to isolate Russia, ever since the now well-known events in Crimea," Putin said at a media forum in St.
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