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Atlantic Council blogs provide short-form analyses from Council experts and a wider community of global voices on the world’s most important news stories.
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MENASource

Mar 4, 2015

Top News: Militants take over Libya’s Bahi, Mabrouk oilfields; Tripoli responds with airstrikes

By MENASource

Islamist militants took over Libya’s Bahi oil station and the Mabrouk oilfield on Tuesday when security forces guarding the installations were forced to retreat.

MENASource

Mar 4, 2015

Top News: Justice Minister Says Hamas Members in Egypt to Be Arrested, Assets Frozen

By EgyptSource

Hamas members will be arrested and their money and headquarters will be confiscated, Justice Minister Mahfouz Saber said Tuesday, after a court ruling branding the group a terrorist organization. Saber told state media that the government-run committee which has been involved in freezing assets of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood will start to do the […]

MENASource

Mar 4, 2015

Imaginary Obstacles to Democracy in Egypt

By MENASource

While the world accepts President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s rule in Egypt, the return and general acceptance of authoritarian tendencies—including a crackdown on human rights and political activists, the promulgation of repressive laws by decree, and the heavy-handed regulation of civil society organizations—has sparked questions surrounding the durability the state-centric culture and indefinite postponement of democracy.

North Africa
Mike Conaway

Trade in Action

Mar 4, 2015

TTIP Action | March 3

By Global Business & Economics Program

Speeches & Official Announcements Trade Pacts Will Strengthen Our National Security “Trade agreements will strengthen our national security because they demonstrate our commitment, support US values, and rebuild our credibility” The Committee on Ways and Means published an argument for why strengthening US trade ties would benefit national security and enhance American leadership. The more […]

Economy & Business Trade and tariffs

MENASource

Mar 4, 2015

EconSource: Egypt’s Cabinet Approves Long-Awaited Investment Law

By EconSource

Egypt’s cabinet approved a long-awaited draft law on investment, aimed at making deals less vulnerable to legal disputes or changes in government and reducing bureaucratic hurdles. The investment law aims to create a “one-stop shop” to make Egypt more attractive to foreign investors. It is also expected to protect investors from changes in the price […]

New Atlanticist

Mar 4, 2015

Kroenig: NATO Should Develop Credible Response to Russian Nuclear Strike

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Atlantic Council analyst says US, NATO lack adequate nuclear deterrence policy The United States and NATO lack an adequate nuclear deterrence policy even as Russia has put the nuclear option at the center of its national security strategy, according to Atlantic Council analyst Matthew Kroenig. “NATO should strengthen its nuclear declaratory policy and develop new, […]

National Security NATO

MENASource

Mar 3, 2015

The Illusions Surrounding the Concept of Democracy in Egypt

By Amr Hamzawy

A number of illusions have surrounded the concept of democracy in Egypt since the 1950s, placing democratic ideas under a kind of cognitive, moral, intellectual, and political “siege” that prevented them from taking root in Egyptian society.  These illusions are among the factors that have allowed authoritarianism to remain entrenched in Egypt for such a […]

North Africa

New Atlanticist

Mar 3, 2015

ISIL Affiliates, Foreign Fighters ‘Preeminent’ Concern, Allen Says

By Ashish Kumar Sen

US envoy says officials in West, Middle East, and Southeast Asia are worried about growing threat Officials in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia worry about the threat posed by affiliates of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and their potential to inspire foreign fighters, says retired Gen John Allen, the […]

MENASource

Mar 3, 2015

Top New: Court Orders Media Gag on Morsi’s Qatar Espionage Trial

By EgyptSource

An Egyptian court on Tuesday ordered that the trial session of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and ten others on charges of spying to Qatar be held as a closed session, citing national security concerns.

Former head of UK Secret Intelligence Service John Sawers, April 13, 2009

NATOSource

Mar 3, 2015

Former Chief of Intell Service: UK Needs More Defense Spending to Deal with New Threats

By BBC

Sir John Sawers, who recently retired after five years as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Russia poses a “state to state threat.”

Intelligence Russia