Atlantic Council blogs

Top News: Egypt Pardons 100, Including Al Jazeera Journalists, Activists Sanaa Seif and Yara Sallam

By EgyptSource

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced on Wednesday the pardoning of 100 prisoners, including Al Jazeera’s television journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, and prominent activists, Sanaa Seif and Yara Sallam, who were charged with violating the protest law.

Will the European Union’s Plan to Distribute Migrants Hurt Europe?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

European ministers on September 22 approved a plan that would force EU member states to take in their share of 120,000 migrants, a majority of whom are fleeing the war in Syria. In an unusual break from procedure, which emphasizes consensus on issues of national sovereignty, the ministers decided the issue on the basis of […]

Mr. Xi Comes to Washington: High Stakes, Low Expectations

By Romain Warnault

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington on September 25 will take place in a much tenser atmosphere than that which prevailed a little under a year ago when US President Barack Obama visited China. Indeed, the US-China relationship has become much more volatile over the past year. Recent cyber espionage scandals, the devaluation […]

Creating ‘A Piece of America’ in the Carpathian Mountains

Camp America, located at a charmingly rustic resort in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains, welcomed twenty young Ukrainians for a week in August. For most of them, Camp America—a 24/7 English-language environment where all activities are conducted in English—was their first experience with native English speakers. “I like to tell our students that there are three international […]

Ukraine’s President Poroshenko Says Staying Out of NATO Alliance was a ‘Criminal’ Mistake

By Efrem Lukatsky, AP

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday told the country’s security council that staying out of the NATO alliance was a “criminal” policy that his government is ready to reverse….

Top News: Fifty People Killed in Saudi-Led Coalition Airstrikes

By MENASource

Airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition killed fifty people in Yemen when they hit a Houthi-held security compound and a house in Sana’a in an escalating campaign that has claimed increasing civilian lives. The bombing campaign coincides with the Saudi announcement that Houthi forces are holding two of its soldiers.

Top News: HRW Condemns Egypt’s Sinai Campaign; Cabinet Says Egypt Complied With International Law

By EgyptSource

The Egyptian government’s destruction of thousands of buildings in the Rafah border area to “counter the threat of smuggling tunnels was likely disproportionate,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in an 84-page report released Tuesday.

Russian Involvement in Syria is Part of Larger Kremlin Strategy to Project Power in Europe and the Middle East

By Stephen Blank

Predictably, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria surprised the West. While it seems we’ve now figured out Putin’s objectives there, how they fit into Russia’s larger strategy still remains obscure. But we must begin to address that larger strategy even if the analysis remains incomplete. Besides sustaining Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as long as […]

EconSource: Tunisian Government, Labor Union Sign Deal on Public Worker Wage Hike

By EconSource

Tunisia’s government and the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) signed an agreement on Tuesday to increase the wages of 800,000 public sector workers for the second time this year after weeks of negotiations.

Western Media Must Fight Russia’s Lethal Propaganda More Aggressively

By Halya Coynash

Three months after unknown assassins gunned down Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov outside the Kremlin, his daughter called for sanctions against those running Russia’s propaganda machine. Zhanna Nemtsova compared the dangerous rhetoric of state-controlled Russian media to the hateful radio broadcasts that precipitated Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Her appeal was widely reported, as had been her […]