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MENASource

Nov 18, 2014

Top News: Tunisia’s Parties Endorse Candidates as Presidential Poll Looms

By MENASource

Last Sunday political party Afek Tounes announced that it would be backing candidate Beji Caid Essebsi in the presidential elections. On Wednesday, al-Aman party announced it would be backing Ahmed Nejib Chebbi’s candidacy, whose party only received one seat in the country’s legislative elections.

MENASource

Nov 18, 2014

Top News: Government Ready for Tough Response to Salafi Front “Islamic Uprising”

By EgyptSource

Any threat to police facilities “will be met with force and if necessary with live rounds,” ministry of interior spokesman Hany Abdel Latif said in an interview on Sunday.

MENASource

Nov 18, 2014

EconSource: Egypt Spent $3 Billion on Fuel Subsidies in the First Quarter

By EconSource

Egypt spent EGP 22 billion ($3.08 billion) on fuel subsidies in the first quarter of the new fiscal year. According to the oil ministry this reflects a reduction by 29 percent from the same quarter a year ago. As part of efforts to revive the economy Egypt’s government has introduced deep subsidy cuts. In July […]

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

Civil Society’s Fundamental Role in Egypt

By Amr Hamzawy

Executive authorities in countries around the world clamp down on civil society organizations when they wish to delude citizens about what’s really going on in society.  These authorities find it particularly convenient to suppress civil society when seeking to ensure silence about the ways in which the rule of law is being violated and rights […]

North Africa

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

What’s Next for Tunisia’s Foreign Policy?

By Alexander Nisetich

Tunisia’s interim government will soon step down, to be replaced by a president and legislature that will serve for the next five years. While the incoming government is not yet complete, its policies will differ significantly from the departing interim authorities, and the contrast may be sharpest in foreign policy.

North Africa

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

Top News: ISIS Executes US Aid Worker and Eighteen Soldiers

By MENASource

ISIS militants released a chilling videotape on Sunday showing they had beheaded a fifth Western hostage, an American aid worker the group had threatened to kill in retaliation for airstrikes carried out by the United States in Iraq and Syria. President Obama on Sunday confirmed the death of the aid worker, Peter Kassig, a former […]

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

Top News: Five al-Azhar Students Sent to Military Court; HRW Condemns Expansion of Military Trials

By EgyptSource

Egypt’s prosecution referred on Sunday five al-Azhar University students to a military court on charges of attacking a vital state institution, after the Cairo Criminal Court announced that it lacks sufficient jurisdiction to rule in the case.

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

What’s Happening with US Military Aid to Egypt, Part II: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Foreign Military Financing for Egypt

By Amy Hawthorne

Appropriations laws, which fund US federal government operations and programs such as foreign assistance, are byzantine documents to be sure.  But they matter a lot in US-Egypt ties because of the central role that aid, especially military aid, plays in the relationship.  The 2014 appropriations law includes democracy conditions on Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for […]

North Africa

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

EconSource: Yemen’s Inflation Hits One-Year High

By EconSource

According to released official data, Yemen’s annual inflation rate reached its one-year high of 10 percent in August, while central bank reserves fell further in September. The frequent bombings of oil pipelines have hurt oil revenues and the central bank’s gross foreign asset reserves fell to $5.1 billion in September. Crude oil exports, accounting together […]

MENASource

Nov 17, 2014

Moving from Words to Action in Syria

By Frederic C. Hof

In his Brisbane, Australia press conference at the end of the G20 summit, President Barack Obama sought, through a simple rhetorical expedient, to put an end to rumors that the United States would collaborate with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as […]

Syria