Category: Blogs

South Africa’s Bizarro-World Foreign Policy

By J. Peter Pham

Last year, when it was first reported that South Africa’s ruling liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), would receive funding from the Chinese Communist Party for its new Policy School and Political Institute in Venterskroon, I and several other scholars—including Patrick Heller of Brown University and retired Ambassador David Shinn of George Washington University—drew […]

Tunisia Needs Entrepreneurs

By Mohsin Khan and Hanane Lahnaoui

The lack of jobs was one of the most important factors in creating the conditions for the uprising in January 2011 in Tunisia that launched the so-called Arab Spring. In the decade 2000-2010, with the economy growing at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent, overall unemployment averaged nearly 14 percent and youth unemployment hovered […]

In Greece, It’s Splitsville for Syriza

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Greek voters will line up behind Alexis Tsipras in next election, says Atlantic Council’s Fran Burwell Greek voters will rally behind Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who lost part of his Syriza party August 21 after he was forced by creditors to abandon his anti-austerity stance, says the Atlantic Council’s Fran Burwell. “My guess is that […]

Top News: Israeli Air Raids On Syria Kill Five People

By MENASource

Syrian state television reported Friday that Israel’s air force carried out a drone strike in the village of Kom in southern Syria’s Quneitera province killing five people. One soldier was killed and seven others wounded in a separate Israeli air raid overnight.

Top News: HEC Approves Foreign, Local Organizations to Monitor Parliamentary Elections

By EgyptSource

Khalid Sultan, head of the Solidarity Ministry’s Central Administration of NGOs, said that forty-five NGOs received approvals to monitor the parliamentary elections after they fulfilled conditions set by the ministry.

EconSource: Tunisia to Adopt Investment Code in Early October

By EconSource

Tunisia’s House of People’s Representatives (HPR) will adopt a set of economic bills at the beginning of October, Minister of Communication Technology and Digital Economy Noomen Fehri said, including an investment code.

Selling the Iran Deal

By Owen Daniels

Four arguments the Obama administration will use to win over Congress With lawmakers a little over a month into the sixty-day congressional review period for the Iran nuclear agreement or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), US President Barack Obama’s administration is racing to secure votes of approval from undecided congressmen. The President has already […]

Syria: Kicking the Can Down the Road

By Frederic C. Hof

The United Nations Security Council authorized a statement by the Council’s president on August 17 endorsing a new search process for a negotiated political settlement in Syria. “Syrian parties” would be invited to attend “more focused consultations and discussions” in “four thematic working groups.”

A Powerful Case for Swedish Membership in NATO

By Tomas Bertelman, Johan Molander, and Sven-Olof Peterson

This image of a Russia encircled by hostile forces, including an aggressive and growing NATO and European Union, was created to legitimize the regime’s actions.

Ukraine Steps Up Efforts to Recover Stolen Assets Abroad

Two Kyiv-based women—a lawyer who heads a state agency created to reclaim stolen assets abroad and a social activist-turned-politician who’s made a career out of exposing official corruption—spoke August 20 in Washington about their efforts to clean up Ukraine. Olena Tyshchenko is director of the Agency for Asset Recovery at Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. […]