Category: Blogs

Content

MENASource

May 28, 2015

Rare Acquittal Renews Protest Law Debate

By Khaled Dawoud

The dozens of lawyers crammed in a small room at Abdin’s Courthouse on May 23 were unable to contain their shock when the judge ruled to acquit all seventeen defendants charged with holding an illegal protest on January 24. The defendants, accused of breaking Egypt’s restrictive protest law, were facing up to five years in […]

North Africa

MENASource

May 28, 2015

Top News: Airstrikes Kill At Least Eighty in Deadliest Bombings of Yemen War

By MENASource

Saudi-led airstrikes killed at least eighty people near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia and in the capital Sana’a on Wednesday, residents said, the deadliest day of bombing in over two months of war in Yemen.

MENASource

May 28, 2015

Top News: Parliament Before End of 2015, Sisi Tells Political Party Heads

By EgyptSource

After a three-hour meeting with the heads of the country’s mainstream political parties Wednesday, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed that the long-delayed parliamentary elections will be held at the nearest possible time and that Egypt will have a new parliament before the end of 2015.

MENASource

May 28, 2015

EconSource: Even with Billions in Gulf Aid, Egypt May Still Turn to IMF

By EconSource

Egypt’s on-and-off talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be back on again, as investors say IMF loans offer a stronger platform for reviving the Egyptian economy than the Gulf money currently keeping it afloat.

MENASource

May 28, 2015

Lebanonizing Yemen May Save It

By Nabeel Khoury

The Lebanese governance system, known as the National Pact of 1943, consists of a power-sharing formula based on a sectarian quota system, an agreement to forgo regional affiliations in favor of a Lebanon-first policy, and a pledge to seek consensus on any decision of national import.

Yemen

UkraineAlert

May 28, 2015

Russia’s Secret Funerals

By Melinda Haring

Sgt. Leonid Kichatkin of the Russian 76th Airborne Division and Russian soldier Anton Tumanov died in August 2014 while fighting in eastern Ukraine. Their deaths amply demonstrate that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine is false.

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 27, 2015

Putin Celebrates Stalinism. Again.

By Stephen Blank

Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 10 once again justified the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as a statesmanlike act of defending Russia’s national interests. This time Putin did so with German Chancellor Angela Merkel next to him. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—the 1939 deal that split Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany—was a death warrant for […]

Russia Ukraine

MENASource

May 27, 2015

Top News: Turkey Begins Training of Moderate Syrian Rebels with United States

By MENASource

Turkey and the United States have started training moderate Syrian rebels on Turkish territory to prepare them to fight the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL), the Turkish Foreign Minister said Tuesday.

MENASource

May 27, 2015

The New Old Wafd

By Nervana Mahmoud

Egypt’s oldest nationalist party, the Wafd Party, is facing a deep and challenging internal conflict. Despite intervention by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a new internal election, and a formal announcement that the crisis is over, the party’s internal problems are unlikely to heal soon. 

North Africa

MENASource

May 27, 2015

EconSource: Iraq About to Flood Oil Market in New Front of OPEC Price War

By EconSource

Iraq plans to boost crude oil exports by about 26 percent to a record 3.75 million barrels per day (bpd) next month, according to shipping programs, signaling an escalation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) strategy to undercut US shale drillers in the current market rout.

Load More