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MENASource

Jan 16, 2015

Factbox: Gearing up for Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections

By EgyptSource

Egyptians will head to the polls for the sixth time in the past four years, casting their ballots in the second parliamentary elections since the 2011 ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak. When will the vote take place? What kind of parliament can expect to be elected? What campaigning rules do candidates have to abide […]

Elections North Africa

MENASource

Jan 16, 2015

As Charlie Hebdo Ups Print Run, Egypt to Ban Foreign Publications Insulting Religion

By Joel Gulhane

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab was handed the power to outlaw the distribution of foreign publications in Egypt, as per a decree issued by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday. The order allows Mahlab to ban publications deemed “offensive to religion or publications promoting erotica in a way that can disturb the public peace.” At the time […]

North Africa
FSA rebels cleaning their AK47s, Oct. 19, 2012

NATOSource

Jan 16, 2015

US To Send 400 Trainers and Hundreds More Troops to Train Syrian Rebels

By Gordon Lubold, Defense One

The Pentagon will deploy more than 400 U.S. military trainers and hundreds more supporting personnel to four training sites in three countries as early as March as part of a long-awaited plan to help rebel forces to stabilize Syria.

Saudi Arabia Syria

MENASource

Jan 16, 2015

Top News: EU Parliament Calls on Egypt to Release Political Detainees; Egypt Hits Back

By EgyptSource

The European Parliament has called on Egypt “to release immediately with no condition” all political detainees, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In a statement issued on Wednesday the European Parliament expressed its concerns about the “restrictions” imposed in Egypt on fundamental human rights, citing concerns about freedom of expression, the right to assembly, restrictions […]

MENASource

Jan 16, 2015

Top News: US Will Send 400 Troops to Train Mainstream Syrian Opposition

By MENASource

The US military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL), along with hundreds of US support personnel.

UkraineAlert

Jan 16, 2015

Ukraine’s Dignified Warrior: Nadiya Savchenko Confronts the Kremlin

By Irena Chalupa

Paratrooper, Pilot, Parliamentarian, She Pressures Moscow with Hunger Strike in Prison In seven months since a Russian-backed militia in southeastern Ukraine captured Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian paratrooper and pilot has become one of her country’s biggest icons in its war against the Russian invasion. Her captors spirited her illegally into Russia, held her in isolation, […]

Russia Ukraine

MENASource

Jan 16, 2015

EconSource: Libya Central Bank Seeks Cuts to Plug $19 Billion Budget Gap

By EconSource

Libya’s central bank has proposed reducing the country’s diplomatic missions abroad and halting foreign scholarships and other state allowances to plug the country’s budget deficit, estimated at $19 billion. It also wants to suspend family and child allowances while reviewing international medical treatments funded by the state. The bank has tried to stay out of […]

FutureSource

Jan 16, 2015

The Rise of ‘Social Machines’

By Peter Haynes

Increasingly, Computer Systems May Harness Us and Our Data to Machines, Often Without Our Knowledge. How Should We Regulate That? Back in 1999, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, envisioned a time when computers would be used “to create abstract social machines on the Web: processes in which the people do the creative […]

New Atlanticist

Jan 16, 2015

Dungan: Will Belgian, French Violence Tilt Europe’s Balance of Security and Liberties?

By New Atlanticist

Atlantic Council Analyst Says Debate on the Continent Is Revived Today’s arrests and gun-battles in Belgium, as police intervened to prevent what they said were Islamist terrorist attacks in the making, underscore that last week’s Islamist violence in Paris may signal what Atlantic Council analyst Barry Pavel then called “a new normal.”

France Western Europe

MENASource

Jan 15, 2015

The Temptation of the Lesser Evil in Syria

By Marcel Kurpershoek

Marcel Kurpershoek served as the Netherlands’ Special Envoy to Syria from August 2013 through December 2014. Ambassador Kurpershoek is a well-respected Dutch Arabist, and was ambassador for the Netherlands in Poland, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also served as a diplomat in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Before leaving his post as envoy, Kurpershoek delivered remarks […]

Syria