Category: Blogs

Southern Gas Corridor: Godot Finally Comes?

By David Koranyi

If all goes well, by the end of this month the multinational Shah Deniz Consortium will select the European leg of a grand pipeline project known as the Southern Gas Corridor to ship Caspian gas to Europe.

Top News: Syria Rebels Say They Have Lost Battle for Qusayr

Syrian forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies seized control of the border town of Qusayr on Wednesday after a rapid overnight offensive, dealing a strategic defeat to rebel fighters.

An Argument for Military Voting

By H.A. Hellyer

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) of Egypt certainly does not leave any legal specialist in a state of boredom for very long. In most countries, the highest court in the land is hardly the topic of conversation in public discourse, except on rare occasions. Egypt’s SCC, however, breaks that mould quite regularly, issuing statements and […]

Syria: Hezbollah’s Military Intervention

By Frederic C. Hof

The loss of the strategic town of Qusayr by Syrian rebels clearly demonstrates that the presence of Hezbollah fighters inside Syria is a life preserver of sorts for a regime badly in need of one. That Bashar al-Assad can use the help is beyond question. Yet the wisdom of this intervention is very much in […]

Top News: US, Germany, and Rights Groups Slam Egypt’s NGO Trial

US Secretary of State John Kerry voiced concern Tuesday about the sentences handed down by a Cairo court on 43 Egyptian and foreign NGO workers, denouncing it as a "politically-motivated" trial. 

Lebanon inches toward disaster

By Rajan Menon

It has been Lebanon’s unenviable fate to be the playground for the deadly games of its more powerful and rivalrous neighbors. What has made Lebanon particularly vulnerable to the fears and ambitions of adjacent states—or in the case of Iran, those aligned with them—is the effect outsiders’ machinations have had on the delicate balance among […]

NGO Verdict Revives Calls for Reevaluating US Assistance to Egypt

By Nancy Messieh

After a lengthy year-and-a-half long trial, Egypt’s court sentenced forty-three Egyptians, Americans, and other foreign nationals to up to five years in prison. The trial, infamously known in local Egyptian media as the ‘Foreign Funding Trial,’ has come to a distressing end and is yet another test for US-Egypt relations, as well as a foreboding […]

Obama to Announce Susan Rice as His New National Security Advisor

By Mark Landler, New York Times

From Mark Landler, New York Times:  In a major shakeup of President Obama’s foreign-policy inner circle, Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, is resigning and will be replaced by Susan E. Rice

Russia Has to React if Sweden and Finland Join NATO – Medvedev

By RT

From RT:  Russia cannot see NATO expansion towards its borders as positive, as under certain circumstances the possibility of military confrontation remains, the Russian PM has said at the Euro-Arctic Council’s forum.