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Created on Tuesday, 10 August 2010 18:01
By Afro-Middle East Centre
On the 22 July 2010, an African Union Summit in Kampala, Uganda, resolved to increase the number of troops that make up the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), in an effort militarily to defeat the Islamist Al-Shabab movement. The AU decision followed a twin bombing in Uganda's capital city on the 11 July 2010, during the final match of the Football World Cup, resulting in the deaths of scores of people. A day after the bombings, Al-Shabab had claimed responsibility. Just a few days earlier, the movement's leaders had threatened attacks in Uganda and Burundi, the two countries whose troops make up the AMISOM force.
The AU decision and the bomb blasts which precipitated it once again cast the Somali crisis forcefully into the global spotlight. It is clear that both events combine to create a Somali conjuncture that poses serious policy challenges to South Africa, the African Union and the African continent as a whole.
This paper will outline some of these challenges, propose a plan that effectively can deal with the Somali situation and begin the process towards building a new Somali state and Somali democracy.
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Created on Thursday, 05 August 2010 17:36
By Olivier Da Lage
We have to admit that there was a pre-AlJazeera era and a post-AlJazeera era. There is no doubt that the start of broadcasting in November 1996 by the Qatar-based Arab satellite channel has profoundly changed the media and political equation in the entire Middle East. Countless articles, many books, and research papers in many languages have been devoted to "the AlJazeera phenomenon".i
State broadcasting authorities and newspaper managers in the Middle East, international broadcasters elsewhere, and governments in the region and beyond had to rethink their policies, change the way they addressed their people and the people of their neighbouring countries. Competitors were forced to set themselves up with the aim of luring away AlJazeera viewers. Where this succeeded (e.g. with Al Arabiya), it was because these other broadcasters emulated AlJazeera's formula of field reporting, and tough questioning of political figures on live interviews. Those viewers who were attracted to other channels usually continued watching AlJazeera for the sake of comparison.
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Created on Friday, 16 July 2010 15:17
By Abd al-Jalil al-Marhoun
Seen through the prism of geopolitics, interactions related to security in the Arabian Gulf are - in principle - closely connected to the reality of more general regional security. This perspective can also be expanded to include the impact on the wider scope of regional and international policies.
There are eight countries that reside on the shores of the Arabian Gulf: the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman - and Iraq and Iran. Traditionally, the Gulf was divided into three zones: Iraq in the north, Iran in the west, and the six GCC countries (also known as the inland Gulf countries) in the east.
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Created on Friday, 09 July 2010 17:37
By Ramananda Sengupta
'We do have a defence relationship with India, which is no secret. On the other hand, what is a secret is what is the defence relationship. And with all due respect, the secret part of it will remain secret.' - Mark Sofer, Israel's ambassador to India, in a recent interview given to OutlookIndia.com.
India and Israel were born within months of each other. While the former became an independent state on the 15 August 1947, the latter was born on the 14 May 1948, following the decision of the United Nations to partition British Mandate Palestine.
India, which had opposed this partition, remained officially cold to the Jewish state. In May 1949, it voted (in vain) against the admission of Israel into the UN. In early 1950, after recognising the State of Israel, a visibly reluctant New Delhi allowed it to set up an "immigration office" in the port city of Mumbai. This eventually morphed into a "trade office" and then into a consulate. But New Delhi dithered over according full diplomatic recognition to Israel until early 1992, when the two nations formally opened their respective embassies in Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
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Created on Tuesday, 06 July 2010 14:32
By Juan Cole
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week in Toronto that, in the wake of the G20 conference, Turkey will no longer routinely give Israeli military aircraft permission to fly in Turkish airspace. The announcement came as Turkey forbade an Israeli military air-plane (taking officers on a visit to the sites of Nazi death camps for Jews in Poland) to fly over its territory. The Turkish press denies that the destination of the plane influenced the decision. Future Israeli military overflight permission will be granted on an ad hoc basis.
From the Guardian: 'Israel's Ynet news website reported that other military flights had also been quietly cancelled. "Turkey is continuing to downgrade its relations with Israel," an unnamed official told Ynet. "This is a long-term process and not something that began just after the flotilla incident. We are very concerned." '
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Created on Monday, 05 July 2010 18:24
By Lamin Andoni
Barack Obama, the US president, is pushing for direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. A resumption of direct talks would be his first "peace-making achievement" in the Middle East since he took office more than a-year-and-half ago. But, barring a surprise halt to Israeli settlement building in occupied East Jerusalem, the Palestinians will not hold direct talks with Israel. And even if the US were to succeed in bringing the two sides together, there will be no breakthrough as long as Israel remains unwilling to end its 43-year occupation.
The current stalemate in the "peace process" cannot be solved by a freeze - partial or total - on Jewish settlement building, and reflects the flaw at the core of the process, which focuses on Israeli security and demographic requirements rather than on ending the 43-year old Israeli occupation.
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Created on Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:58
By Fawaz A. Gerges 
Exactly a year ago, in June 2009, the then-recently installed American president, Barack Obama, made a landmark speech in Cairo symbolically to "reset" US relations with the Muslim world. He eloquently addressed critical challenges facing the US in the Muslim world and rhetorically offered a new paradigm, a new beginning, for managing relations between "America and Islam". The speech sent a clear message:
"I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
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Created on Wednesday, 02 June 2010 12:09
By Afro-Middle East Centre
On Tuesday, 1 June 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a ferocious speech in Turkey's parliament, condemning Israel for its attack on a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza, early on Monday 31 May 2010. Between 9 and 16 activists and aid workers - mostly Turkish - were killed in the raid in an act that has seen widespread international criticism for Israel's excessive use of force. South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) added its voice to a chorus of international condemnation for the acts leading to the deaths of civilians, issuing a demarche to the Israeli ambassador in South Africa.
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Created on Friday, 28 May 2010 16:15
By Mark Lynch
The Obama administration's new National Security Strategy has been released today. It goes a long way towards providing a coherent framework for American foreign policy and national security. The document explains what the administration has been doing and offers a roadmap to where it wants to go. The most interesting -- and strongest -- part of the NSS deals with the administration's new approach to al-Qaeda. The most problematic is the gap between its strong commitment to civil liberties and the rule of law and its practice thus far with regard to things like drone strikes.
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Created on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 11:50
By Ahmet Davutoglu
In May 2010, Turkey agreed to a groundbreaking 'uranium trade deal' with Iran. A closer examination of Turkey's foreign policy reveals how it is elevating its position among the society of states. In this article, Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, outlines the main methodological and opreational principles driving his government's foreign policy.
Davetoglu writes that there are three methodological and five operational principles driving Turkey's foreign policy.
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Created on Friday, 06 August 2010 13:35
By Sourav Roy
"Our production lines are running very smoothly and we are capable of producing an endless number of ballistic missiles," announced Brigadier General Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in a recent interview with the Iranian national news agency Fars. "We have made phenomenal progress in air defence capabilities and the current slew of sanctions means nothing more than a soft encouragement for us to acquire 'self-sufficiency'," he added.
Salami's comments clearly resonate with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's claims in February that Iran's enemies remained unsuccessful in their attempts to devise an interception system capable of breaching Iran's "impenetrable" missile shield. Iranian political and military top brass have repeatedly claimed flamboyant military accomplishments and technological advancements, only to maintain silence later on.
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Created on Monday, 26 July 2010 14:37
By Lamis Andoni
Four years after the end of the Lebanon war, the role of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which had been entrusted with keeping the peace between Israel and Lebanon, has been thrown into doubt amid intensifying threats of another war.
Both Israel and Hizbullah, the latter having been the main target of Israel's 2006 war, have stepped up their accusations against UNIFIL. Israel is again accusing the peacekeeping forces of failure in preventing, if not of collaborating with, Hizbullah in its replenishment of its military power in South Lebanon. Hizbullah, meanwhile, believes that "certain contingents" of UNIFIL are spying for, if not assisting, Israel.
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Created on Friday, 16 July 2010 14:09
By Abd al-Khaliq Faruq
For many years, Egypt has suffered from a complex political and social crisis, which has manifested itself in multiple forms: there have been continuous demonstrations, sits-in, more than 4,000 protests in the last two years alone, an economic crisis with spiralling effects, plus a crisis in political leadership and a lack of clarity regarding the future. Egypt has been subjected to a political process for the past 30 years or more which has often been characterised as either being paralytic or barren.
In the past ten years the crisis has deepened, thanks to a set of characteristics of the regime that has become clear to identify. First, there has been an open push for the son of President Hosni Mubarak, Gamal, to inherit the office of presidency in what can be dubbed a "Caesarian succession". This move has required amending the constitution in an attempt to obliterate any real chance that any other presidential hopeful would be able to engage in a fair competition with the president's son. This situation has also led to the annulment of the essence of Clause 88 of the Constitution, which requires complete and total judicial supervision of the electoral process.
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Created on Tuesday, 06 July 2010 14:54
By Lamis Andoni
On the eve of the 26 June 2010, an important meeting between US President Barack Obama and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was held in Toronto where the two sides exchanged soft - but poignant - warnings. Philip Gordon, the US Assistant Secretary of European and Eurasian affairs, challenged Turkey to prove that it remains "committed to NATO, Europe and the United States", while Erdogan questioned whether the US was "supporting Turkey adequately in its battle against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)". The statements were the strongest public indication of emerging mutual distrust between the two allies since the crisis over an Israeli attack on a Turkish ship, which was part of the recent Gaza-bound aid flotilla, and Turkey's vote against imposing further sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council.
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Created on Monday, 05 July 2010 18:35
By Fawaz A. Gerges
In an important and alarming report to the United Nations Security Council early July, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that an increase in tensions between Lebanon and Israel could lead to a new war with potentially devastating consequences for the entire region.
The UN chief cited dozens of instances when the two antagonists - Israel and Hizbullah - almost broke out into war, and accused them of violating the 2006 ceasefire resolution that ended the 34-day July war in 2006. While Hizbullah continued to maintain "a substantial military capacity", Ban said, Israel continued to violate the ceasefire by conducting daily flights over Lebanon, and refused to withdraw from the disputed border village of Ghajar.
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Created on Thursday, 24 June 2010 15:11
By Najam Abbas
The Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan was recently gripped by bloody violence that resulted in an estimated 2,000 deaths; several thousand people were wounded, several thousand more were turned into refugees, and several hundred houses were burnt during the violence. The fighting seemed to have been between clans, involved criminals, and, eventually, pitted ethnic communities against each other in the southern towns of Osh and Jalalabad close to the borders with neighbouring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A number of factors combined to play their part in aggravating the situation to such a level. This article will trace the roots of the friction, examine the consequences of the current flare-up, and will look at the possible course of action for the future of Kyrgyzstan, its political leadership, neighbouring states and regional powers.
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Created on Thursday, 03 June 2010 20:18
By Ashwin Pienaar
On Thursday 3 June 2010, South Africa announced it would be recalling its ambassador to Israel, following the latter's raid on a flotilla of ships carrying aid to Gaza. The incident, which took place in international waters early on Monday, 31 May 2010, left nine activists dead and over 30 wounded.
In a media conference held in Pretoria on Thursday 3 June, South Africa's Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ebrahim Ebrahim, announced that, "the recall of Ambassador Ismail Coovadia is to show our strongest condemnation of the attack. This recent Israeli aggression of attacking the aid flotilla severely impacts on finding a lasting solution to the problems of the region. The South African government also joins the international community in its call for the siege of Gaza to be immediately lifted." Ebrahim added that the siege had brought "untold hardships" to the ordinary people of Gaza, making their lives "nightmarish".
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Created on Monday, 31 May 2010 19:07
By Bashir M. Nafi'
On Sunday, 19 May 2010, the Turkish city, Istanbul, hosted a Tripartite Summit which brought together Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and Qatar's ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Before convening the summit, Mr. Erdogan held separate meetings with both Arab leaders. The holding of the summit came after a short period of planning and preparations of only a few weeks. According to some media sources, several regional issues - including Iran's nuclear ambitions and the situation in Iraq - were addressed at the summit. The brief final statement was articulated in what has come to be known as the "Istanbul Agreement", which expressed support for the Iraqi people's right to decide their political choices in their national election. The statement also expressed the support of both al-Asad and al-Thani for the Turkish stance regarding Iran's nuclear program.
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Created on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 15:49
By Thabo Mbeki (Speech) and AME C
This article was excerpted with permission from President Thabo Mbeki's speech at the Al-Jazeera Forum in Doha on May 24, 2010.
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Created on Tuesday, 25 May 2010 18:19
By International Crisis Group
Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) must engage dissidents among the country's insurgent groups in order to strengthen its authority and combat al-Qaeda inspired extremists.
'Somalia's Divided Islamists', the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, reviews the religious, ideological and clan rifts that have developed between the country's main Islamist factions since the election of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as leader of the TFG. It concludes that the government must reach out to elements of Harakat Al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (the Mujahideen Youth Movement) that are disenchanted with the influence of foreign jihadis in the group and the al-Qaeda sympathies among its leadership. It also suggests that many in the Somali nationalist Hizb al-Islam (Islamic Party) could be more receptive to TFG overtures.
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