First Independent Mena Newspaper
Despite the call by the UN Secretary General Antonio Gueteres for the need to maintain the flow of commercial traffic between Morocco and its southern neighbors unhindered, the Polisario obstinately harasses and blocks the movement of Moroccan trucks in the buffer strip of Guerguarat. The Polisario is thus blatantly violating the 1991 ceasefire agreement, which […]
Leading international papers commented on Morocco’s readmission to the African Union after 33 years of absence as a landmark diplomatic victory reflecting the north African Kingdom’s growing economic and political clout in the continent. Morocco whose bid to reintegrate the African Union was endorsed by 39 of the 54 AU member countries is officially a […]
Many security pundits have repeatedly warned that the political unrest, the eroding security situation and the flourishing weapons, human and drug trafficking in the Sahel/Sahara region have made of the area a terrorism breeding ground, an exploding powder keg, or what some have called ‘an arc of instability.’ The warning has just been echoed in […]
North and West Africa are facing a complex set of challenges in terms of democratic transition and consolidation, a growing prominence of Islamist influence, and potential knock-on effects of recent socio-political transformations. Adding to this complexity is Africa’s raising geopolitical importance that is evident in the growing interest of other extra-territorial powers, such as China, […]
The January 14 ouster of Ben Ali’s regime in Tunisia set off a wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East, the most significant change in more than thirty years. The last time the Middle East saw such monumental shifts was in 1979, when the ouster of the Shah in Iran, the Soviet invasion of […]
When the French troops launched a military operation in Mali on 11 January, the official places in Paris declared that it was aiming at stopping the advance of Islamists from their bases in the north of the country to its southern part. In this context, analysts have pondered possible reasons that lead to the invasion, […]
Gallia Lindenstrauss and Iftah Celniker Croatia’s expected entry into the European Union as its 28th member in July 2013 is yet another reminder that Turkey, who started formal accession talks at the same time as Croatia, is still in line waiting. Along with Turkey, other actors in the Western Balkans are aspiring to become member […]
Long before the advent of the Arab Spring, the region was boiling as people in most of the countries of the region were denied basic social and economic rights: Unhealthy housing, below standards education, inaccessible health care, ramping unemployment etc. However hard the situation was, people seemed accommodating with their daily hardships, thanking God for […]
It has been more than a year since Muammar Gaddafi died during the Battle of Sirte, his home town, thus symbolically bringing Libya’s 42-year-long nightmare to its end. Since then, Libya has experienced a relatively speedy transition from Gaddafi’s brutal dictatorial regime to a fledgling democracy when it held, in July 2012, its first free […]
Arab Spring means we’re not losing our religion at least. But at what cost? Martin Jay argues that political upheaval by citizens rather than institutions is paving the way for terrorist groups to take route across the Arab World. There used to be an old Woody Allen gag which parodied two old women in a […]