First Independent Mena Newspaper
In 2010, Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) accounted for approximately 68 billion USD, as compared to 2001, when China invested only 911 million USD overseas. The rapid increase in FDI between 2001 and 2010 was also facilitated by China’s ‘going global policy’ of 2002 that promoted competition for the share in global markets and natural […]
The war in Syria is well into its third year, while the number of casualties has sky-rocketed, though, of course, nobody can say for sure how many lives the war has really claimed. Hezbollah, Iran and Russia have all heavily invested in the survival of the Syrian regime. Having thus turned the tide of the […]
The National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) report ‘Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds’ has outlined three global trajectories, or development in the interactions among world’s states, during the next 15-20 years. Under the ‘Reverse Engines’ scenario, mercantilism and protectionism could lead economic globalization to go into reverse, constraining technological breakthroughs required to manage scarce global resources. The […]
While the French newspaper Le Figaro was reporting lengthily on the arrest of an opponent to the wedding for everyone, a 23 years old student “still dressed in his hooded Manif for everyone sweatshirt”, the daily missed the 2 millions people who were marching against Monsanto. And so did almost all other French Medias. Commonly […]
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 […]
The popular uprisings and political turmoil rocking the region of North Africa and the Middle-East since 2011 have dealt a hard blow to the sector of tourism that suffered losses going up to $ 15 billion, according to Arab Tourism Organization (ATO). At a meeting held lately in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), ATO president Bandar Al-Fuhaid […]
While Syria is tumbling deeper into the abyss with the participation of Lebanese Hezbollah in the fierce combats waged by the Syrian army to drive back the rebels and seize the strategic city of Qousseir, the international community seems time pressured to find a solution to this conflict in which over 94,000 persons have reportedly […]
Empirical studies show that the international monetary system is already tripolar. The Chinese currency, the renmimbi, has increasingly become a reference currency, as one which exhibits a high degree of co-movements with other currencies. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the renmimbi has accelerated its standing as the East-Asia exchange rate reference currency […]
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, […]
Ever since the Syrian uprising began, the West has quietly been rooting for the opposition. And while the opposition has made some progress in chipping territory away from regime control, the conflict is far from over. Having passed the two-year anniversary, the conflict is now putting the West in a difficult dilemma. After years of […]