First Independent Mena Newspaper
When Susan Rice withdrew her name from the consideration for nomination for Secretary of State, she did so largely to save the White House from a costly political fight. Over the previous weeks, Senators John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Lindsay Graham had attacked her vigorously for not calling the attack on the US consulate in […]
As 2012 is drawing to a close, The North Africa Post deemed it timely to reflect upon some of the major events that happened over the past twelve months in North Africa, as the region is still at grips with the aftermath of the Arab Spring. In Morocco, the year began with the appointment, for […]
With the EU aiming to increasingly meet its energy needs from renewable sources – 30 per cent by 2020 and almost 100 per cent by 2050 – a great portion of this renewable power will have to come particularly from large-scale photovoltaic (PV) installations in sunny regions of the North Africa. But since the Maghreb […]
After decades of elusive quest for a common Arab economic space and EU-promoted trials with the fluky Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Agreement (EU-MFTA), the economies of the MENA region are facing the challenge of deciding whether to bury or revive the ‘frozen’ regional integration processes. Prior to the events of the Arab Spring, the MENA member […]
The upshots of the global financial crisis are long to list. In a catchy word, they are condensed in the phrase “shift to the East”. Driven by the increasing power and strength of emerging market economies, the timing and extent of the shift raise questions over what real objectives the new players are set to […]
The one persistent feature of Iranian foreign policy since the toppling of the Shah in 1979 was its rather grandiose optimism about its own ascendance to a hegemonic role in the Middle East. The ayatollah’s Islamic Republic never considered the revolution it had kidnapped to turn inward. Instead, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of […]
Failed states are considered as one of the most potent threats to international peace and security – soft security threats and risks in terms of organized crime, terrorism, illicit drug trafficking, illegal migration to money laundering, originating from failed and fragile states are the major security challenge in the post Cold War era. Failed and […]
The Middle East issue with its wars, crises, attempts, and death toll has been making the headlines for over 60 years, and last week in Marrakesh, the tragic stories of the Middle East were brought back to minds, if ever they can be forgotten, by the screening of the Attack by Lebanese Ziad Doueiri, during […]
In a brief conversation with a taxi driver who was taking me from Cartage international airport to down town Medina, I noticed glimpses of optimism in his speech. He said he was glad about the changes that took place in what he sometimes called “Modern Tunisia,” and some other times “post-revolutionary Tunisia.” “We have lived […]
The Arab revolutions of 2011 have brought into immediate focus the following question related to Turkey’s foreign policy: ‘Can Turkey’s economic and political model become a reference-point for the region’s post-autocratic societies, similar to the EU for east-central Europe after 1989?’. Indeed, many political observers see the revolutions in the Arab countries as a chance […]