President of Yemen is rejecting the offer from Gulf Cooperation Council nations, led by Qatar, to sponsor mediation over political transition in the country. “We derive our power and legitimacy from the people of Yemen,” he said, as thousands of supporters and opponents gathered in capital Sanaa.
The Israeli President met with American politicians in Washington over the political crisis in the Arab World. But he expressed optimism over the wave of political change.
SHANGHAI — North Korea has long been an important link in East Asia’s organized criminal networks. But recent reports suggest that, as the collapse of the country’s planned economy continues, the scale of these activities may be expanding and the dynamics behind them changing. While Chinese, South Korean and other Asian criminal networks have historically been active in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), traditionally the North Korean government was also a major participant in illegal activities. It is known to have been engaged in narcotics production and trafficking, people trafficking and currency forgery. However, as the country’s planned […]
One of the worst-case scenarios looming over the West and moderate Muslims in Arab countries is that extremist groups could hijack the current wave of pro-democracy revolutions or otherwise take advantage of the unrest to expand their footprints and strengthen their operational capabilities. Nowhere are those fears better-founded than in Yemen, where conditions have for years made the country a prime candidate to succeed Afghanistan as a base of operations for al-Qaida. While an outcome that benefits al-Qaida is far from assured, there are strong reasons to believe this is a plausible scenario and clear factors that would make such […]
Turkey’s evolving response to the Libyan crisis is just the “latest indication of its goal to be a power broker on the world stage,” the Associated Press reported earlier this week. Henri Barkey, a visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the Turkish government has “always thought that in the past, the Turks have punched well below their weight.” “Now, with the Turkish economy doing very well, as the 16th-largest economy in the world . . . Turkey is much more able to play an international role, especially in the Caucusus and […]
The last-minute postponement on April 2 of Nigeria’s parliamentary elections raises the stakes in an already tense election cycle that will also decide whether President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta region, will stay in power for the next four years. The decision by Nigeria’s election commission to push voting back by a week because key election materials had not been properly distributed was met by support, from both Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party and the leading opposition party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, according to this Bloomberg News report. However, questions remain about the extent to […]
Many Western observers hope that India’s growth as a global power will both balance China’s rise and ensure that rise remains peaceful. Indeed, the U.S. has identified India as a crucial partner for the coming century, and as part of its effort to cultivate a strategic partnership with New Delhi, Washington has even pledged to help India develop its nuclear energy capabilities. But the continued disappearance of India’s women and girls described in preliminary census figures released last week is putting the future of India’s security partnership with the West at risk. According to the census figures, the sex ratio […]
On Sunday, Guido Westerwelle announced his resignation as German vice chancellor and leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government. Endless disputes had already bogged down Merkel’s second administration even before it stumbled in its response to Japan’s tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis and its vote on the U.N. resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Last week, however, the bill came due, and the coalition was trounced in two crucial state elections. Since then, with the FDP in open revolt, the coalition government has been in utter chaos, and the fate of its […]
On April 4, 2011, Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced the preliminary results of the presidential elections held the previous day. As expected, incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev won re-election by a wide margin, garnering 95.5 percent of the votes cast. The CEC will announce the final results in a few days, but these are not expected to change the outcome. Despite noting significant irregularities, most of the international observation teams confirmed the outcome’s validity. China, Russia, the United States and many other governments have already congratulated Nazarbayev on his victory. But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) […]
The announcement this week that the United States is effectively pulling its longtime support for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in favor of political transition in Yemen have spawned a fresh wave of reports about the threat of al-Qaida in the country. The country’s political tumult has prompted many Yemeni military troops to abandon their posts, while others have been summoned to the capital, according to the New York Times, which reports that the resulting power vacuum is being filled by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The extent and true nature of the al-Qaida threat in Yemen, however, continue to […]
Fierce fighting has turned Ivory Coast’s main city into a ghost town as a final showdown looms between presidential rivals. Inhabitants of Abidjan are terrified to leave their homes. The first evacuations of foreigners have begun. With peacekeepers in its former colony, France is helping secure the safety of its nationals.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to carry on with a trip to Latin America even as he was launching a military campaign in Libya is a testament to that region’s rising global profile. In Brazil, Peru and Colombia, pragmatic new leaders are attempting to lock in the domestic gains of their predecessors. Others are stumbling, with Mexico still seized by a bloody fight with drug trafficking and the leaders of Ecuador and Bolivia facing a loss of popular support. In this special report, World Politics Review examines the emerging shape of Latin America through articles published in the past six […]