Middle East & North Africa Archive

UN observers suspended their mission to Syria on Saturday, blaming intensifying violence as troops rained shells down on rebel bastions including Homs, where the opposition warned a massacre was imminent. World News Videos by NewsLook

China has taken an atypically strong stand in opposing efforts to force the Syrian government to end its brutal repression of anti-regime protesters. But China, unlike Russia, with which it has joined to block measures seeking to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from office, is motivated primarily by principles rather than concrete strategic and economic interests in Syria. And China, unlike Russia, seems more open to changing its position. For the past two decades, Chinese leaders have typically opposed foreign military interventions seeking regime change. The Chinese government has traditionally sought to keep United Nations resolutions precisely worded to tightly […]

For the revolutionaries who launched the Egyptian uprising, and for voters anxious about their country’s future, the final hours leading up to this weekend’s runoff presidential election in Egypt have become a contest of fears. The euphoria of revolution, that feeling that anything was possible, has been replaced by a searing pressure: the need to decide which is the worse of two bad options. The first round of voting left Egyptians with the choice of Mohammed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ahmed Shafiq, a former general who played an important role in the regime that revolutionaries sought […]

Yemens Defense Minister made a visit to Zinjibar a day after the Yemeni army retakes the city from al Qaeda-linked militants. World News Videos by NewsLook

Egypt and Libya are working to establish a joint venture to allow fishing in Libyan waters following a bilateral meeting in Cairo last month. In an email interview, Izzat Feidi, a fisheries consultant, discussed regional cooperation on fishing issues in North Africa. WPR: How strong is intraregional cooperation within North Africa on fisheries issues, and what are the main points of conflict? Izzat Feidi: Before the Arab Spring, intraregional cooperation among the six countries of North Africa faced several political and economic problems, mostly on a bilateral basis. Fisheries did not comprise a major point of conflict, though, beyond mainly […]

With U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a tour of the South Caucasus last week, hopes that Washington’s top diplomat could use the visit as an opportunity to push for regional peacemaking and democracy support were quickly overcome by events on the ground, underscoring the region’s volatility. Though Clinton’s meetings in Georgia were mostly low key, the brittle cease-fire between arch-nemeses Azerbaijan and Armenia was sorely tested by a series of clashes, fueling fears that another Caucasus war was in the offing. Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been rocky since the two former Soviet republics fought a war […]

After the International Criminal Court sent a team to Libya over the weekend to negotiate the release for four court employees arrested last week, the relationship between the Hague-based court and Libya’s new authorities seems to be as rocky as ever. But even as the court’s chances of securing the trial it wants in Libya appear to be vanishing, the arrests go to show that the ICC still has an important role to play in the transitioning country. The ICC has been involved in Libya’s transition since the U.N. Security Council referred the situation to the court in a prelude […]

Friday brought a fresh barrage of shelling in the Syrian city of Homs. Also, U.N. monitors saw evidence of multiple killings in a small town where activists reported a massacre. They said they found flesh, blood and piles of ash, but no bodies.

The debate over whether or not to intervene militarily in Syria is hardly a new one. In fact, it is one that resurfaces every time a humanitarian crisis pushes the boundaries of our collective moral conscience. And because we have yet to decisively resolve the question of when to use American military force in such cases, the outcome of each recurring instance of this debate hinges on an ad hoc combination of factors, including the public’s mood, media coverage of the crisis and, at times, elements as haphazard as the vocal support of a celebrity spokesperson. In the case of […]

As international negotiators prepare for the next round of talks with Iran over its nuclear program, scheduled in Moscow for June 18-19, the United States faces a 21st century version of a “Stevenson moment.” In 1962, in a forceful presentation backed by compelling photographic evidence at the United Nations, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson made the case that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear weapons in Cuba. In addressing Soviet Ambassador Valentin Zorin in the chamber of the Security Council, Stevenson pointedly declared, “Let me say something to you, Mr. Ambassador. We do have the evidence. We have it, and it is […]

One of the obvious dangers of a possible war with Iran over its controversial nuclear program is that it could push oil prices sharply higher and, in turn, send the global economy into a tailspin. But a number of developments, some very deliberately set in motion by Iran’s adversaries, have recently converged to erode the effectiveness of Iran’s powerful oil weapon. The sharp edge of Iran’s oil power has been dulled through painstaking tactical moves by Washington and its allies, but the most significant change came not by design, but by misfortune. Ironically, the fear that a conflict with Iran […]

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin urge the international community to support UN envoy Kofi Annan’s plan on Syria during meetings in Beijing, according to Chinese state media. World News Videos by NewsLook

Hosni Mubarak, the ousted Egyptian president who turned power over to the military in the face of a popular uprising last year, was sentenced to life in prison over the weekend for failing to stop the killing of demonstrators during the protests that ultimately led to his downfall. But while Mubarak and his former interior minister, Habib el-Adly, were convicted of being “accessory to murder,” they and their codefendants were acquitted of more serious charges of having ordered the killings of nearly 1,000 protesters last year. Mubarak and his sons were further acquitted of corruption charges. The verdict brought tens […]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dismissed accusations his government had any role in the brutal Houla massacre, as he charged forces outside Syria of plotting to destroy the country. World News Videos by NewsLook

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met in Pakistan two weeks ago under the auspices of the bilateral High-Level Cooperation Council. In an email interview, Ishtiaq Ahmad, Quaid-i-Azam Fellow at St. Antony’s College and senior research associate at the Center for International Studies at Oxford University, discussed relations between Turkey and Pakistan. WPR: How would you characterize modern Turkish-Pakistani relations, and how have they evolved over the past decade? Ishtiaq Ahmad: The Turkish-Pakistani relationship is rooted in history and defined by the existence of deep ethno-religious affinity between the people of both countries. […]

Thousands of Egyptians upset over the court ruling against toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak converged on Tahrir Square during the weekend. World News Videos by NewsLook

In the aftermath of the massacre in Houla, Syria, pressure is mounting on the Obama administration to become more directly involved in efforts to remove the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The problem for U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security team is that there is no clear, safe course of action: Intervening or staying out of the conflict both carry their own sets of risks. Let’s start with the “knowns” that would have to guide any American decision. The first is that Russia, backed by China, will not allow the United Nations Security Council to give its imprimatur to […]