In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss Africa’s presidents for life, the need to rethink U.S. relationships with the Arab world, and political stagnation in Indonesia under Jokowi. For the Report, Vish Sakthivel joins Peter Dörrie to talk about the outlook for Algeria when the Bouteflika era comes to an end. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Why Africa’s ‘Presidents for Life’ Are So Afraid to Lose Power Why the U.S. Should Prioritize Iraq and UAE Ties Over Egypt and Saudi Arabia Why Indonesia’s Apparent Stability Under [...]
The ailing health of Algeria’s aging president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, commonly leads Algeria-watchers to assess the prospects for regime continuity and the risks of political instability in what amounts to an interregnum. Both make up chapters of the country’s recent history. Over the past 25 years, Algerians lived through 10 traumatic years of insurgency and counterinsurgency, sometimes called the Dark Decade that shook the country to its foundations from 1991-2002, followed by a decade and a half of peace under Bouteflika. Bouteflika, along with his predecessor Liamine Zeroual, negotiated the laying down of arms and reconciliation—albeit an imperfect one—among armed groups [...]
Last week, commodities traders noticed something unusual in the spot oil markets. Representatives of Egypt’s state oil firm were suddenly making more aggressive buys, entering uncommonly large orders. Traders for the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation reportedly purchased 560,000 tons of gas oil, more than double the September amount. And the orders required almost immediate delivery. Since Egypt gets most of its fuel from Saudi Arabia, it wasn’t difficult to trace the cause of the sudden scarcity. The Saudis, it became apparent, had suspended deliveries of highly subsidized fuel to Egypt. Riyadh had just fired a shot across Cairo’s bow. Fortunately [...]
