Al-Jazeera reports that the court trials for former President Hosni Mubarak and ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly have been merged. The Egyptian cabinet announced the decision today in an effort to further placate protesters who have accused the interim ruling military of retaining the former regime's practices. Additionally, six other high-ranking officials had trial dates set for August 3. Former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was also charged and ordered detained for 15 days ...

On Wednesday, the Institute for Gulf Affairs hosted a conference titled, "U.S. Foreign Policy and the Future of Bahrain" at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  The conference featured speeches by Bahraini political activists on the violations against human rights and a panel of experts that spoke on the current political situation in Bahrain.  The conference began with opening remarks by Ali al-Ahmed, the director of the Institute for Gulf ...

On Wednesday, The Green Wave, a documentary about the Green Movement in Iran, was featured at the AFI Discovery Channel Film Festival in conjunction with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).  The screening was followed by a panel with Jan Kruger, producer of the documentary, Robin Wright, Jennings Randolph senior fellow and Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and was moderated by ...

On Thursday, the History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center held an event on "Turkey's Elections: Great Expectations for Democratization or Business as Usual?" The event featured a presentation by Fuat Keyman, the director of the Istanbul Policy Center and professor of international relations at Sabanci University in Turkey and was moderated by Christian Ostermann, the director of the History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow ...

Next Friday, April 29, America Abroad Media (a non-profit organization in Washington, DC that produces a monthly, hour-long documentary radio program on foreign affairs for broadcast on NPR stations across the country) is hosting a "town hall" event at American University's Katzen Center from 7:30-9am. They will be connecting DC's local WAMU radio station with a radio station in Kabul to facilitate a discussion ...

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On Wednesday, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a discussion focused on the issues of succession, authoritarianism and democracy in relation to Arab leaders entitled, “The Crisis in the Arab World’s Aging Leadership.” Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, Director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center introduced the speaker David Ottaway, former Cairo Bureau Chief of The Washington Post and current Senior Scholar at the Wilson Center. For the ...

On Monday, October 18th, the Brookings Institution held an event called “What Next for Afghanistan? A Post-Election Analysis.” The panel was moderated by Martin Indyk, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. The panelists were Thomas Garrett, Vice President for Programs at the International Republican Institute; Michael O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow and Director of Research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution; Vanda Felbab-Brown, Fellow at the ...

On Monday, October 4th, The George Washington University hosted a panel entitled “Do Jordan’s Elections Matter?” The event was moderated by Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington. The panelists were Curtis Ryan, Associate Professor of Political Science at Appalachian State University, Anne Mariel Peters, Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, and Jillian Schwedler, ...

On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the United States Institute of Peace co-hosted a panel discussion titled “Towards a Palestinian State: Is Institution Building Succeeding?” The discussion was moderated by Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, a Program Officer in USIP’s Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution. The panelists were Nathan Brown, a Nonresident Senior Associate of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment, Neil Kritz, the Senior Scholar in ...

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way presented their new book, “Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War,” Friday at an event hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy. Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gave a response and Marc Plattner, the president for research and studies at the National Endowment for Democracy moderated the event.(To read the full event summary, continue below. Or ...

Scott Petersen presented his new book, “Let the Swords Encircle Me: A Journey Behind the Headlines of Iran,” Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program. The Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour gave a brief response and the subsequent question and answer session was moderated by Halah Esfandiari, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program.(To read the ...

On Friday, David Ottaway gave a talk at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars titled “Egypt at the Tipping Point?” Ottaway – who is a senior scholar at the Wilson Center and the former Bureau Chief for the Washington Post in Cairo – discussed the findings from his recent paper, published in the Wilson Center Middle East Program’s Summer 2010 Occasional Paper Series. The talk was introduced and moderated ...

 George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies convened a panel of experts today to discuss the political situation in Egypt in advance of the fall parliamentary elections and the 2011 presidential elections. GWU Professor Marc Lynch moderated a spirited debate between participants Tarek Masoud Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington's ...

POMED's recent event, “Is Turkey Becoming Less Democratic?”, received coverage from Voice of America’s (VOA) Turkish service and Istanbul-based Ihlas News Agency (IHA). The VOA report (in Turkish) emphasized panelist Daniel Brumberg’s suggestion that the real effect of the constitutional reforms will be determined by how the AKP government governs in the coming years. IHA focused (in Turkish) on panelist Gonul Tol’s comment that while the reforms represent a significant step forward, ...

At GlobalPost, Theodore May describes the recent developments in Egypt as "on the brink of collapse," citing author Alaa Al Aswany who sees "a turning point in Egyptian history." Recent demonstrations against the Gaza blockade and the brutal killing of Khaled Said, according to May, indicate massive "disaffection" from the public. Al Aswany compares the current situation in Egypt to the one in 1949 in which "people realized that the ...

Last week, the Carnegie Endowment and the Heinrich Boll Foundation held a conference focusing on the success of current U.S. policy on human rights and democracy promotion in the Arab world. Carnegie's Michele Dunne moderated discussion by a panel of experts that included: Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Tamara Cofman Wittes, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs; Bahey ...

Two pieces in Foreign Policy analyze U.S.-Saudi Arabian relations and the nature of the Saudi regime, in light of King Abdullah's upcoming visit to the White House. Simon Henderson questions the standard portrayal of the Gulf kingdom as a staunch and straightforward ally of the U.S. in the region. Henderson suggests that the relationship is in fact more complex, arguing that Abdullah has taken steps to distance his government from ...

"As a result of the Green Movement’s simple call for the Iranian government to accord the people the decent respect that is their right, it has connected with the global democratic movement, which has been called upon to embrace the people of Iran and to make their struggle its own," is one of the reasons given by the National Endowment for Democracy for honoring the Green ...