Bouteflika in “Good Health,” Speculation on Succession Grows
The office of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced that the president suffered a small stroke, revealing the reason for the president being airlifted to a French military hospital outside of Paris on Saturday. The public statement, a first from ...
Yemeni Court Opens Case Against Ex-President
Human Rights Watch (HRW) praised a Yemeni court order to investigate the country's former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and 11 top aides in connection with a fatal attack on peaceful protesters in Sa'ana in March 2011 that killed 45. Calling ...
Secretary Kerry Meets with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister
Secretary of State John Kerry met with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa Monday morning to discuss Bahrain's reform process and regional issues including Syria and the peace process. State Department Acting Deputy Spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said ...
Compromise Struck on Egypt Judicial Reform Bill
Compromise on a contentious draft law that would have forced nearly a quarter of Egypt's judges into retirement has been reached between the judiciary and the president's office. A crisis over the proposed law
Iraq Suspends Ten TV Channels Amid Sectarian Violence
The Iraqi government suspended the broadcasting licenses of ten satellite television channels, including Al Jazeera. Iraq's Communication and Media Commission is imposing a ban on the operations of Al Sharqiyah, Al Sharqiyah News, Babylonian, Baghdad, Salah al-Din, Anwar ...
Gunmen Demand Gaddafi Officials’ Ouster
On Sunday, men armed with AK-47s, sniper rifles and anti-aircraft guns blocked roads around the Libyan Foreign Ministry. They surrounded the building and called for passage of a political isolation law that would ban officials who had served under the ...
Jordan’s King Discusses Reforms, Syria During Washington Visit
King Abdullah II of Jordan visited Washington this week, meeting with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and members of Congress. During their meeting on Friday, President Obama congratulated the king on his recent economic and political reforms ...
State Department Human Rights Country Reports: Syria
The State Department's 2012 Human Rights Report on Syria noted a number of human rights problems, the most significant of which were "the regime’s massive, countrywide attacks and strategic use of citizen killings to intimidate and control; specific ...
State Department Human Rights Country Report: Saudi Arabia
The State Department's 2012 report on human rights practices in Saudi Arabia cited the leading problems as "citizens’ lack of the right and legal means to change their government; pervasive restrictions on universal rights such as freedom of expression, ...
POMED Notes: “Turkey’s Troubled Politics: Rising Influence and Eroding Freedoms”
On Friday, April 26th, the Project on Middle East Democracy held an event titled “Turkey's Troubled Politics: Rising Influence and Eroding Freedoms.” It featured Howard Eissenstat, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern History at St. Lawrence University, and Yigal Schleifer, an independent journalist, analyst, and author of The Turko-file. Susan Corke, Director for Eurasia Programs at Freedom House, moderated. For full event notes continue reading, or click here for a PDF. Susan Corke opened the ...
State Department Human Rights Country Report: Israel/Occupied Territories
The State Department's annual human rights report on Israel and the occupied territories focused their findings on Israel and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and had an annex to the report for their findings on the occupied territories including areas subject to ...
POMED Notes: “The New Egypt: Challenges of a Post-Revolutionary Era”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies held an event yesterday made up of two panels. The first panel, titled “The New Egypt and the West,” included Mr. Mostafa Al Hassan, Chairman and CEO of Global Consolidated Contractors, Dr. Khaled Ismail, Chairman of Endeavor Egypt, Dr. Manar El-Shorbagy, Former Deputy Secretary General of the Constitutional Assembly, and Mr. Naguib Sawiris, Executive Chairman of the Orascom Group, and was moderated by ...
State Department Human Rights Report: Libya
In its latest human rights report on Libya, the U.S. State Department lays out the country's most pressing human rights concerns. Libya's "most significant human rights problems during the year resulted from the absence of effective justice and ...
State Department Human Rights Country Report: Lebanon
The State Department's annual report on human rights in Lebanon described the country's most significant human rights abuses as "torture and abuse by government and other security forces, harsh prison and detention center conditions, and limitations on freedom of ...
State Department Human Rights Country Report: Oman
The State Department's 2012 report on human rights practices in Oman found the principal problems to be "the inability of citizens to change their government, limits on freedom of speech and assembly, and discrimination against women, including political and ...
State Department Human Rights Country Report: Iraq
The annual State Department report on human rights practices in Iraq details a host of human rights concerns in 2012 attributed to a weakened government, increased sectarian and societal divisions and a culture of impunity and widespread corruption that ...
State Department Human Rights Country Report: Morocco/W. Sahara
In the State Department's newest human rights report on Morocco, the analysis identifies "little or no progress by year’s end in passing necessary to implement the advances, such as gender equality and parity, provided for in the ...
White House Suspects Chemical Attacks; Syrians Advocate Engagement
The White House today established that the U.S. Government now believes with "varying degrees of confidence" the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition. However, the Obama Administration stated that, given the ...
Egypt Revolution “Unpredictably” Reshaping Islamists, Analyst Finds
In a report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nathan Brown examines how the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis and religious institutions in Egypt are being reshaped in fundamental ways by becoming increasingly involved in state politics. "For Egypt, ...