region:middle east

  • Turkish military says MIT shipped weapons to al-Qaeda - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01

    Secret official documents about the searching of three trucks belonging to Turkey’s national intelligence service (MIT) have been leaked online, once again corroborating suspicions that Ankara has not been playing a clean game in Syria. According to the authenticated documents, the trucks were found to be transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition. The Gendarmerie General Command, which authored the reports, alleged, "The trucks were carrying weapons and supplies to the al-Qaeda terror organization.” But Turkish readers could not see the documents in the news bulletins and newspapers that shared them, because the government immediately obtained a court injunction banning all reporting about the affair.

    New documents have been leaked online, prompting the government to immediatey ban reporting on the scandal and order the content deleted.

    When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was prime minister, he had said, “You cannot stop the MIT truck. You cannot search it. You don’t have the authority. These trucks were taking humanitarian assistance to Turkmens.”

    Since then, Erdogan and his hand-picked new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have repeated at every opportunity that the trucks were carrying assistance to Turkmens. Public prosecutor Aziz Takci, who had ordered the trucks to be searched, was removed from his post and 13 soldiers involved in the search were taken to court on charges of espionage. Their indictments call for prison terms of up to 20 years.

    In scores of documents leaked by a group of hackers, the Gendarmerie Command notes that rocket warheads were found in the trucks’ cargo.

    According to the documents that circulated on the Internet before the ban came into effect, this was the summary of the incident:

    On Jan. 19, 2014, after receiving a tip that three trucks were carrying weapons and explosives to al-Qaeda in Syria, the Adana Provincial Gendarmerie Command obtained search warrants.
    The Adana prosecutor called for the search and seizure of all evidence.
    Security forces stopped the trucks at the Ceyhan toll gates, where MIT personnel tried to prevent the search.
    While the trucks were being escorted to Seyhan Gendarmerie Command for an extensive search, MIT personnel accompanying the trucks in an Audi vehicle blocked the road to stop the trucks. When MIT personnel seized the keys from the trucks’ ignitions, an altercation ensued. MIT personnel instructed the truck drivers to pretend their trucks had malfunctioned and committed physical violence against gendarmerie personnel.
    The search was carried out and videotaped despite the efforts of the governor and MIT personnel to prevent it.
    Six metallic containers were found in the three trucks. In the first container, 25-30 missiles or rockets and 10-15 crates loaded with ammunition were found. In the second container, 20-25 missiles or rockets, 20-25 crates of mortar ammunition and Douchka anti-aircraft ammunition in five or six sacks were discovered. The boxes had markings in the Cyrillic alphabet.
    It was noted that the MIT personnel swore at the prosecutor and denigrated the gendarmerie soldiers doing the search, saying, “Look at those idiots. They are looking for ammunition with picks and shovels. Let someone who knows do it. Trucks are full of bombs that might explode.”
    The governor of Adana, Huseyin Avni Cos, arrived at the scene and declared, “The trucks are moving with the prime minister’s orders” and vowed not to let them be interfered with no matter what.
    With a letter of guarantee sent by the regional director of MIT, co-signed by the governor, the trucks were handed back to MIT.
    Driver Murat Kislakci said in his deposition, “This cargo was loaded into our trucks from a foreign airplane at Ankara Esenboga Airport. We are taking them to Reyhanli [on the Syrian border]. Two men [MIT personnel] in the Audi are accompanying us. At Reyhanli, we hand over the trucks to two people in the Audi. They check us into a hotel. The trucks move to cross the border. We carried similar loads several times before. We were working for the state. In Ankara, we were leaving our trucks at an MIT location. They used to tell us to come back at 7 a.m. I know the cargo belongs to MIT. We were at ease; this was an affair of state. This was the first time we collected cargo from the airport and for the first time we were allowed to stand by our trucks during the loading.”
    After accusations of espionage by the government and pro-government media, the chief of general staff ordered the military prosecutor to investigate,. On July 21, the military prosecutor declared the operation was not espionage. The same prosecutor said this incident was a military affair and should be investigated not by the public prosecutor, but the military. The civilian court did not retract its decision.

    Though the scandal is tearing the country apart, the government opted for its favorite tactic of covering it up. A court in Adana banned written, visual and Internet media outlets from any reporting and commenting on the stopping of the trucks and the search. All online content about the incident has been deleted.

    The court case against the 13 gendarmerie elements accused of espionage has also been controversial. The public prosecutor, who in his indictment said the accused were involved in a plot to have Turkey tried at the International Criminal Court, veered off course. Without citing any evidence, the indictment charged that there was collusion between the Syrian government, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS). The prosecutor deviated from the case at hand and charged that the killing by IS of three people at Nigde last year was actually carried out by the Syrian state.

    At the moment, a total blackout prevails over revelations, which are bound to have serious international repercussions.

  • Saudi Arabia publicly beheads woman in holy Mecca as blogger lashings are postponed - Middle East - World - The Independent

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-publicly-beheads-woman-in-holy-mecca-as-blogger-set-to-r

    Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, a Burmese woman who resided in Saudi Arabia, was executed by sword on Monday after being dragged through the street and held down by four police officers.

    She was convicted of the sexual abuse and murder of her seven-year-old step-daughter.

    A video showed how it took three blows to complete the execution, while the woman screamed “I did not kill. I did not kill.” It has now been removed by YouTube as part of its policy on “shocking and disgusting content”.

    There are two ways to behead people according to Mohammed al-Saeedi, a human rights activist: “One way is to inject the prisoner with painkillers to numb the pain and the other is without the painkiller,” he told the Middle East Eye.

    “This woman was beheaded without painkillers – they wanted to make the pain more powerful for her.”

    #arabie_saoudite #barbares

  • Syria, Iraq… and now Afghanistan: Isis advance enters Helmand province for the first time, Afghan officials confirm - Middle East - World - The Independent
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-iraq-and-now-afghanistan-isis-advance-enters-helmand-province-f

    ISIS fait son entrée en #Afghanistan, où des combats l’opposent aux talibans,

    Isis, the militant group that claims to have established a “caliphate” across Iraq and Syria, has now reportedly extended its territories into Afghanistan for the first time.

    According to the Afghan military, the organisation that calls itself “Islamic State” is actively recruiting and operating across the south of the country.

    Officials say a man identified as Mullah Abdul Rauf has been claiming to represent Isis in the region, setting up a network of followers who are inviting people to join them across the southern Helmand province.

    But they have clashed with the local Taliban, military sources claim, whose leaders have warned people to have nothing to do with Rauf.

    General Mahmood Khan, the deputy commander of the army’s 215 Corps, told the Associated Press: “A number of tribal leaders, jihadi commanders and some ulema (religious council members) and other people have contacted me to tell me that Mullah Rauf had contacted them and invited them to join him.”

    Amir Mohammad Akundzada, the governor of the Nimroz province adjacent to Helmand, said Rauf was a former Taliban commander – as well as a relative who he had not seen for two decades.

    • Afghan suicide bombing blamed on Islamic State kills 35
      http://news.yahoo.com/official-least-22-killed-suicide-motorcycle-bombing-eastern-051027372.ht

      The Taliban denied it carried out in the attack and another elsewhere in the province that killed one civilian and wounded two.

      “We condemn/deny involvement in both,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid tweeted.

      Ghani warned before that the Islamic State group was starting to establish a presence in Afghanistan. He used his visit to the United States last month to reiterate his concerns that the extremist group was making inroads into Afghanistan.

      “If we don’t stand on the same line united, these people are going to destroy us,” he told 600 people gathered at the provincial government headquarters in Faizabad, the capital of northeastern Badakhshan province.

      He called on the Taliban to join with the Kabul government, and said that any Taliban who switched allegiance to Islamic State group would earn the wrath of Afghanistan’s religious leaders.

      Ghani also blamed a recent attack on an army outpost, in which 18 soldiers were killed, eight of them beheaded, on “international terrorists.” The Taliban aren’t known to carry out beheadings.

      (...)

      Disenchanted extremists from the Taliban and other organizations, impressed by the Islamic State group’s territorial gains and slick online propaganda, have begun raising its black flag in extremist-dominated areas of both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

  • Saudi Cleric Says Building Snowmen is “Un-Islamic”
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-cleric-says-building-snowmen-un-islamic%E2%80%9D

    A Saudi man and his son pose for a photograph in front of camels in the Aleghan Heights, located some 1500 km northwest of the Saudi capital Riyadh in the Tabuk region, on January 10, 2015, after a heavy snow storm hit parts of the Middle East. AFP/Mohammed Albuhaisi A Saudi man and his son pose for a photograph in front of camels in the Aleghan Heights, located some 1500 km northwest of the Saudi capital Riyadh in the Tabuk region, on January 10, 2015, after a heavy snow storm hit parts of the Middle East. AFP/Mohammed Albuhaisi

    A prominent Saudi cleric whipped up controversy by issuing a religious ruling forbidding the building of snowmen, describing them as un-Islamic. Asked on a religious website if it was (...)

    #Saudi_Arabia #Saudi_clerics

  • Millions march in France after Charlie Hebdo shooting - World Socialist Web Site
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/12/fran-j12.html

    Behind the atmosphere of hysteria stoked up by the French political establishment and media is an attempt to impose a definite and reactionary political agenda. In a country that has seen two world wars and numerous revolutionary struggles, the killing of 12 people is being elevated to the level of an unprecedented national tragedy in a bid to revive the flagging fortunes of Hollande, France’s most unpopular president since World War II.

    By appealing for national unity behind the police and security forces, Hollande is seeking to bolster the credibility of a government despised for its austerity policies, legitimize French participation in the reactionary, Washington-led “war on terror” in Africa and the Middle East, and facilitate right-wing political combinations in a desperate attempt to stabilize the state.

    As Hollande’s invitation of National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen to the Elysée Presidential Palace on Friday made clear, what is being considered is the further integration of the neo-fascist FN into mainstream French bourgeois politics. This underscores the authoritarian and anti-democratic evolution of European politics and the necessity for the unification of the European working class across ethnic and religious lines in a revolutionary struggle for socialism.

    As masses of people do begin to reflect on the political issues bound up with the Charlie Hebdo shootings, it will occur to them that the French government itself bears political responsibility. The two Islamist gunmen who carried out the terrorist attack, Said and Cherif Kouachi, are themselves a particularly toxic product of the failure of capitalism to offer any hope to broad layers of the working masses.

    Muslim youth suffer from extreme levels of unemployment, as high as 40 percent in some of France’s suburbs, where the Kouachi brothers found low-paid odd jobs on the margins of economic life. They face a stream of Islamophobic measures, such as bans on the burqa and Muslim headscarves. These tensions are intensified by French imperialism’s abandonment of its previous opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, aligning itself instead with US-led wars from Afghanistan to Libya and Syria and, once again, Iraq.

  • Middle East Goes Monty Python on ISIS - The Daily Beast
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/29/middle-east-goes-monty-python-on-isis.html

    Well, many in the Middle East have heard that one and many others as Muslim and Arab comedians are on the front lines in fighting ISIS. However, these satirists’ weapon of choice isn’t airstrikes, but rather comedy, which they are employing to ridicule ISIS on TV shows and in YouTube videos. And nothing is off limits as they mock ISIS on everything from being hypocrites when it comes to Islam to being bumbling idiots to simply smelling like crap.

  • EU recognition of Palestine : What is it good for ?
    https://euobserver.com/foreign/127105

    Sourani is the co-founder and director of the Gaza-based NGO, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).

    He has lived in the Strip for the past 37 years, bearing witness to different phases of the Middle East’s longest conflict.

    He has also been subjected to Israeli administrative detention and, he claims, torture, in a career which saw him earn the 1985 Kennedy Memorial Award for Human Rights and saw him named Amnesty International’s 1988 Prisoner of Conscience.

    (…)

    The 60-year old lawyer reserved his starkest criticism for what he calls Israel’s disregard for rule of law.

    He said if the conflict is to ever end it must be governed by the rule of law, not the rule of the jungl”.

    Sourani’s NGO, the PCHR, filed 225 cases to the Israeli military attorney general on alleged war crimes in last year’s Gaza conflict. It filed another 1,060 cases of redress/compensation to the Israeli minister of defence.

    But looking at Israel’s track record, Sourani has little optimism for the outcome.

    Looking back at the previous Israeli ground incursion - operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009, which cost 1,400 lives - just five of the 492 submitted cases ended in a positive outcome.

    The five rulings saw Israeli Defence Force soldiers - who killed an unarmed Palestinian woman and her daughter while they were waving a white flag - suspended for just six months. 

    Sourani noted that Israeli due process is designed to deny justice to Palestinians.

    He cited the fact that Palestinians, among the poorest people in the Middle East, have to pay a “guarantee fee” to Israeli courts to file cases.

    In one Cast Lead case, the “Soumani” case, in which Israeli forces killed 27 members of one family, Israel insisted on 27 separate claims, raising the guarantee fee to over $100,000.

    PCHR lawyers, claimants, and witnesses often cannot go to court proceedings due to Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement, while time limits on filing cases mean that 95 percent of claimants don’t make the deadline.

    Sourani also warned that a recent Israeli legislative amendment, known as “amendment eight”, will create a new obstacle.

    He said it “effectively states that if Israel declares a state of war, no one has the right to hold its army or politicians legally accountable for their actions”.

    The lawyer noted that while the EU regularly criticises Israeli killing of civilians, it overlooks its day-to-day disregard for people’s rights.

    Je ne reprends que la fin de l’article…

  • Hezbollah starts 2015 facing setbacks - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/hezbollah-set-backs-start-early-in-2015.html

    Within a few days, Hezbollah was targeted by local Lebanese political news, a spy for Israel, a possible international prosecution and a terrorist military attack. It’s a paradox whose elements have nothing in common, rationally, except for the great purpose and magnitude against this political and military group. Hezbollah is considered one of the main actors in Lebanon and on several international scenes, including Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and other countries. All of these issues indicate that 2015 is going to be an eventful year for Hezbollah and raise curiosity as to what developments this might involve.

    Jean Aziz, pourtant en génral très très bon, a un mot malheureux à la conclusion de cet article. « Curiosity »... Ouais, façon de dire qu’il n’est pas vraiment concerné ?

  • The real politics behind the US war on IS | Middle East Eye
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/real-politics-behind-us-war-1739057128

    In fact, it is all about domestic political and bureaucratic interests.

    (...)

    After thirteen years in which administration and national security bureaucracies have pursued policies across the Middle East that are self-evidently disastrous in rational security and stability terms, a new paradigm is needed to understand the real motivations underlying the launching of new initiatives like the war on IS. James Risen’s masterful new book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War, shows that the key factor in one absurdly self-defeating national security initiative after another since 9/11 has been the vast opportunities that bureaucrats have been given to build up their own power and status. 

     
    (...)

    ... the military services and the counter-terrorism bureaucracies in the CIA, NSA and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) viewed a major, multi-faceted military operation against ISIL as a central interest. Before ISIL’s spectacular moves in 2014, the Pentagon and military services faced the prospect of declining defence budgets in the wake of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now the Army, Air Force and Special Operations Command saw the possibility of carving out new military roles in fighting ISIL. The Special Operations Command, which had been Obama’s “preferred tool” for fighting Islamic extremists, was going to suffer its first flat budget year after 13 years of continuous funding increases. It was reported to be “frustrated” by being relegated to the role enabling US airstrikes and eager to take on ISIL directly.

    On 12 September, both Secretary of State, John Kerry and National Security Adviser, Susan Rice were still calling the airstrikes a “counterterrorism operation”, while acknowledging that some in the administration wanted to call it a “war”. But the pressure from the Pentagon and its counter-terrorism partners to upgrade the operation to a “war” was so effective that it took only one day to accomplish the shift.

    The following morning, military spokesman, Admiral John Kirby told reporters: “Make no mistake, we know we are at war with [IS] in the same way we are at war, and continue to be at war, with al-Qaeda and its affiliates.” Later that day, White House press secretary, Josh Ernst used that same language. 

    Under the circumstances that exist in Iraq and Syria, the most rational response to IS’s military successes would have been to avoid US military action altogether. But Obama had powerful incentives to adopt a military campaign that it could sell to key political constituencies. It makes no sense strategically, but avoids the perils that really matter to American politicians.

    #effrayant

  • Palestinian statehood resolution fails at U.N council, U.S. votes against - Reuters

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/31/us-mideast-palestinians-un-idUSKBN0K81CR20141231

    The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017.

    The resolution called for negotiations to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. It also called for a peace deal within 12 months.

    Even if the draft had received the minimum nine votes in favor, it would have been defeated by Washington’s vote against it. The United States is one of the five veto-wielding permanent members.

    There were eight votes in favor, including France, Russia and China, two against and five abstentions, among them Britain. Australia joined the United States in voting against the measure.

    U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power defended Washington’s position against the draft in a speech to the 15-nation council by saying it was not a vote against peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

    “The United States every day searches for new ways to take constructive steps to support the parties in making progress toward achieving a negotiated settlement,” she said. “The Security Council resolution put before us today is not one of those constructive steps.”

    She said the text was “deeply imbalanced” and contained “unconstructive deadlines that take no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.” To make matters worse, Power said, it “was put to a vote without a discussion or due consideration among council members.”

    She did not spare Israel either. “Today’s vote should not be interpreted as a victory for an unsustainable status quo,” Power said, adding that Washington would oppose actions by either side that undermined peace efforts, whether “in the form of settlement activity or imbalanced draft resolutions.”

    Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar, the sole Arab representative on the council, expressed regret that the resolution was voted down, while noting that she thought council members should have had more time to discuss the proposal.

    The defeat of the resolution was not surprising. Washington, council diplomats said, had made clear it did not want such a resolution put to a vote before Israel’s election in March.

    The Palestinians, the diplomats said, insisted on putting the resolution to a vote despite the fact that it was clear Washington would not let it pass. Their sudden announcement last weekend that Ramallah wanted a vote before the new year surprised Western delegations on the council.

    PALESTINIAN FRUSTRATION

    In order to pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the council’s five permanent members.

    The European and African camps were split in the vote. France and Luxembourg voted in favor of the resolution while Britain and Lithuania abstained. Among the Africans, Chad voted yes while Rwanda and Nigeria abstained.

    The Palestinians, frustrated by the lack of progress in peace talks, have sought to internationalize the issue by seeking U.N. membership and recognition of statehood via membership in international organizations.

    Palestinian observer Riyad Mansour thanked delegations that voted for the resolution, noting that lawmakers in a number of European countries have called for recognition of Palestine. He said it was time to end the “abhorrent Israeli occupation and impunity that has brought our people so much suffering.”

    “It is thus most regrettable that the Security Council remains paralyzed,” he said.

    Mansour added that the Palestinian leadership “must now consider its next steps.” The Palestinians have threatened to join the International Criminal Court, which they could then use as a forum to push for war crimes proceedings against Israel.

    In a brief statement, Israeli delegate Israel Nitzan said the Palestinians have found every possible opportunity to avoid direct negotiations and brought the council “a preposterous unilateral proposal.”

    “I have news for the Palestinians - you cannot agitate and provoke your way to a state,” he said.

    French Ambassador Francois Delattre said Paris would continue its efforts to get a resolution through the council that would help move peace efforts forward.

    “France regrets that it isn’t possible to reach a consensus today,” he said, noting that he voted for the resolution despite having reservations about its contents. “Our efforts must not stop here. It is our responsibility to try again.”

    An earlier Palestinian draft called for Jerusalem to be the shared capital of Israel and a Palestinian state. The draft that was voted on reverted to a harder line, saying only that East Jerusalem would be Palestine’s capital and calling for an end to Israeli settlement building.

    The Israeli government had said that a Security Council vote, following the collapse in April of U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood, would only deepen the conflict.

    Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, has said its eastern border would be indefensible if it withdrew completely from the West Bank.

  • 12月30日のツイート
    http://twilog.org/ChikuwaQ/date-141230

    Top story: The Tragedy of the American Military - The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/features/archi…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 10:24:13

    Papier is out! paper.li/ChikuwaQ/13277… Stories via @ArtVolumeOne @ARTEKLAB @Kitri1 posted at 09:13:45

    Top story: Comment la NSA tente de percer les remparts de sécurité sur Internet www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 06:07:34

    Top story: Al Jazeera staff held for one year in Egypt - Middle East - Al Jazee… www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 02:18:48

  • #Piketty on the Middle East
    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/22/we-need-a-wealth-tax-thomas-piketty-2014s-most-influential-thinker

    Cracking bits from this interesting interview with Owen Jones:

    The other influence is perhaps more surprising: the first #Gulf war that followed Ba’athist #Iraq’s invasion of #Kuwait in 1990, which shocked him and his colleagues at the école. “It was a very strong event, because sometimes we say that governments cannot do much against tax havens, they’re too powerful. And suddenly we’re able to send 1 million troops 1,000km away from home to give back the oil to the emir of Kuwait. I was not sure this was the right redistribution of wealth.”

    The west’s general relationship with the #Middle_East – “the most unequal region in the world”, he says – is one that troubles him, not least because it exposes grotesque inequalities. “Take #Egypt: the total budget for education for 100 million people is 100 times less than the oil revenue for a few dozen people in #Qatar. And then in London and in Paris we are happy to have these people buying football clubs and buying apartments, and then we are surprised that the youths in the Middle East don’t take very seriously our democracy and social justice.”

  • The end of electoral appeal in the Arab world
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/end-electoral-appeal-arab-world

    For too long, the totem of elections was sold to the people in the Middle East—those who live outside the pro-US tyrannical regimes in particular. In the decades of the Cold War, the whole premise of the US position was the belief in the moral and political superiority of the West vis-à-vis the Soviet Union due to the holding of regular and frequent elections. Yet, the American electoral system is probably one of the worst, corrupt model of democracies, not only due to the influence of big money ($4 billion in the last election cycle alone) but also due to the elitist Electoral College and the rigid rejection of proportional representation in order to preserve the two party dominance. The preservation of the first-past-the-post electoral system winds up wasting millions of votes, and (...)

  • Echoes of a Syrian division getting stronger | Middle East | Worldbulletin News
    http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/151265/echoes-of-a-syrian-division-getting-stronger

    “Like Bosnia, Syria can have a “soft” division, even though it won’t be a perfect solution but power should be in the hands of people. The religious and ethnic divisions in Syria are far deeper than the Balkans”.

    C’est gentil de la part de Rasmunsen, l’ancien patron de l’Otan de proposer, à quelques kms de la frontière nord de la Syrie, cette excellente solution pour la Syrie.

    Des propos signalés par ABA dans son dernier édito qui prend au sérieux la possibilité d’une telle partition ethnique. http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=194456

  • US will veto Palestinian UN bid - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/israel-usa-washington-netanyahu-obama-veto-un-palestinians.html#

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/files/live/sites/almonitor/files/images/almpics/2014/12/RTR4I3PF.jpg?t=thumbnail_570

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry met in Rome on Dec. 15, in an effort to formulate a joint position in response to planned moves by the Palestinians at the United Nations in the coming weeks.

    #gros_nuls

  • L’Égypte va mieux mais ses alliés du Golfe réduisent leur aide

    Egypt looking to mend economy with energy moves | Oxford Business Group
    http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com 15 Dec 2014

    Egypt has been making impressive progress in straightening up its balance sheet in recent months. Steep cuts in energy subsidies coupled with a drop in world oil prices have given the Middle East’s most populous country some fiscal breathing space, following three years of increasing budget deficits, mounting debt and reduced foreign currency reserves.

    Energy price hikes introduced in July for private and industrial consumers, including on car fuels and electricity tariffs, have helped to reduce the state’s high level of current spending. According to a government statement issued in November, energy subsidies for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2014/15 dropped 29% from a year ago to $3.08bn.

    The reduction in the subsidy bill also included large cuts in natural gas subsidies to energy-intensive industry and the government’s rationing of fuel supplies, which led to regular blackouts throughout the summer months.

    Whilst there may be further subsidy reductions on the agenda, with the country working to get rid of energy subsidies within three to five years, falling global crude oil prices mean the government could get away with less drastic cuts in the next round. In November alone, oil prices fell by 18% for a fifth straight month of declines. In total, a 40% drop in the price of benchmark Brent since June has eased Egypt’s energy import bill, giving the government time to consider its next step.

    Moving on with debt repayment

    Egypt has also accelerated paying off arrears to foreign oil companies, paving the way for new loans on international markets to help it plug the budget deficit. The government has said it will repay all of its $4.9bn debt to foreign oil companies within six months.

    Egypt’s debts had been mounting since the 2011 political revolution amid a severe economic slowdown and increasing domestic consumption, which forced the government to redirect gas contractually allotted to foreign oil and gas companies to the domestic market.

    In November, a $1.5bn syndicated bank loan was agreed with the National Bank of Egypt and National Bank of Abu Dhabi with hopes that moves to pay back foreign companies will encourage energy firms to boost exploration in the country. It also said it will issue a tender for $2bn in funding guaranteed by forward sales of crude oil shipments for five years, to help finance its arrears.

    The impact of domestic reforms and exogenous factors should dramatically aid efforts to reduce the budgetary deficit.

    The reduction of this deficit is one of the publicly stated ambitions of newly elected President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and in 2014 he returned a draft 2014/15 budget to the MoF with instructions to make further reductions in government spending. As a result, the proposed 2014/15 budget now envisages a deficit of LE240bn ($34.1bn), or 10% of GDP, down from the 12% outlined in the original proposal. The new budget was signed into law just two days before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, 2014, and while details on the spending reductions requested by the president have yet to be made available, information previously released by the MoF shows a distribution of expenses similar to that of the previous year.

    The largest single category has historically been subsidies and social benefits, which account for 30% of total spending, followed by public sector wages and interest payments on government debt. On the other side of the ledger, a new income-tax regime for high earners, the implementation of a capital gains tax on January 1, 2015 and the possible implementation of a new value-added tax (VAT) are expected to see tax revenues rise in 2014/15 by 27%. Non-tax revenues, in the form of Suez Canal receipts, income from state-owned companies, and revenues arising from the nation’s hydrocarbon and mineral extraction industries, are also expected to rise, for a total revenue take of LE548.6bn ($77.9bn).

    Egypt has met the discrepancy between its budgeted spending commitments and its total revenue in two ways. Since the 2011 revolution, it has turned to the domestic banking sector for funding support, by greatly expanding a debt programme built largely on the regular issuance of Treasury bills (T-bills). However, it has paid a high price for its reliance on local lenders. After ramping up its T-bill schedule in 2011, yields on government debt quickly expanded into double digits, surpassing 13.5% for a nine-month note by October 2011. In 2013 yields remained at elevated levels, with the nine-month note still offering a yield in excess of 13%.

    While local banks have eagerly purchased government debt at these attractive rates, the stubbornly high yields have made this financing option an expensive one from the government’s point of view. Moreover, given that banks have grown their loan books through government securities, this has resulted in knock-on effects for the issuance of credit to the broader business community.

    In addition to its debt programme, the government has turned to regional allies to assist it in meeting its bills. During 2013 and 2014, Egypt received aid packages in the form of cash grants, deposits at the central bank and petroleum products from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, as well as soft loans and grants from development finance institutions such as the World Bank and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.

    However, according to the 2014/15 budget, the government foresees a reduction in the amount of grants it receives from donors such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, from the LE117.2bn ($16.6bn) of 2013/14 to LE23.5bn ($3.3bn). Egypt’s long-term financial stability depends not on its ability to borrow from its banks and attract foreign aid, but on its ability to reform its economy and balance its budget.❞

  • Si c’est un ex-directeur du Mossad qui le dit...

    « Peace will elude us until we treat Palestinians with dignity »

    Ex-Mossad chief: Peace will elude us until we treat Palestinians with dignity | The Times of Israel

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-mossad-chief-peace-will-elude-us-until-we-treat-palestinians-with-dignity/#ixzz3LyTPCOv2

    There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Israelis don’t treat the Palestinians as equals, Efraim Halevy said last week, accusing senior government officials of advancing “condescending” policies toward the Palestinians.

    Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email
    and never miss our top stories Free Sign up!

    In a wide-ranging interview with The Times of Israel, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency accused the outgoing government, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, of having violated the fragile status quo in Jerusalem. The elections of March 2015 are not merely a referendum on Israel’s leadership, he said, but constitute an unprecedented opportunity to determine Israel’s policy vis-à-vis the peace process.

    #israël #palestine #palestiniens #dignité

  • From Africa to Kent: following in the footsteps of migrants

    The guardians of Fortress Europe are fighting a lost battle: poor migrants will always try to find a better life for themselves, or die in the attempt. Daniel Trilling traces their steps, from the Middle East and Africa to the Kent countryside.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2014/12/africa-kent-following-footsteps-migrants
    #migration #parcours_migratoire #Afrique #Europe #itinéraire_migratoire #témoignage

  • Ankara’s influence over Barzani wanes - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2014/12/ankara-barzani-turkey-influence-krg.html

    The agreement that Iran, the United States and Europe have been pushing for months was finally signed last week when Erbil and Baghdad agreed to regulate their oil production and revenue sharing.

    It wasn’t for nothing that Iran, the United States and Europe worked so hard for this accord that has important ramifications for future of Iraq. The same accord will have important consequences for Turkey.

    A mon avis, de la plus grande importance pour la suite... On notera que l’Iran, les USA (et l’Europe) négocient de concert pour donner un peu d’air au Kurdistan irakien vis-à-vis de son dialogue avec la Turquie, et pour donner un peu de crédibilité à l’Etat irakien.

  • Britain to build first permanent Middle East military base in four decades | UK news | theguardian.com
    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/06/britain-first-middle-eastern-military-base-bahrain

    Foreign secretary Philip Hammond said the deal with Bahrain would guarantee the Royal Navy’s presence in Bahrain well into the future. He said: “The expansion of Britain’s footprint builds upon our 30-year track record of Gulf patrols and is just one example of our growing partnership with Gulf partners to tackle shared strategic and regional threats.”

    Defence secretary Michael Fallon said Britain would now be based in the Gulf again for the long term. The rise of Islamic State, fears over Iran and ongoing instability in the region contributed to the decision to establish the new naval base, which is adjacent to a more substantial US facility, home to the fifth fleet. Bahrain will contribute most of the £15m cost of construction, with the UK picking up the ongoing costs.

    Chief of the defence staff, general Sir Nicholas Houghton, said the deal was symbolic and strategically important. “Rather than just being seen as a temporary deployment to an area for a specific operational purpose, this is more symbolic of the fact that Britain does enjoy interests in the stability of this region,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

    “And the fact that the Bahraini authorities and government agreed to fund infrastructure within the country to base our maritime capability forward, both is a recognition from their perspective of the quality of the relationship with the United Kingdom, but also of our interest over time in maintaining the stability of this very important area.”

  • Saudi Arabia forced to rethink ideology in fight against IS - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/saudi-kingdom-versus-caliphate.html#

    A kingdom that prides itself on a pan-Islamic ideology such as Saudi Arabia should in theory embrace transnational links rather than fear them. However, Baghdadi does not only promise to eradicate the old colonial borders but also seeks to merge Muslims in a multi-ethnic military force where local culture, language and ethnicity are submerged in one Islamic identity and polity. In the IS media empire, the diversity of Muslim nationalities among their fighters is celebrated to appeal to Muslims everywhere. A kind of perverse cosmopolitanism seems to be very dominant among the young fighters who have joined IS. But IS tolerates them only if they quickly abandon this cosmopolitanism and embrace an Islam totally detached from their own local cultures and ethnicities.

    Isn’t this what the kingdom tries to do despite its rhetoric about pan-Islamism? Both the nascent caliphate and the Saudi kingdom offer models of transnationalism that are so similar with both reaching out to Muslims across cultures but with a view of homogenizing them and eradicating their difference. Both the kingdom and the recent caliphate are far removed from the ancient model of the caliphate that flourished in Damascus and later Baghdad. The kingdom and the caliphate are so similar that they are repulsed by each other. It seems that here similarity breeds contempt.

  • Zero Geography: Visualising the locality of participation and voice on #Wikipedia
    http://www.zerogeography.net/2014/12/visualising-locality-of-participation.html

    On the vertical axis of the figure we can see a clear division between regions that are largely able to define themselves and regions that are largely defined by others. The world regions separate into two distinct groups of three (with Asia in the middle): Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & Caribbean receive comparatively few edits from within their territories (around 25 percent). Europe, Oceania and North America on the other hand receive primarily edits from within (around 75 percent). Asia is edited from within and from outside to almost equal degrees. In other words, there are significant parts of the world in which a majority of content is not locally generated.

    (...)

    • Even when editors from Sub-Saharan Africa spend most of their edits within region, their small numbers mean that most content still comes from elsewhere.

    • The global cores of North America and Europe self-represent very effectively by focusing on their own regions.

    • Content appears to be very sensitive to feedback loops. (...)

    Large amounts of geospatial content show no sign of deterring people from further contributions and editing: as more content exists, so too do more articles to amend, augment, update and build upon. (...) A relative lack of content may further reinforce perceptions amongst editors that little content equates to a small audience that is not worth writing for.

  • Saudi Arabia Declares Oil War on US Fracking, hits Railroads, Tank-Car Makers, Canada, Russia ; Sinks Venezuela
    by Wolf Richter • December 1, 2014
    http://wolfstreet.com/2014/12/01/saudi-arabia-declares-oil-war-on-us-fracking-hits-railroads-tank-car-mak

    Saudi Arabia, formerly the dominant oil producer in the world, the country whose mere words could shake up markets and manipulate US policies in the Middle East, and the master of an all-powerful OPEC, is reduced to struggling for simple market share, the hard way.

    A lot of people believe that the plunge in the price of oil will be brief, and that it has gone pretty much as far as it can go, given production costs in the US and Canada. But the bloodletting in the US fracking revolution will go on until the money finally dries up. Read… How Low Can the Price of Oil Plunge? http://wolfstreet.com/2014/11/13/how-low-can-the-price-of-oil-plunge