“… in the early months of the Arab revolts, Hamas’s fortunes seemed to be changing in a way the movement could have only dreamed of, offering what it hoped would be an unprecedented chance to advance its goals in the region, as well as in Gaza, the West Bank and Palestinian society generally…”
- a map and an excerpt from Crisis Group’s latest report on Hamas and the Arab Uprisings
Lucius Fox
Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Enterprises
Israelis awoke on Tuesday to the news that they have a new government—one of “national unity”—which immediately pledged to push through a raft of sweeping reforms.
They went to bed on Monday night believing they had a broken-down government and were headed for elections. As far as they knew the Knesset (parliament) was in the process of dissolving itself and arranging, by consensus, for early elections on September 4th.
Mothers with hungry and malnourished children are traveling by any means they can to get to feeding sites and clinics in the Chadian desert, such as Dibinindji, where no roads exist and where it is sometimes too late to save their babies’ lives.
Twenty-two children have died this year from malnutrition in another district in Chad’s Sahel belt. Health and U.N. officials warn that more children will die if the international humanitarian assistance is not increased.
Iraq, cut off from decades of technological progress because of dictatorship, sanctions and wars, recently took a big step out of isolation and into the digital world when its telecommunications system was linked to a vast new undersea cable system serving the Gulf countries.
The engineers who designed and installed the cable that made shore in Al-Faw, near Basra, had to deal with an unusual number of challenges. There were more than 100 oil and natural gas pipelines to cross; stretches of shallow water where the cable had to be buried; and unexploded ordnance from the Iraq war that had to be avoided.
“It was not easy,” said Ahmed Mekky, chief executive of Gulf Bridge International, the company that built the system. “But this could be a significant foundation stone for the country’s recovery.”
Top diplomats observed a minute of silence Wednesday after lighting five white candles in memory of more than 500,000 people killed in the Rwandan genocide 18 years ago. They vowed to pursue justice for the victims and survivors by apprehending fugitive Rwandan killers.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice recalled that the “United Nations was established in the shadow of a genocide,” the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews during World War II.
Reblogged from crisisgroup|3 notes
AFP: Museveni rule fueling discontent: think-tank
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s growing reliance on a trusted inner circle and his suppression of opposition is fuelling widespread resentment and could lead to violent conflict, the ICG said Thursday.
The Brussels-based International Crisis Group warned that the recent discovery of oil and Museveni’s increasingly personalised — and coercive — style of rule after 26 years in power could see Uganda return to the violence witnessed under previous rulers such as Idi Amin.
“Unless he changes course, however, tension will grow. Considering Uganda’s violent past, conflict might then become more deadly,” Comfort Ero, Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director, said in statement.
Photo: Martin H./Wikimedia Commons
Israel cut working relations with the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday and will bar a U.N. team from entering Israel or the West Bank for a planned investigation of Jewish settlements, the Foreign Ministry said.
Israel accuses the council of having a pronounced anti-Israel bias because of what it says is its disproportionate focus on Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.
Israeli leaders have been in an uproar over the council’s adoption of a resolution last week condemning Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and its decision to send a fact-finding mission to investigate.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced Israel was severing working ties with the council.
Reblogged from crisisgroup|7 notes
Soldiers in Mali have toppled the democratically elected government, ransacking the presidential palace, suspending the constitution and ordering the country’s borders closed
The coup took effect on Thursday morning, a day after troops mutinied in Bamako, the capital, in protest at the perceived weak response of President Amadou Toumani Touré to a growing rebellion by Tuareg nomads in northern Mali.
The Tuareg rebels include fighters recruited by Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, who returned home late last year with heavy weapons following his death.
Malian troops have repeatedly complained that the government has not given them the necessary arms and supplies to defeat the insurgents.
The whereabouts of Mr Touré , who was due to step down after next month’s elections, have not been confirmed, although there were reports that he was being protected by loyalist soldiers at a barracks in Bamako.
The coup appears to have been launched by relatively junior soldiers, of the newly formed National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the State (CNRDR). About two dozen soldiers appeared on state television on Thursday as a spokesman read out a brief statement.
“The CNRDR . . . has decided to assume its responsibilities by putting an end to the incompetent regime of Amadou Toumani Touré ,” said Lieutenant Amadou Konare. “We promise to hand power back to a democratically elected president as soon as the country is reunified and its integrity is no longer threatened.”
Despite gunfire throughout the night on Wednesday, the coup was largely bloodless. Troops in the northern town of Gao also mutinied, although it is not clear whether the CNRDR has enough support among the security forces to cement control.
The coup was strongly condemned by Ecowas, the regional West African bloc, as well as former colonial power France and the European Union.
The events also spooked investors in Mali’s gold mining sector, with shares in London-listed Randgold Resources falling 15 per cent.
A former parachute commando, Mr Touré himself led a military coup in 1991 before stepping aside to allow democratic elections. He ran for president in 2002, winning easily, and said he would step down after elections scheduled for April 29 in accordance with the two-term limit.
Gilles Yabi, West Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that while Mr Touré was popular early in his rule, discontent in the military had been building in recent years. Younger officers in particular were frustrated at being passed over for promotion in favour of older candidates.
At the same time, there has been a wider perception among the public that Mr Touré ’s regime was not doing enough to develop the country.
“In one sense the coup was a surprise because the election was just one month away,” Mr Yabi said. “But in another it’s not because of the frustration that has been building in the military forces. It’s more complicated than soldiers not being given enough arms to fight the rebels.”
Criticising the coup, the EU called for “the re-establishment of the constitutional order and the holding of democratic elections as soon as possible”.
A spokesman for the Tuareg rebels, known as the MNLA, told Reuters that they would seek to use the confusion to advance their goal of creating a homeland in the north. “The situation [in Bamako] will allow us to take advantage of the chaos to gain more ground,” Moussa Ag Acharatoumane said.
![crisisgroup:
Soldiers in Mali have toppled the democratically elected government, ransacking the presidential palace, suspending the constitution and ordering the country’s borders closed
The coup took effect on Thursday morning, a day after troops mutinied in Bamako, the capital, in protest at the perceived weak response of President Amadou Toumani Touré to a growing rebellion by Tuareg nomads in northern Mali.
The Tuareg rebels include fighters recruited by Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, who returned home late last year with heavy weapons following his death.
Malian troops have repeatedly complained that the government has not given them the necessary arms and supplies to defeat the insurgents.
The whereabouts of Mr Touré , who was due to step down after next month’s elections, have not been confirmed, although there were reports that he was being protected by loyalist soldiers at a barracks in Bamako.
The coup appears to have been launched by relatively junior soldiers, of the newly formed National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the State (CNRDR). About two dozen soldiers appeared on state television on Thursday as a spokesman read out a brief statement.
“The CNRDR . . . has decided to assume its responsibilities by putting an end to the incompetent regime of Amadou Toumani Touré ,” said Lieutenant Amadou Konare. “We promise to hand power back to a democratically elected president as soon as the country is reunified and its integrity is no longer threatened.”
Despite gunfire throughout the night on Wednesday, the coup was largely bloodless. Troops in the northern town of Gao also mutinied, although it is not clear whether the CNRDR has enough support among the security forces to cement control.
The coup was strongly condemned by Ecowas, the regional West African bloc, as well as former colonial power France and the European Union.
The events also spooked investors in Mali’s gold mining sector, with shares in London-listed Randgold Resources falling 15 per cent.
A former parachute commando, Mr Touré himself led a military coup in 1991 before stepping aside to allow democratic elections. He ran for president in 2002, winning easily, and said he would step down after elections scheduled for April 29 in accordance with the two-term limit.
Gilles Yabi, West Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that while Mr Touré was popular early in his rule, discontent in the military had been building in recent years. Younger officers in particular were frustrated at being passed over for promotion in favour of older candidates.
At the same time, there has been a wider perception among the public that Mr Touré ’s regime was not doing enough to develop the country.
“In one sense the coup was a surprise because the election was just one month away,” Mr Yabi said. “But in another it’s not because of the frustration that has been building in the military forces. It’s more complicated than soldiers not being given enough arms to fight the rebels.”
Criticising the coup, the EU called for “the re-establishment of the constitutional order and the holding of democratic elections as soon as possible”.
A spokesman for the Tuareg rebels, known as the MNLA, told Reuters that they would seek to use the confusion to advance their goal of creating a homeland in the north. “The situation [in Bamako] will allow us to take advantage of the chaos to gain more ground,” Moussa Ag Acharatoumane said.
READ ARTICLE (The Financial Times)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1asl4t0Jj1qjr9epo1_400.jpg)
Welcome to Botswana by Recato
Afghanistan policy is in crisis, at least in the United States. With Osama bin Laden now dead, some are wondering whether it’s time to declare this mission accomplished — or with Afghanistan so troubled, perhaps it’s mission impossible? In fact, it is mission incomplete: The Afghanistan mission is going worse than we had all hoped, but better than many understand. With patience and perseverance, we can still struggle to a tolerable outcome.
There is no denying that the past weeks have represented a setback for NATO efforts. Afghans, angered by the desecration of Qurans at a U.S. base, recently demonstrated violently against the NATO forces in their country, and the March 11 massacre of 16 Afghans by an apparently deranged U.S. soldier will only increase popular anger. These resentments have been further fueled by Iran and Pakistan and have rightly raised doubts that international forces have sufficient support in Afghanistan to complete the mission they have embarked upon.
Reblogged from crisisgroup|7 notes