International pressure on Gaddafi mounts. Belarus violates Ivorian arms embargo as violence escalates. Rangoon bomb blast. Yemen to announce government of national unity within 24 hours. North Korea threatens war over leaflets. All this and more in today’s briefing...
For over three years now, we have relied on Gaddafi and his state apparatus to keep asylum seekers and other migrants away from our European doors.
Gaddafi's resistance to popular demands and violent response presents a new model for regimes to resist democratic uprisings with extreme violence, mercenary arms, and the suppression of communications. Either countermeasures are adopted that limit the power of regimes to suppress their people, or
The Arab popular awakening is provoking serious concern among state and security elites across the west. But Israel’s stance is the most self-defeating of all.
A hurricane of change is blowing through the Arab world. Even now, many Arab regimes are still in denial. But it also challenges the west to grasp a new political reality, says Nadim Shehadi.
Ranj Alaaldin issues a timely call for a considered form of intervention in Libya's uprising. With the Libyan air force already firing on its own people, and escalation likely, a no-fly zone must be implemented over Libyan airspace to prevent mass casualties.
All Arab regimes, regardless of regime type, have essentially behaved like dynasties. This is why the essentially secular, expansive, inclusive, internationally-aware neo-nationalism of the young Arabs in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region offers a revolutionary break from an unending past
The prosecution of a scattering of old regime stooges is not enough to guarantee Egypt escapes the grip of corruption and cronyism. Egypt needs to draw on lessons from across the continent of Africa and beyond for examples of transitional justice, and may need its very own Truth and Reconciliation
Gaddafi uses planes to attack protesters. Ivorian troops fire on protesters as AU leaders seek resolution. Congo colonel sentenced to jail for rapes. Saleh rejects demands to go as Yemeni troops fire on demonstrators. All this and more in today’s briefing.
Maybe western leaders are afraid that, having seen what it is like when a people dictate to their government what it should do for them, rather than the reverse, we might start to take our own rights back, wholesale
