Author: M Barbu

Evacuating Incirlik airbase could mark end to US-Turkey alliance

While Turkish-Western relations have been overshadowed by clouds of differences over the past few years, Greek media recently reported that the US eyes relocating its forces from Turkey’s Incirlik airbase to another base in one of the Greek islands. Washington Examiner news website, quoting Senator of Wisconsin who chairs Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Ron Johnson, reported that the UN navy is building a base in Crete island in the Souda Bay south of the country.

Bloomberg: Al-Sarraj has rejected Libyan oil deal between Haftar and Mitig

Bloomberg said the Head of the Presidential Council Fayez Al-Sarraj didn’t accept the deal reached between the member of Presidential Council Ahmed Mitig and Khalifa Haftar to lift the 8-month long oil blockade, according to a top aide of Al-Sarraj, casting further doubt on an imminent resumption of production.

Extractive imperialism and resistance in Burkina Faso

Canadian company Tajiri Resources announced on August 20 that it had entered into an agreement with Sahara Natural Resources to begin drilling in Burkina Faso at the company’s exploration program on the Reo Gold project, located 130 kilometres west of the capital, Ouagadougou.

UN-backed Libyan PM Sarraj’s mysterious resignation announcement

Prime Minister of Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) Farrej al-Sarraj announced on Wednesday his intention to step down, prompting a flurry of speculation about his reasons for doing so, as well as fears that his resignation could cause further turbulence in a country racked by nearly a decade of chaos.

Erdogan angry at Sarraj for stepping down before fulfilling Turkish demands

At stake are agreements on oil concessions and control of the ports that are still pending.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s anger at the intention of the President of the Presidency Council of the Libyan Government of National Accord, Fayez al-Sarraj, to step down from his post at the end of next October indicates that Sarraj did not complete everything that was asked of him by the Turks in exchange for their intervention to repel the Libyan National Army’s attack on the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Kata’ib Khattab al-Shishani: Fact or fiction?

Foreign fighters have played a major role in Syria’s ongoing conflict, with a presence in the country that numbered in the tens of thousands at its peak. One of the most mythologized sources of foreign recruits has been Chechnya, the once-separatist province of Russia’s North Caucasus that was reconquered by the Russian army in the early 2000s. Several thousand Chechen fighters traveled to Syria to fight in various opposition and Islamist factions, where their battlefield prowess made them a prized commodity among Syrian rebel militants.

Socioeconomic effects of energy transition in the Black Sea

Newton’s Third Law states that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This is relevant to many aspects of day-to-day life. Public policy and economic strategies are governed by totally different precepts, as different measures have unequal, multidimensional, and long-lasting consequences – many of which are impossible to determine beforehand.