Blinking under the garish lights of a hotel ballroom in southern Iraq, Wael Makhsusi argued his case to a young audience.
Microphone in hand, the engineer in his 30s stood onstage in Basra with other novice candidates in Sunday’s parliamentary election. Among them were independents and hopefuls drawn from the protests that filled the streets two years ago with demonstrators angry about high unemployment, government corruption and lack of basic services like electricity and water.
Sur fond de famine et de conflit, les personnels onusiens sont accusés d’ingérence dans les affaires internes par Addis-Abeba.
La communauté humanitaire en Ethiopie peine à encaisser l’onde de choc provoquée par l’expulsion de sept responsables onusiens, dimanche 3 octobre. « C’est une claque magistrale », lance le responsable d’une organisation présente à Addis-Abeba, la capitale éthiopienne. Accusés d’ingérence dans les affaires internes du pays, les hauts responsables de l’Unicef, du Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme, et du Bureau de la coordination des affaires humanitaires, ont été déclarés persona non grata. Une décision extrêmement rare à une telle échelle.
If Russia has recently regarded Turkey warily as a result of Turkey’s successful backing of Azerbaijan in its recent war with Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh, being on opposite sides in Syria and Libya, Turkey’s supply of arms to Ukraine, and Turkey’s refusal to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, in the run up to the Putin-Erdogan summit in Sochi on September 29, 2021 and in its aftermath, the music changed. Professor Alexander Dugin, a Putin advisor and a leading light of the Eurasian school attached historical significance to the meeting: “At this summit, the heads of the two states drew their red lines and a roadmap for the new world. From now on, Turkey and Russia have embarked on a new path, and this will affect both regional dynamics and the whole world. “[1] The pro-Kremlin television commentator and presenter Dmitry Kiselyov pronounced that Erdogan and Putin had achieved unity on almost all issues.[2] During the summit Putin emphasized the quest for compromises, but Russian commentators believe that Erdogan generally acceded to Putin, and drew encouragement from a Turkish military withdrawal from Idlib in Syria. In seeking to explain the more accommodating policy of Erdogan, Russian commentators concentrated on Turkey’s economic and political vulnerability. The latter was the result of a chill between Erdogan and the Biden administration that deprived Erdogan of the option to play both sides.
The news comes at a time of high tension between Kurdish groups and the Islamic Republic.
A Kurdish political party in Iran said Tuesday that its operatives killed an Iranian intelligence agent allegedly responsible for killing Kurdish activists.
It is difficult to speak of European ambitions for international crisis management against the backdrop of the images from Kabul over the past few weeks, which seem to tell a story of the failure of Western interventionist policies. But that discussion is urgently needed.
Even with its physical “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in tatters, the Islamic State is still managing to wage a global insurgency, maintaining an operational presence in at least 20 separate countries.
Afghanistan and Tajikistan share a 1,400-kilometer border. Recently, a war of words has erupted between Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon and the Taliban government in Kabul. Rahmon censures the Taliban for the destabilization of Central Asia by the export of militant groups, while the Taliban leadership has accused Tajikistan’s government of interference.
The EU and Western Balkans countries summit scheduled to take place on 5 and 6 October 2021 in Brdo pri Kranj, Slovenia is a part of strategic cooperation between the European Union and Western Balkans.
The European Union was established as a peace project after the end of World War II and it facilitated establishment of enduring peace and long-term stability in Europe. In the recent history, the Western Balkans region experienced a number of wars, after which fragile and peace and latent stability was established.
What’s at stake in Iraq’s elections on 10 October?
These elections are the first test of Iraq’s political institutions since countrywide protests paralysed the country in 2019-2020. Those protests forced the government elected in 2018 to step down and pass a new elections law, which brought the polls originally planned for 2022 forward by six months. The so-called Tishreen (October) protests were a serious warning that the ruling parties and political system face a growing legitimacy crisis. If the balloting unfolds in a free and fair manner, without major violence, it may restore a degree of confidence in electoral democracy. Ideally, the vote would produce a new government empowered to tackle the country’s enormous socio-economic challenges head on, but that outcome is unlikely.
While the Taliban may have wrested control of Afghanistan from the national government, the fighting and killing continue. Taliban forces raided an ISIS-K cell in Kabul and killed several of the terrorists, according to a Taliban spokesman.
The raid followed a deadly bombing at a Kabul mosque earlier on Sunday that killed five civilians. The Taliban claimed that the bombing was conducted by Islamic State terrorists. The Taliban and ISIS are enemies.
