The most important aspect of Turkey’s potential to become a model for the rest of the region is her ability to uphold secularism while trying to become more democratic despite the fact that there is currently a conservative government ruling Turkey with its origins in Turkey’s Islamist tradition.
It seems that there is an inverse relationship between water and energy security, but is this scenario real or imagined? Although it is only one step, the incorporation of the water-energy nexus into the Rio+20 agenda would help to improve our understanding of sustainability.
Even while the prospects of reconciling Hamas and Fatah’s conflicting visions for the future are dim, Egypt has emerged as the only Middle East mediator trusted by both sides.These achievements represent the efforts of the transitional military regime to lift Egypt’s regional status out of the slump of the Mubarak era.
The UN-mandated intervention in Libya is now officially at an end. Perhaps only time will tell whether Libya turns out to have been a great case of international intervention or something rather less.
Today, Mercosur is more of a dysfunctional set of rules, decision-making procedures and abstract principles rather than a well-functioning case of open regionalism. Mercosur’s inoperativeness condemns its member countries to remain relatively isolated from the dynamic developments taking place in the global economy.
The moral imperative to intervene in a nation’s internal affairs where acts of genocide are threatened is a powerful one. That the UN is eager to push the doctrine of R2P and to re-define sovereignty to permit intervention in a state’s internal affairs is testimony to the fact that the Charter does not provide that legal authority. It should.
Perhaps, looking back at the EU’s performance in the Libyan crisis in five years’ time, the best lesson to (re-) learn is that the EU is not good at hard security policy, but does a very decent job when the task is about dealing with the aftermath of conflict. Stable democracies cannot be built on the battlefield. They require a whole different set of capabilities than what NATO can offer.
Today’s BRICS leaders talk, but rarely take combined action or push for substantive joint strategies, pointing to the possibility that at least in political terms the BRICs made by Goldman Sachs (who coined the phrase) may prove to be more like stumbling blocks than the foundation stones needed to reinvigorate the UN or reshape the international system.
Police brutality is now part of everyday life in Greece. Violence from extreme political circles of all directions is on the rise, and an overall feeling of everyone-against-everyone makes evident the crumbling of Greek society.Thus, the only thing that Greek Police seem to be good at is to provoke indignation.
Traditionally perceived as continental powers, Russia and China are increasingly looking to invest significantly in the development of their maritime capabilities, most notably through the development and deployment of aircraft carriers. This reflects an aspiration broader than that of simply enhancing their respective naval strength.
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