The Identity Crisis Of Two Palestinian Towns

By Ramzy Baroud* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, WASHINGTON (IDN | CounterCurrents.org) – The distance between Gaza and Ramallah in sheer miles is hardly significant. But in actuality, both cities represent two different political realities, with inescapable cultural and socioeconomic dimensions. Their geopolitical horizons are vastly different as well – Gaza is situated within its immediate Arab surroundings and turmoil, while Ramallah is westernized in too many aspects to count. In recent years, the gap has widened like never before.

Of course, Gaza and Ramallah were always, in some ways, unalike. Demographics, size, topography and geographic proximity to Arab countries with different political priorities have always made them separate and distinctive. But the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 had decisively removed Ramallah from its Jordanian element, and Gaza from its Egyptian political milieu.

DR Congo: How To Ensure Recurrence of Conflict

By Thibaud Lesueur* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NAIROBI (IDN | Crisis Group Blogs) – “With two hundred men, we could get rid of most of the LRA in DRC,” a foreign security official told me in August when I was touring the Uele district, in the far north east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Lord’s Resistance Army has been abusing the population there since at least 2008. But in contrast to the foreign official’s confidence, the striking fact was that the fight against what remains of the LRA is at a standstill. It needs fresh impetus, because the LRA has demonstrated repeatedly its capacity to go underground then surge again more violent than before.

Syria: A Complicated US-Russia Power Game

By Reza Hojjat Shamami* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TEHRAN (IDN | Iran Review) – Without a doubt, during these days that the international community is grappling with the Syria crisis, a new sensitive and determining chapter is being opened for the international world order. Of course, the ongoing developments inside Syria do not constitute the main reason for this situation, but it is more a result of a complicated power game, especially between the United States and Russia.

As a result, continuation of this trend can lead to the stabilization or change of the existing structure of international world system. Since August 21, when a chemical weapons attack was carried out in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, the type of position taken by the American officials as well as some of their allies such as the UK, has practically pushed the world to the brink of a new war in the Middle East.

Grounds For Optimism In Egypt

By Ismail Serageldin* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

ALEXANDIRA (IDN) – Violence is about in the land. The young, the idealists and the dutiful, along with the fanatics, are dying in the streets and the hamlets of Egypt. Hatred and attacks on the Christian minority have reared their ugly head again. Differences of opinion escalate into confrontation, and the declaration of a state of emergency and the imposition of a curfew have formally underlined the gravity of the situation.

Egypt: Out of Focus But in a Critical State

By Bernhard Schell | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BEIRUT (IDN) – While the focus of international attention has shifted to Syria, interest in Egypt is on the wane, despite the fact that political stalemate continues there and the country is reeling under the impact of one of the bloodiest events epitomized, among others, by the government crack-down on protests organized by the Muslim Brotherhood outside Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque and at Nahda Square in Cairo.

Sri Lanka: UN’s Navi Pillay Fails To Dispel Charges Of Bias

By Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

SINGAPORE (IDN) – Giving a press conference at the end of seven-day visit to Sri Lanka, United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) head Navi Pillay, a South African, said that she was highly offended by comments in the Sri Lankan media accusing her of bias because of her Indian Tamil ethnicity.

“Some media, ministers, bloggers and various propagandists in Sri Lanka have, for several years now, on the basis of my Indian Tamil heritage, described me as a tool of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). They have claimed I was in their pay, the ‘Tamil Tigress in the UN’. This is not only wildly incorrect, it is deeply offensive,” said Pillay at the beginning of the press conference on August 31, 2013.

UN’s Mission Impossible in Syria

By R Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations is faced with a mission impossible in Syria. Not only to avert any “punitive action” that holds the risk of triggering a regional conflict in the Middle East, but also alleviating human suffering manifested by streams of refugees seeking safe havens in neighboring countries and a spate of internally displaced persons.

Intensive discussions about the use of military force to punish President Bashar Hafez al-Assad for allegedly approving deployment of chemical weapons reveal the widespread prevalence of a culture of war – as opposed to a culture of peace.

Iran Warns USA, Criticizes Syrian Government

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) – As drums of war beat louder, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned that “resorting to force in the Middle East will ignite a fire, which will be difficult to contain”, highlighted Tehran’s role in encouraging the Syrian government to accept and cooperate with the UN inspectors, criticized President Bashar Hafez al-Assad for some “grave mistakes” and bashed the U.S. for playing into the hands of “radical Takfiri groups that seek intensification of the conflict, violence and sectarianism”.

In an interview with Aseman Weekly (Sky Weekly) in Tehran, Foreign Minister Zarif said Iran had alerted the U.S. in December 2012 that “handmade articles of chemical weapons, including sarin gas,” were being transported into Syria. The warning was conveyed in an official memo to Washington through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which serves as the U.S. interests section in Iranian capital, he said.

Afghanistan: Ensuring Security Through Regional Cooperation

Interview by Manish Rai | IDN-InDepth NewsInterview*

NEW DELHI (IDN) – As the Afghan government prepares for the post-2014 withdrawal of NATO forces, M. Ashraf Haidari, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi, India, says in an exclusive interview with ViewsAround Editor Manish Rai that the survival of the Taliban in Afghanistan hinges on the support they receive in Pakistan. “Without safe havens, without an operational infrastructure, and without financial means for their sustainment, the Taliban would cease to exist in a matter of a couple of months, if not a few weeks. Once these lines of support are withdrawn from their terror campaign, they would be smashed into easy defeat by the armed forces of Afghanistan,” adds the Afghan diplomat.

Question: What was the main reason for shutting down of the Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar?

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