In line with the focus for 2013 under CIDOB's "Sources of Tension in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Regional Perspectives (STAP RP)" policy research project on the regional powers and their interests, this series is a product of field research visits to a number of the key regional powers identified in the 2012 Mapping Document http://www.cidobafpakproject.com/ by the STAP RP project team.

Understanding the perspectives of the five main regional powers (India, Iran, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia) with an interest in outcomes in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a critical element in relation to this volatile region, which is currently in a state of flux as 2014 approaches.

Identification of opportunities for dialogue, peace building, improved bilateral relationships and the development of regional organisations as mechanisms for dialogue, as well as examining how the regional powers see Afghanistan and Pakistan from a broader geopolitical and foreign policy perspective are key elements in enhancing this understanding.

The Gulf and Maghreb countries share a common heritage and are members of the Arab League, yet the record of their economic and political relations is mixed. Limited exchange in physical goods is juxtaposed with pronounced investment activities in tourism and real estate that are at times controversial. Openness to Gulf investments is accompanied by growing reservations about Gulf support of Islamist forces in the region, most notably by Qatar.

Tunisia remains very dependent on international good will: despite receiving aid and loans worth $1.5bn last year, the growing current account deficit has reduced hard currency reserves to the equivalent of three and a half months cover of imports.

The Minister of Human Rights and Transitional Justice recently stated that rising Islamic violence could well delay elections. The risk of Tunisia slipping into a political and economic quagmire which seriously damages its future stability is real if elections are put off indefinitely.

In the worldview of Saudi Arabian policymakers, Afghanistan and Pakistan lie considerably closer to the Kingdom than a short look at the map would suggest. The coastal regions of the Persian Gulf have long been part of regional trade networks oriented towards South Asia, and relations with cities like Bombay and Karachi have been as close as relations to the Arab countries north and west of the Arabian Peninsula for centuries.

The paper will briefly describe, from the Iranian perspective, what kind of relationship Tehran has with Afghanistan, and how this in turn relates to its complicated relations with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Rather than nuclear weapons, North Korea’s greatest strength is the capacity to behave badly: by carefully choosing the right time, it knows its actions will force big powers to pay close attention even though they may grind their teeth.

If China is dragging its feet on the issue of North Korea, it is also because Beijing has a stake in the survival of the Kim Jong-eun regime. The collapse of North Korea could bring a stream of refugees to China, which already has 2 million ethnic Koreans and threaten the stability of the border region.

Marx didn't like it and recently The Economist ran a special issue on it: Inequality is inseparable from capitalism, yet it can hurt it at the same time. Even those start to reckon it who are inclined to justify inequality as a result of differences in skills, work ethics and risk taking. From limited access to education and reduced social mobility to predatory lending to make up for slack demand - inequality has left a wasteland of missed opportunities and bad subprime debt in its wake. While inequality between countries has diminished with the rise of emerging markets, inequality within them has mostly risen since the 1980s.

By the time of the arrival of the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, UK business and finance elites were quite positive towards EC membership, and many of them came from the Conservative rows. However, with a very anti-European Speech of Mrs Thatcher in Bruges, in 1988, the first serious cleavages towards European matters appeared among Conservatives.

Ambassador Mousavian’s tone is soft, as befits a senior negotiator with many years of experience in both government and diplomacy, and he sports a friendly smile. He believes rationality and common sense should preside over international relations, although he is—alas—well aware that this is not as usual as it ought to be, particularly in the case of the West’s relations with Iran. The firmness in his eyes reveals a sharp, discerning mind. His stands are clear and assertive. His current avatar is research scholar (since 2009) at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Two years ago, two North African heads of state defied what looked to many western observers, like the natural line of gravity: Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. Algeria was widely predicted to be the next country to “fall” after Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunis while the Moroccan monarch plunged into a process of bold reform in order to placate a groundswell of protest.

Algeria faces three challenges, of which terrorism is not the most important: a regulatory environment which has led to little foreign investment in development of new oil and gas resources; runaway domestic demand for oil and particularly gas, which threaten to push local consumption higher than external sales by the middle of next decade; and the need to improve security of its major oil and gas fields.

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¿Puede un país rescatado poner fin a cuatro décadas de conflicto y división? Ésta es una de las grandes preguntas que ha suscitado el resultado de las elecciones chipriotas de febrero de 2013. El vencedor, Nicos Anastasiades, elegido por un 57% de los votantes en segunda vuelta, es partidario del rescate y también de cambiar de estrategia en las negociaciones de reunificación. No obstante, el nuevo Presidente ya ha dejado claro que su prioridad es la superación de la crisis económica.

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It has been two years since the popular uprising in Tunisia started with the hope of freedom, dignity, and democracy. This country that inspired other Arab countries for the “spring” blossom is still waiting to reach its real summer, of a solid democracy, a new constitution, and a fairly elected government that will stabilize the political turmoil.

Pakistan’s spring 2013 elections will mark the first completion of a full term in office by a civilian government. The Pakistani press is full of speculation over the elections, but primarily over which party will win rather than whether the elections will be held at all. Despite the usual worries from Pakistan’s army of conspiracy theorists, it appears increasingly likely that the elections will proceed without interference from the military. While the leading political parties fight it out in the press, the military leadership has so often repeated their disinterest in interfering with the election that they are beginning to be believed.

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It's not every day that Corriere della Sera, the historic mouthpiece of Italian capitalism, quotes Mao Zedong. On Monday, sensing the chaotic scenario that now transpires from the official results of Italy's general election, one of their leader writers recalled, in a tone of trepidation, the famous dictum: "Great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent".

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The withdrawal of international troops seems to have set in motion the beginning of a stampede whose consequences will only be known over time. Limiting the damage of what looks like a widespread and comprehensive withdrawal at all levels from governments, companies or individuals will be crucial for the stability of Afghanistan.

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A man of good will, tall, broad and elegant, with a very welcoming smile and a soft tone of voice that makes you immediately feel à l’aise, Pierre Vimont is also a hard worker. He well must be. As Ambassadeur de France, a dignity bestowed (for life) to only a few French career diplomats, Pierre Vimont has served at the London, Brussels and Washington embassies and has held several relevant European Union posts. In 2010, he was appointed by the EU’s High Representative, Catherine Ashton, to be the first Executive Secretary-General of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which began operation on 1st December of the same year. We are talking European diplomacy here and, if the head of the newly established foreign service was a British Lady, his right hand should well be a French Gentillhomme, wasn’t it?

The EU response to changes in the Mediterranean has been confined by the principles that have guided its Mediterranean policy during the last twenty years. Faced with historic changes in the region, the EU has opted for a policy of continuity that is tailored to the needs of those who have designed and implemented it, but does not respond to the needs of its intended beneficiaries.

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The French satirical television show Les Guignols sums up the mood in France three weeks into this unexpected campaign: the French president François Hollande has invented “la guerre molle” (the soft war). Indeed several observers were expecting an Afghan style conflict with bloody encounters between the rebel guerrilla forces and elite French troops and coffins being flown back to Paris. Nothing of the sort has happened. So either the rebels have shaved their beards and melted into the civilian population (the fifth column syndrome is useful here) or they have fled into the desert sanctuaries and are just bidding their time before engaging in guerrilla warfare. The French military command sounds triumphalist but journalists embedded with the French army note that many officers are sounding, in private, somewhat more cautious.

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On 17 January 2013, the 2012 Global Go To Think Tank Index was presented both at the World Bank in Washington DC and at the United Nations in New York. This report, issued by the Department of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, constitutes the only internationally established index to assess the work and impact of think tanks worldwide. It is the result of an international survey which involves more than 1.950 researchers, public and private funders, politicians and journalists. The present edition surveys more than 6.600 research centers around the world. In it, CIDOB is recognized as the most influential think tank in Southern Europe.

French military intervention in Mali has been welcomed by most of ECOWAS members –excepting neighboring Mauritania– and many countries of West Africa are sending troops to participate in the fight to recover the north of Mali. Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo, Senegal and Ivory Coast are sending 500 soldiers each, while 650 will come from Benin and another 2.000 are foreseen from Chad. Whether Nigeria can offer much is not known. Despite its high qualification and great equipment, the country is currently facing three centers of tension, including open guerilla warfare within its own borders. Thus, only 18,000 of Nigeria’s 80,000 troops are fully operative and they are, in any case, not really at ease in French speaking countries.

- Algeria believes Mali to be the “weak link of the chain” and uncommitted to the fight against Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algiers questions the trustworthiness of the Malian government vis-à-vis the widening AQIM networks and the Malians’ ability to share and protect intelligence needed for regional cooperation.
- Algeria’s complex relationship in the Sahel in general, and with Mali in particular, is also rooted in the role that Algiers is thought to have played in supporting rebellions of Tuaregs, both in Mali and Niger, at the time in apparent competition with Muammar Kaddafi.
- Northern Mali has become the shelter of AQIM katibas, and more recently the fertile ground for other newly created non-Algerian groups (MUJWA and Ansar al-Sharia). The only remaining interlocutor that Algiers could consider is Ansar eddine, yet a radical islamist group that never hided its preference for Sharia law enforcement.
- The Tuareg secessionist movement recently retrieved its voice in the mediation talks through an agreement signed with Ansar eddine on 21 December 2012 under the auspices of Algiers who considered it to be a milestone on the road to the political settlement of Mali crisis.
- Algeria showed muscle and determination to action in the recent hostages crisis, an unanticipated crisis that underlies the key role and implication of its policies and strategies in the region.

The European Union (EU) is widely praised as the economic cum political structure that has allowed Europeans to conjure the ghosts of the past: to grow and to prosper economically, and to overcome a historical tendency to engage in war against each other and beyond. In 2012 the EU was awarded the Peace Nobel Prize precisely for its historical role as a peace force. Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, called it a “justified recognition” of a unique project that works for the benefit of its citizens and the world, and tweeted that the prize had been awarded to all 500 million EU citizens.

Uthman Mleghta, commander of the powerful al Qaaqa brigade from the Nafusa Mountains town of Zintan, rejects being described as a qatiba (militia). On a recent foreign NGO’s visit to his heavily guarded headquarters in Tripoli, Mleghta presented his “group’s” activities, including a newly launched print newspaper and an education programme for Libyan youth.

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The 18th National Congress of Communist Party of China has replaced half the members of the Central Committee.
The Red Guard generation born after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 have come to power.
There was a strong internal struggle between the children of veteran revolutionaries (taizidang) and the meritocrats who had risen to power through the Party’s selection processes (tuanpai).
The taizidang promote liberalization in order to generate more wealth; the tuanpai promote redistribution of wealth to combat social inequality.
The results of the 18th National Congress seem to indicate that the taizidang faction is winning the struggle.
There are signs of political change in China: the social media allow people to organise themselves and publicise information the official media suppress.

Now living in Doha, where he works as an adviser to the Qatar National Food Security Program and is responsible for the launching of the Global Dry Land Alliance, Miguel Ángel Moratinos observes global geopolitics and particularly the Mediterranean –his true passion– with the same keen interest he has displayed throughout his career as a high-ranking diplomat, but, perhaps, from a slightly different perspective. As a retired professional diplomat, he sounds as if he finds liberation from the diplomatic corset to be a blessing. Instead of becoming an MP in the Spanish parliament and dragging himself through local politics, Mr Moratinos much prefers to become global himself by campaigning in favour of a noble world cause, food security, an issue that is becoming one of the hot topics of the global agenda. His well-known political vocation is best served in this way.

EU-Maghreb exchange between judges and journalists

North and South of the Mediterranean, judges and journalists share the pursuit of three common principles: truth, freedom and independence. The multiplicity of meanings of these terms and the ethics which underlie both professions were guiding the EU-Maghreb exchange between Mediterranean professionals of the judiciary and communication sectors which – organized by CIDOB and UNU-IIAOC – took place on June 21st and 22nd 2012 in Rabat.

Rencontre croisée UE-Maghreb entre juges et journalistes

Du Nord au Sud de la Méditerranée, juges et journalistes partagent la poursuite de trois principes communes: vérité, liberté et indépendance. La polysémie de ces termes et l’éthique qui sous-tend ces deux professions ont orienté la rencontre UE-Maghreb entre professionnels méditerranéens du domaine de la justice et de la communication, organisée les 21 et 22 juin 2012 par le CIDOB et l’UNU-IIAOC, à Rabat.

In order to fulfil its counter-hegemonic potential and to question the politics of knowledge, research must recognize the ambiguities and contradictions it inherits.

Beyond headline news which often focuses on the Salafists, one key player, the trade union, is gaining power by stealth. UGTT’s deteriorating relations with the government could greatly influence the outcome of next summer’s elections. Amnesty International warns that progress on human rights in Tunisia is “being reversed” in a report last October. Although Tunisian Islamists were the enemies most directly targeted under Ben Ali, many liberals and UGTT members suffered badly during his 23-year old rule. Tunisia’s economy is mismanaged and drifting. Average growth of 4.5% since 2000 and 2.7% in 2012 is not enough to absorb new entrants into the job market.

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This document examines the way in which Turkish foreign policy has adapted to a turbulent regional context. The author carries out this examination by reviewing some of the concepts that are commonly used in political discourse and academic analysis on this country’s foreign policy.

In recent times, the accommodation of ethnic and religious minorities and their special needs or claims has been an important concern for the European Union. In some countries challenges relate more to immigrant groups while in others they refer to native minorities.