Tag Archives: North Africa

The European Council will have to make crucial decisions regarding the future of the EU in the fields of migration, asylum and border protection, says Elmar Brok MEP. Otherwise, the Mediterranean will remain the deadliest route on the globe.

Although Spain is under international scrutiny for the increasing police violence, the government has proposed a controversial amendment to its immigration law that would apply exclusively at Ceuta and Melilla. The proposal aims to legitimize automatic returns of people trying to access the two cities irregularly and without the right documentation.

One of three Al Jazeera journalists has been released from Egypt, and about time too. No such luck for the other two, however, who remain behind bars. Their continuing plight illustrates just how dangerous journalism can be in unstable countries, and how much more dangerous it can be when the line between politics and publication is blurred.

Forget the false frame of the West versus Islam. It’s not historically or conceptually accurate, and the two are basically on the same side against the crimes of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The real battle is over the soul of Europe. And the far right is rallying like it’s 1099.

“Fortress Europe” was how critics used to describe the cordon sanitaire thrown around Europe by strict immigration control. But since the enlargement of the European Union, it is freedom of movement of people within the EU that is causing much of the resentment -- particularly in Britain, which may even vote to leave the EU altogether if she is unable to get some sort of opt-out to control freedom of movement of persons from the EU.

The 2011 Arab revolutions hugely effected Turkey's orientation towards the Middle East. Its foreign policy moved from a diplomatic, non-interference policy to an interventionist, revisionist one, even imperialist to some people. In terms of policymaking, Turkey resembled the US, relying on its military might to shape the direction of its foreign relations. But now it risks losing all its gains achieved in the last decade.

Between a rock and a hard place, having burnt his boats there is no other choice for Pakistan’s opposition leader Imran Khan but to achieve his objective to obtain “by a little bit of madness” the elusive freedoms that is the right of all Pakistanis in a real democracy.

The United States will not be able to dictate or control events in the Middle East, but many in the region still examine what the United States says and does very closely. Most of its key governments take active steps to shape the trajectory of U.S. policy. The United States should make the most of these diplomatic engagements to craft a wiser engagement policy that seeks to isolate and defeat extremist ideologies in the ongoing battle of ideas.