Although they have different strategies to achieve their objectives, America and Russia both seek to maintain Syria’s status quo. America does not want the opposition to be defeated, but it also does not want it to achieve a decisive military victory. Russia does not mind if the regime agrees to a political settlement, which it may do even if it wins the conflict militarily. Russia understands that the regime may opt for a settlement if it suspects that the armed opposition might succeed in overthrowing it.
Two key features characterise the Syrian Salafis. Initially, the Salafis called for non-violence, as a result of the repression that the regime had imposed on the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. They then transformed to become Salafi jihadists, as a reaction to the regime's military repression of peaceful demonstrations.
While delivering a speech to the Majlis (Iranian parliament) on 3 February 2013, outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed members a clip in which Fazel Larijani, brother of Iran’s judiciary chief, Sadeq Larijani, and Majlis speaker Ali Larijani, was seen offering to quash charges against former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi for financial gain. Dubbed ‘butcher of the press’ and ‘torturer of Tehran’, Mortazavi had been under investigation for his activities following the 2009 election, which led to the deaths of over thirty protesters and mass arrests of many others. Ali Larijani subsequently threw Ahmadinejad out of parliament, declaring that his presentation lacked evidence, and accusing him of waging a war against God.
Executive Director of the Afro-Middle East Centre, Na'eem Jeenah, has dismissed suggestions that the violent protests in Turkey are similar to those seen during the Arab Spring uprising two years ago.
The clashes currently occurring in various areas in Iraq, which left over 180 people dead in the past week, threaten the stability and territorial integrity of Iraq, and may result in the region dividing along sectarian lines. This becomes more likely when the Syrian crisis, and its potential spillover into Lebanon, are considered. The clashes began on Tuesday, 23 April, when the Iraqi army attacked peaceful protesters in the town of Hawijah in the ‘mixed’ Kirkuk province, resulting in over fifty protesters being killed. Consequently, Iraqi Sunnis began calling for increased armed resistance against the central government, with some advocating secession for Iraq’s Sunni-majority provinces.
The Afro-Middle East Centre invites you to a speaking tour of Johannesburg and Cape Town by Awad Abdel Fattah, Palestinian politician from Israel. Fattah will be in South Africa talking about the façade of 'Israeli Democracy' at the University of Cape Town and the University of Johannesburg in April 2013.
The 31 March agreement between Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, in which the two leaders expressed their ‘common goal to defend’ the many holy sites in East Jerusalem from the continued threat of Judaisation may be the first step in initialising a radical alteration in the nature and proposed solution to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In August 2010, AMEC published the English translation of an interview with Khalid Mish’al, head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). The interview laid out the vision and strategies of Hamas at the time. A few months later, uprisings began in North Africa and spread across the Middle East and North Africa, changing the nature of politics and the balance of power in the region. In November 2012, the Beirut-based Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations hosted a conference with the theme ‘Islamists in
For the third time in only six years, parliamentary elections were held in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on 23 January. Again, there was little suspense about the possible outcome. Cosmetic reforms were implemented in the past two years, but had not persuaded the public or the political opposition that meaningful change was on the way. The parliament was again composed of independent candidates, rather than political blocs which could seriously oppose the will of King Abdullah II. The elections did not signify a break with the past and Jordan’s ‘democracy’ remains as shallow and the king’s path to reform as slow and hollow as ever.
The protests in more than sixty cities in Turkey over the past weeks signal growing discontent with various government policies and with the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The protests have morphed into something quite different from the initial protests, which began as an environmentalist and antineoliberal protest against the construction of new buildings in Taksim Square’s Gezi Park. Turkey's economic success in the last decade has resulted in sweeping urban development throughout the country, especially in Istanbul and Ankara, giving rise to a substantial countermovement of civil society groups, opposing what they regard as state support of business interests over people’s interests.
The impending Iranian presidential election scheduled for 14 June 2013 is widely acknowledged to be one of the most critical in the regime’s thirty-five year history. With the economy in tatters as a result of sanctions and economic mismanagement, and the regime striving to restore its legitimacy following the 2009 election protests, voting patterns and voter turnout will not only influence a possible alternation of power, but may provide insight into the longterm survival of the regime. Hence security has been stepped up, voters have been encouraged to participate, and candidates with both economically rightist and leftist positions have stressed the need for economic growth.
Executive Director of the Afro-Middle East Centre, Na'eem Jeenah, has dismissed suggestions that the violent protests in Turkey are similar to those seen during the Arab Spring uprising two years ago.
Executive Director at the Afro-Middle East Centre, Na'eem Jeenah. discusses the implications of Syria joining multi-national talks with Russia and the USA.
After numerous predictions over the past two years about the imminent fall of the Bashar al-Asad regime in Syria, developments are beginning to take a different turn for the embattled Syrian president. The battle for the town of Qusayr, in western Syria, is proving to be one of the most decisive and strategic battles since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, which started more than two years ago, and has left a least 80 000 people dead and millions displaced.
If press releases issued by pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israel lobby groups on the recent labelling notice are anything to go by, rarely has any singular issue dealing with the Palestine-Israel issue – especially a government initiative – been so welcomed by both.
The Afro-Middle East Centre invites you to a seminar entitled Israeli society and prospects for change in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Presented by internationally renowned Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, and moderated by Prof Ran Greenstein.
The Israeli rightwing continues to control the composition of the new government, but with a big difference this time: the rise of a new rightwing force that has created polarisation between the secular and the religious right. This may see the disintegration of the Likud base of the government that is composed of a mixture of both religious and secular.
Expectations were low for US President Barack Obama’s first visit to Palestine-Israel. In light of a frosting of relations between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially after Netanyahu endorsed Obama’s presidential rival Mitt Romney in last year’s US presidential election, and a tacit acknowledgement that the so-called ‘peace process’ had stalled, the trip was more an affirmation of the avowed support of the USA for Israel than a hope for anything more significant.
On Wednesday 13 March, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) freed eight Turkish soldiers and civil servants as part of the ongoing peace process with the Turkish government. Since the government announced that it was holding negotiations with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in December 2012, there have been hopes for an end to the three decades of PKK insurgency that has cost 40 000 lives and the beginning of the end to the discrimination faced by Turkey’s Kurds. Although this peace initiative, dubbed the ‘Imrali Process’ after the island where Öcalan is serving a life
The clashes currently occurring in various areas in Iraq, which left over 180 people dead in the past week, threaten the stability and territorial integrity of Iraq, and may result in the region dividing along sectarian lines. This becomes more likely when the Syrian crisis, and its potential spillover into Lebanon, are considered. The clashes began on Tuesday, 23 April, when the Iraqi army attacked peaceful protesters in the town of Hawijah in the ‘mixed’ Kirkuk province, resulting in over fifty protesters being killed. Consequently, Iraqi Sunnis began calling for increased armed resistance against the central government, with some advocating secession for Iraq’s Sunni-majority provinces.
The 
The 31 March agreement between Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, in which the two leaders expressed their ‘common goal to defend’ the many holy sites in East Jerusalem from the continued threat of Judaisation may be the first step in initialising a radical alteration in the nature and proposed solution to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The protests in more than sixty cities in Turkey over the past weeks signal growing discontent with various government policies and with the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The protests have morphed into something quite different from the initial protests, which began as an environmentalist and antineoliberal protest against the construction of new buildings in Taksim Square’s Gezi Park. Turkey's economic success in the last decade has resulted in sweeping urban development throughout the country, especially in Istanbul and Ankara, giving rise to a substantial countermovement of civil society groups, opposing what they regard as state support of business interests over people’s interests.
The impending Iranian presidential election scheduled for 14 June 2013 is widely acknowledged to be one of the most critical in the regime’s thirty-five year history. With the economy in tatters as a result of sanctions and economic mismanagement, and the regime striving to restore its legitimacy following the 2009 election protests, voting patterns and voter turnout will not only influence a possible alternation of power, but may provide insight into the longterm survival of the regime. 
After numerous predictions over the past two years about the imminent fall of the Bashar al-Asad regime in Syria, developments are beginning to take a different turn for the embattled Syrian president. The battle for the town of Qusayr, in western Syria, is proving to be one of the most decisive and strategic battles since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, which started more than two years ago, and has left a least 80 000 people dead and millions displaced.
If press releases issued by pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israel lobby groups on the recent labelling notice are anything to go by, rarely has any singular issue dealing with the Palestine-Israel issue – especially a government initiative – been so welcomed by both.
Expectations were low for US President Barack Obama’s first visit to Palestine-Israel. In light of a frosting of relations between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially after Netanyahu endorsed Obama’s presidential rival Mitt Romney in last year’s US presidential election, and a tacit acknowledgement that the so-called ‘peace process’ had stalled, the trip was more an affirmation of the avowed support of the USA for Israel than a hope for anything more significant.
On Wednesday 13 March, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) freed eight Turkish soldiers and civil servants as part of the ongoing peace process with the Turkish government. Since the government announced that it was holding negotiations with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in December 2012, there have been hopes for an end to the three decades of PKK insurgency that has cost 40 000 lives and the beginning of the end to the discrimination faced by Turkey’s Kurds. Although this peace initiative, dubbed the ‘Imrali Process’ after the island where Öcalan is serving a life