Profile
QATAR, ITS EMIR AND AL JAZEERA
"You are listening to Al Jazerra, broadcasting from Qatar”. This sentence, repeated every hour on an old TV Set, has spread to the whole Arab world from Tangier to Baghdad. But street humour has quickly changed it to “Here Qatar, broadcasted by Al Jazerra!” This inversion illustrates the enigmatic relation that unites the Arabic equivalent of CNN, with the country hosting it. By diffusing live the first aerial strikes on Kabul, Al Jazeera did not know its renown would spread beyond the frontiers it then had. And when Osama Ben Laden, the most wanted man on earth, chose Al Jazeera to respond to G.W. Bush, the channel ignored it would become a target of the American retaliation...
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim : a heavy heritage
On December 4, 2006, the President of the United States, George Bush, invited Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), to Washington, although he had previously publicly showed his trust in the current Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, M. al-Hakim's rival. The American administration is looking for new alliances in Iraq and its region because the Iraqi government has proven to be powerless in the face of the intensification of the denominational conflict. Coupled together with failings in security, this explains the prolonged stay of the Coalition forces.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, charismatic fighting Shiite leader
Born in 1960 in a very poor neighbourhood of Beirut, the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is setting the Muslim world on fire. Whether they be Sunnis or Shiites the admirers of the man, whose last name signifies «victory of God», are to be found in all the countries where Islam is a communitarian religion, i.e. in the Near-East, South-East-Asia, Indian subcontinent or even Africa. Fawned upon by the people, he has been accused of adventurism by the Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian governments. The sheikh has found the way to challenge an enemy whose arsenal and allies are dissuasive.
Close Up
The EU in Egypt: human rights or politics?
On January 17th, the European Parliament passed a resolution by 52 votes and 7 abstentions, condemning the human rights situation in Egypt. This deeply offended Cairo, who saw it as an interference in its sovereignty. Egypt’s Foreign Minister declared that “Egypt rejects all attempts by those who believe themselves authorised to investigate on human rights in our country”. Egypt counteracted by informing the EU member’s Ambassadors there, that it would not attend a Euro-Mediterranean meeting the next week in Brussels, and that is was annulling another meeting in Cairo on the recent Neighbourhood Policy agreement.
Will Iran still be a threat in 2008 ?
The Crisis in Pakistan and the recent rioting in Kenya have dislodged Iran to the background. Yet in Europe and the US the debate on the Iranian Nuclear Programme is far from over, even though the US Intelligence Service deems that the military aspect of this programme was halted in 2003.
President Sarkozy's visit to Algeria
The French President has just concluded an official State visit to Algeria. Mr Nicolas Sarkozy was in Algiers from the 3rd to the 5th of December, during a trip marked by the signing of contracts worth 4.3 Billion euros as well as Sarkozy’s condemnation of French colonial rule as “profoundly unjust and contrary to the three founding words of our Republic, freedom, equality and brotherhood; not quite the official apology the Algerians were hoping for yet “a step in the good direction” for Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, Algeria’s Interior Minister.
This was Mr Sarkozy’s second State Visit to Algeria since having taken office in May 2007. He had already visited the country on the 10th of July 2007 where he exposed his Mediterranean Union project. The project was officially unveiled during a State Visit to Morocco in late October and further detailed during Euromed’s Ministerial Conference that took place on the 6th of November in Lisbon. One could expect that Mr Sarkozy’s aim in visiting Algeria was to promote this Union, especially as during that time, his project was being adopted by the French Commission on Foreign Affairs. If that was the case it went by unnoticed, for the political agenda was dominated entirely by energy concerns.