JMD on Money & Business: Whither Egypt and Libya? (UPDATED LINK)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FIFA Uncovered: A discussion with filmmaker Miles Coleman about his new Netflix documentary

Image
  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify ,  Spreaker , and   Podbean. The Qatar World Cup kicks off a week from now. It is the most controversial World Cup in the history of global soccer body FIFA and has been enveloped in controversy from the moment Qatar won its hosting rights in December 2010. The controversy is as much about rights – human rights, workers’ rights and LGBT rights – in Qatar as it is about the integrity of global sports governance. Qatar won its hosting rights at a moment in which FIFA was shaken to its core by the worst corruption scandal in its history. The controversy is also about the fact that the Qatar World Cup in many ways symbolizes the transition of soccer, the world’s most popular form of popular entertainment, from a people’s sport into big business. The hike in airfares because of the pandemic and the energy crisis sparked by
Read more

Ukraine may force Middle Eastern rivals to upgrade their toolkit

Image
  By James M. Dorsey Struggling to remain on the sidelines of the 21 st century’s watershed war in Ukraine, Middle Eastern nations are discovering that they may be fighting their battles with an outdated toolkit. As a result, the Ukraine war could saw off the legs from under the table of Middle Eastern détente that already are built on shaky ground. For the past 18 months, Middle Eastern rivals – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Iran, and Israel – have sought to hedge their bets by diversifying their relationships with major powers, the United States, China, and/or Russia. Increasingly, the rivals are finding out that the Ukraine conflict threatens to narrow their ability to hedge. The conflict has, irrespective of the outcome of the war, reduced not only big power competition to a two- rather than three-horse race but also opened the door to a Cold War-style international relations based on the principle of ‘you are with us or against us.’ Even if por
Read more

Government and Fans Battle in Court and on the Pitch in Egypt and Turkey (JMD in Research Turkey)

Image
Government and Fans Battle in Court and on the Pitch in Egypt and Turkey Author:  James M. Dorsey, Writer, Journalist, Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Date: Jan 25, 2015      New Post ,  Research/Policy Papers Government and Fans Battle in Court and on the Pitch in Egypt and Turkey Introduction Egyptian and Turkish soccer pitches are set to re-emerge as battlegrounds between militant, street battle-hardened fans and authoritarian leaders in a life and death struggle that involves legal proceedings to brand the supporters as terrorists and efforts to undermine their popular base. Struggles Heat Up Egyptian fans, after recently storming a Cairo stadium in advance of an African championship final, have vowed in a statement on their Facebook page to break open Egyptian premier league games that have been closed to the public for much of the past four years.[i] Fans played a key role in mass anti-government protests that in 2011 toppled Pr
Read more