Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mustafa Fetouri
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Algeria sees business as usual despite weeks of protests
Millions of Algerians cast their votes on 12 December and chose 74-year-old former Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune as their country’s first freely-elected President since independence from France in 1962. The turnout was said to be around 40 per cent, and Tebboune won with a little over 58 per cent...
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How Libya’s UN recognised government is doing everything but its job
Last Tuesday, 17 December, marked four years since the Libyan Political Accord (LPA) was signed in Skhirat, Morocco creating the Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by Fayez Al-Sarraj. That government was supposed to be a caretaker authority for a two-year transitional period at most. It was tasked with...
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Why Libya’s maritime accord with Turkey has ignited anger
Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) signed on 27 November two documents with Turkey. One deals with security while the other draws out the maritime boundaries between the two countries in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. While the first document went almost unnoticed the second one created confusion and triggered...
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How the Trump impeachment investigation turned Ukraine into a US open testing grounds
On Tuesday the United States House Intelligence Committee, investigating President Donald Trump, issued its report on the impeachment of the republican. Yesterday, the process of impeaching him moved to the House Judiciary Committee where actual charges against the president will be articulated. The drama is expected to continue for the...
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Remembering Yasser Arafat
This month marked 15 years since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat passed away in what remain suspicious circumstances. Arafat came to symbolise not only the Palestinian struggle for independence but also went on to become an international icon as a freedom fighter against oppression. In his rise to the Palestinian leadership...
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Will Libya back away from allowing Gaddafi to stand trial at the ICC?
It appears that Libya’s Minister of Justice, Mohamed Lamloum, underestimated the public reaction to his statements before the International Criminal Court (ICC) last Tuesday. The ICC was hearing an appeal from the defence team of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi’s who were disputing the case’s admissibility before the international court. During...
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Libya’s day of shame at the International Criminal Court
On Monday and Tuesday this week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) held a hearing for Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi’s challenge to the admissibility of his case before the court. Gaddafi junior is accused by the ICC of crimes against humanity during the revolt against his father’s rule in 2011. Representing...
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Algerian demonstrators are calling for a second revolution
Sixty-five years ago, the people of Algeria rose in great numbers and picked up arms against France, the local colonial power. Thus began one of the bloodiest national struggles in modern history. When the Algerian revolution started on 1 November 1954, despite being four times the size of France,...
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Arms and sovereignty are priorities for Russia’s return to Africa
Better late than never sums up Moscow’s newfound interest in Africa. While Russia is no stranger to the continent, Moscow’s African policy stalled after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union’s presence in Africa, which Russia basically inherited, goes back to the earliest days of...
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Libya’s GNA is linked with notorious criminals, including human traffickers
In February 2017, after less than a year in office, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti managed to reduce the flow of illegal migration out of Libya by 87 per cent. He visited Libya and signed a deal with the head of the Government of National Accord (GNA) Fayez Al-Sarraj...
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Tunisia’s new president is an independent, but he will have to work with the political parties
Kais Saied is the new President of Tunisia after a landslide election victory with 72.71 per cent of the votes cast. Saied received 2.7 million votes while his rival, businessman and media mogul Nabil Karoui, polled just over a million. The Election Commission confirmed the results on 14 October,...
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Can Arab oil once again be leveraged to support Arab causes?
World oil supplies have been at the centre of every major crisis in the Middle East for the last seven decades. Having nearly 67 per cent of world oil reserves, the region has dominated every major country’s foreign policy. The recent crisis between Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia,...
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Can Germany succeed in tackling the Libya crisis?
Germany is to host an international meeting on Libya sometime before the end of October – some say before the end of the year. This is the latest attempt to find a solution to the conflict in the North African country that has been beset by unrest for almost...
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Why are the Algerians unable to find a way forward?
Since they took to the streets in their thousands earlier this year, the people of Algeria have achieved very little. Their demands, meanwhile, have multiplied despite being, occasionally, unattainable goals. When they first came out on 22 February, thousands of protesters wanted just one thing: free elections which the...
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How two political outsiders defied all predictions in Tunisia’s second free elections
Now it is official; Kais Saied, hardly known outside the university walls made it to the second round of presidential elections in Tunisia with 18.4 per cent of the votes according to the country’s Independent High Authority for Elections, known by its French acronym ISIE. The second candidate to...
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America’s Middle East policy blunders lead inevitably to failure
Is the United States withdrawing from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, or it is just missing the magical focal policy that it occasionally had in years gone by? No matter which conclusion is reached, it implies that America’s MENA policy in recent years is nothing but...
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Is Trump helping or harming Israel?
Many believe United States President Donald Trump is helping Israel in an unprecedented way and the son of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu, Yair, is one of them. Last June he described Trump as “Rockstar in Israel” and “the best friend that Israel and the Jewish people have...
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Libya gave the world a unique treaty which should be copied by all ex-colonial powers
Friday 30 August is the 11th anniversary of the treaty signed by Libya and Italy on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation bringing to an end a long, turbulent chapter of relations between Rome and its former colony. It is not just another pact between two countries; it is an exceptional...
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Where are the local peace initiatives for Libya?
It is notable that, in Libya’s current violence, there is an absence of serious local peace initiatives. In previous conflicts across the war-ravaged country, local tribal leaders and dignitaries would appeal for peace and launch their own conciliation efforts to bring about, at the very least, a ceasefire. In January,...
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Libyans are divided over kidnapped MP
The last time that Siham Sergiwa spoke publicly was from her Benghazi home on 16 July, during a TV talk show. The following morning, she disappeared, apparently without trace. Speaking by phone, Sergiwa voiced her opposition to the war on Tripoli and called for a ceasefire and a unity government;...
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8 years ago NATO killed my family in their sleep
Eight years ago, NATO and its partners, killed nearly 200 Libyan civilians across the North African country. Eight years on, no one has been held accountable. Neither NATO nor its partners gave any explanation or offered an apology let alone compensation while the families of those killed still reel...
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Essebsi was hardly the ‘saviour’ of Tunisia at all
Tunisia’s President Beji Caïd Essebsi died last Thursday in a military hospital in the capital Tunis. He was 92 years old and had been in ill health. Within hours, the parliamentary Speaker was sworn in as Interim President until an election can be held, in line with the Tunisian...
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Life in besieged Tripoli
On 4 April, the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar reached the outskirts of Tripoli, Libya’s capital. Unable to proceed, the LNA effectively laid siege to the city in the hope that it could take it from the Government of National Accord. To date, neither side...
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8 years, 6 envoys; what more can the UN do to save Libya?
Between May 2011 and today the United Nations has appointed six special representatives to Libya, from five different nationalities, each serving less than two years. The present envoy, Ghassan Salame, is a respected Lebanese academic, former minister and experienced UN operative in both Iraq and Myanmar. His appointment brought...