Algerian military commander Gaid Salah died of a heart attack on December 23, after a record 15 years as Chief of Defence Staff and almost a year as the unofficial leader of the country in the wake of the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He has been replaced by the new head of the army, Said Chengriha. Experts estimate that ...
NATO Summit The 70th anniversary NATO summit was held in London. During the leaders’ meeting, the parties signed a document in which they reaffirmed their commitment to the alliance. Nonetheless, the summit and statements of the leaders of Turkey and France on the eve of the event revealed many internal contradictions and the outdated model of the alliance, the constraints ...
Protests in the Shia crescent: Iraq, Iran and Lebanon Several Middle Eastern Shia-majority countries have recently been rocked by mass protests. The protests which started in October in Iraq led to the resignation of the country’s PM, Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The protesters demands include calling for new elections (to fight ‘corruption’) and the withdrawal of the Iranian influence on Iraq (Shia ...
Although the ongoing protests in Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria began as a result of internal factors, there are many indications of US, Israeli, French and Saudi Arabian involvement. Non-governmental organizations, media forces and lobbies are being used as tools by external forces to take control of and guide the protests in their own interests. Before explaining the precise actions of ...
It will soon have been a month since thousands of people began to demonstrate in the Santiago de Chile Metro. The ostensible reason for the demonstrations was an increase in public transit ticket prices which has been successive since 2007, increasing 3 times in 2018 alone. The protests quickly grew out of control and became violent, leaving 22 dead and ...
Yellow vests The one year anniversary of the Yellow Vests protests took place this week in France. Over the course of a year, opponents of French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal reforms have organized 53 “acts,” as the weekly protests have been designated. Dozens of people were arrested in connection with the latest demonstration. The protests began in 2018 with local ...
Around six years ago, in October 2013, I was invited to deliver a speech at an international conference hosted by ICRC and Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. My speech was on “The Pros and Cons of Social Media”. At that time, I warned about the possibility of governments misusing social media resources to spread their influence, point out ...
By now word has spread about the hotly contested $6 tax on WhatsApp calls in Lebanon, but are the mass protests really about a tax hike a social media app? The Lebanese government has already announced that it will not go through with imposing the tax… yet, the people are in the streets. In other words, it is no ...
Protests in Lebanon Throughout the week a number of protests took place in various countries across the globe. In Lebanon, demonstrations began on the evening of October 17 against the government’s new tax policy. The protesters showcased their rejection of the government’s decision to introduce a $6 dollar a month tax for calls made on the popular social media app ...
On October 13, several Catalan separatist leaders were sentenced to 13, 12 and 9 years in prison for trying to declare independence from Spain via an illegal referendum in 2017. Immediately after the sentence was announced, radical independence groups went into the streets of Catalonia and began to institute chaos and violence. The protesters attempted to take over the Barcelona ...