by Daniel Korski | Feb 20, 2009 | Africa, Conflict and security
The new African Union (AU) chairman Muammar Gaddafi — Tony Blair’s friend, Nicolas Sarkozy’s partner, freer of hostages, and friend to the enslaved –- has said he believes piracy is a way for poor Africans to defend themselves against the greedy Western nations.
On his first official visit to the African Union headquarter in Addis Ababa, Colonel Gaddafi told the union’s staff: Piracy is “a response to greedy Western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia’s water resources illegally”. The Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution went on: “It is not a piracy, it is self defense. It is defending the Somalia children’s food.” So much for getting the AU to help in developing a comprehensive solution.
If the West do not like the Colonel’s views? Simple: “It is our planet and they can go to other planet”, says the Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Yeah, you tell them Colonel. They can go live in another solar system.
by Richard Gowan | Feb 19, 2009 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa
Long-standing readers may recall that, about a year ago, I wrote a couple of posts about the need for the EU to get involved in stabilizing Iraq in the window of stability offered by the Surge. (What’s that you say, oh long-standing readers? You have no recollection of this? The posts are here, here and here, and related op-eds here and here).
Now, this argument didn’t exactly change the face of the Middle East, but it did start to seep out among the policy wonks back in Europe. Whereas a year ago, arguing for EU engagement in Iraq was roughly equivalent to professional cyanide, it’s now quite respectable. After all, both Nicolas Sarkozy and the German Foreign Minister have popped over to Baghdad this month. Sadly, M. Sarkozy didn’t have a chance to stand on a tank this time, but he looked positively Napoleonic behind his podium:
Taking trips to Iraq is one thing – having a policy is another. What should the EU do? The Heinrich Boell Stiftung published a collection of essays on Europe and Iraq this week, and Daniel and I have contributed an article to this. Daniel summarizes the case over on the ECFR website:
A new EU strategy should focus on: entrenching good governance, especially in the security sector; and investing in a framework for regional stability. Specifically, the EU should strengthen the EU Rule of Law Mission in Iraq, with a particular emphasis on police governance and strategic planning for Iraqi police; Europeanize the existing NATO military/gendarmerie mission in Iraq; and combine these two missions into one European ESDP mission, and add a third pillar dealing with border management and security. A senior EU envoy should be appointed to head this mission as well as an expanded Commission office in Baghdad.
A sign you’ve had a good idea is that someone else has just had it too, and FRIDE has published a good paper promoting similar ideas. I think that they have a medium-to-good chance of getting traction, not least because Swedish FM Carl Bildt has long favored a stronger EU role in Iraq, and Sweden will have the EU presidency from July. Watch out for the circle of golden stars fluttering over Tikrit and Najaf soon!
by Alex Evans | Feb 18, 2009 | What we're watching
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDlFL8jIeys[/youtube]
by Richard Gowan | Feb 18, 2009 | Off topic
From the people who brought you the Inquistion and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, it’s trivia time!
Women are prouder than men, but men are more lustful, according to a Vatican report which states that the two sexes sin differently. A Catholic survey found that the most common sin for women was pride, while for men, the urge for food was only surpassed by the urge for sex.
The report was based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar. The Pope’s personal theologian backed up the report in the Vatican newspaper.
“Men and women sin in different ways,” Msgr Wojciech Giertych, theologian to the papal household, wrote in L’Osservatore Romano. “When you look at vices from the point of view of the difficulties they create you find that men experiment in a different way from women.”
So what’s the final vice breakdown?
by Mark Weston | Feb 18, 2009 | Africa, Conflict and security
I gave a talk to senior civil servants at the Home Office last week, as part of Demos’s Leadership Masterclass on International Challenges and Counter-Terrorism. My talk was on West Africa, and particularly on how looming demographic changes there are likely to increase instability in a region that is already the world’s poorest and one of its most volatile. I argue that, at least in the long-term, Western security policy-makers would do well to keep an eye on the region. For an edited version of the talk, see after the jump.
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