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1461. Foreign Fighters in Syria

Author:
Richard Barrett
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
Over 12,000 fighters from at least 81 countries have joined the civil war in Syria, and the numbers continue to grow. Around 2,500 are from Western countries, including most members of the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. There are also several hundred from Russia. But the great majority are from the Arab World. Most are fighting with rebel groups, and increasingly with the most extreme among them; but many are also fighting with the Government, or with ethnic or faith communities that are trying to protect themselves from both sides. A lot are young, often teenagers, and a fair percentage of those arriving from non-Muslim majority countries are converts to Islam. These and others who share their faith commonly express their motivation as a religious obligation to protect fellow Muslims from attack. This sense of duty is captured by their loose use of the word ‘jihad’.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Syria

1462. Fictionalizing Theory, Theorizing Fiction: The Stylistics of Return Migration in Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah

Author:
Bimbola Oluwafunlola Idowu-Faith
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
This paper is a stylistic investigation of Americanah (2013) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s latest novel. Whereas Americanah is the melting pot where love and romance collide and comingle with hair politics and the shifting meanings of skin color, Adichie employs migration as the window through which these issues are projected. Beyond Adichie’s juxtaposition of binary migratory terms of “Americanah” and “American” and her protagonist’s choice of the former, the novelist’s preoccupation is to critically engage international migration theories, and to chart a new migration story, where return migration is the quintessential closure.
Topic:
Migration, International Affairs, Literature, and Novels
Political Geography:
Africa

1463. Canada, the Arctic Council, Greenpeace, and Arctic Oil Drilling: Complicating an Already Complicated Picture

Author:
Robert Huebert
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
Canada and the Arctic Council finds itself facing one of its greatest challenges – supporting economic development for people of the north while protecting the fragile environment of the Arctic. 2014 will bring the possibility of exploratory drilling for oil off the northern coasts of Russia, the United States, Canada and Greenland. Development of suspected oil wealth in the region could redraw the very face of the entire region. Opposition to oil development is strongest in non-northern locations, and is increasingly represented by environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace. This issue, to develop or not to develop, is poised to become the most divisive issue facing the Arctic states in the coming years. Canada will need to negotiate a very delicate balance as it proceeds as chair of the Arctic Council. It will need to promote the efforts of the Arctic Council to protect the environment, while responding to increasingly vocal opposition against the large scale development of any oil resources in the region. Canada must be prepared to act against the inevitable protests that will occur against any exploratory drilling in Canadian waters. In order to protect development in the region, Canada must have the capability to ensure order in the region once permission has been granted to companies to proceed with exploration.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Oil, International Affairs, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and Arctic

1464. Africa's Media Boom: The Role of International Aid

Author:
Mary Myers
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
This year, 2014, marks 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the symbolic end of the Cold War in 1989. It also marks the anniversary of the beginning of an extraordinary proliferation of media outlets in sub-Saharan Africa, which swept across the continent, freeing Africa’s press and liberating the airwaves from monopoly by the state. Economics, technology, and socio-political forces all played major roles in this boom of Africa’s media. But one of the untold stories of these changes is the role of donor aid in this process. This is the subject of the Center for International Media Assistance’s latest report, Africa’s Media Boom: The Role of International Aid, by veteran international media consultant Mary Myers. It explores these questions: · How much of a catalyst were foreign donors in this mushrooming of Africa’s news media? · What were the motives and mechanisms of this aid? · What difference did it make at the time, and subsequently? · Was media proliferation necessarily a good thing–did it lead to pluralism and genuine freedom?
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Affairs, and Media
Political Geography:
Africa and Global Focus

1465. Security Council Resolution 1325: Civil Society Monitoring Report 2014

Author:
Diana Miladinović Zeba
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belgrade Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
While there has been some progress in terms of democratic governance reform, the changes that took place in the government since 2012 affected women’s rights in general. Lack of democratic continuity can negatively influence the implementation of the policies and practices that are currently in place, and which should be strengthened further.
Topic:
Civil Society and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1466. Siete equilibrios clave de la reforma energetica

Author:
COMEXI
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI)
Abstract:
Reforma energética: siete equilibrios clave para garantizar el éxito de su instrumentación” es producto del análisis y diálogo del Grupo de Trabajo de Energía del Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI). En esta ocasión los expertos, especialistas y conocedores que forman parte del Grupo reflexionan sobre los principios y equilibrios que deben imperar en la elaboración de las leyes secundarias de la reforma energética
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Mexico

1467. The New Challenges to the EuroAmerican Relationship: Russia and the Middle East

Author:
Guido Lenzi
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
We have not reached the “end of history”, but this is one of its crossroads, a hinge, like Westphalia in 1648, Vienna in 1815, Versailles in 1919, San Francisco 1in 1945 (or the soon forgotten Paris in 1990). We are all, in other words, once again „present at the creation‟. Not much further than the square one that Roosevelt and Truman established seventy years ago. The “winds of change” that Harold MacMillan detected in 19561 are blowing anew
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1468. Local voices in internationalised justice: The experience of civil parties at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Author:
Johanna Herman
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre on Human Rights in Conflict
Abstract:
The experience of civil parties participating in Case 002 at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) provides important insights into victim participation in a mass atrocity trial. Understanding the expectations of civil parties and evaluating their experience so far will help us to improve victim support at future cases at the ECCC and other internationalised courts.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1469. Trade Talks and National Security

Author:
Vinod K Aggarwal
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley APEC Study Center
Abstract:
The stream of revelations about American spying in Europe—and the backlash they have produced—threatens ongoing EU-US trade talks. This column assesses that threat, highlighting often-overlooked factors, not the least of which is the poor record of allowing security policy concerns to influence trade relations.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus