Katinka Barysch questions if Europe and Turkey missed an opportunity at the Arab spring. And a Libya roundup…

 

The Arab spring a missed opportunity for Europe and Turkey? by Katinka Barysch

from Today’s Zaman, your gateway to Turkish daily news :: Interviews
Turkey has become a force to be reckoned with in the Arab world. As a fast growing, predominantly Muslim but secular democracy, it inspires people across the Middle East and the Maghreb.

Morning Brief: Qaddafi envoy in London

from FP Passport by Joshua Keating

Qaddafi envoy in London

Top news: A senior aide to Saif al-Qaddafi is reportedly in London for secret talks with British authorities. Following yesterday’s defection of Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, rumors have swirled of other high-profile defections from the Qaddafi regime. Ali Abdussalam el-Treki, a former U.N. envoy who had also reportedly defected on Thursday, denied the rumors, but said that he is trying to negotiate a ceasefire. Libyan officials have now posted guards to prevent other defectors from leaving.

Libya: What Revolution? Whose Revolution?

from OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY by Maximilian Forte

The Middle East’s cutesy Internet censorship

from FP Passport by Joshua Keating

The Open Net Initiative has a fascinating new report out about how Middle Eastern and North African dictatorships are using web-filtering technologies developed by American and Canadian companies to censor the Internet from their own citizens. At least nine countries are using technologies like Netsweeper, Websense, and SmartFilter — originally designed to allow companies and schools to censor pornography and other objectionable material.

MAIN FOCUS: Conflict over arming Libyan rebels | 31/03/2011

from euro|topics

Troops loyal to the Libyan government have succeeded in driving the rebel forces back eastwards once more. The international community is now at loggerheads over whether to supply the rebels with weapons. But that would implicate the alliance too deeply in the conflict, the press warns, fearing also that the weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

Libya: time to decide, Ranj Alaaldin

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Ranj Alaaldin
Providing air support and arms for the Libyan opposition is necessary if stalemate and partition are to be avoided, argues Ranj Alaaldin

 

Turning a Libyan rabble into an army

from Mark Mardell | The Reporters by Mark Mardell (the Reporters)

Will President Barack Obama arm the Libyan rebels? He says: “I’m not ruling it out, but I’m also not ruling it in.”

Libya: war or humanitarian intervention?, Mary Kaldor

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Mary Kaldor
In the end the prospects for democracy depend on whether the rebels can mobilise support politically throughout Libya. The problem with the military approach is that it entrenches division. Our preoccupation with classic military means is undermining our capacity to address growing insecurity.

Blogging from Qaddafi-world

from FP Passport by Joshua Keating

Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim, or Musa Mansour as he was known in his previous life as a cycling-for-charity filmmaker in Britain, has emerged as this war’s Baghdad Bob, doing his best to make his boss’s statements about U.S./al Qaeda hallucenigenic mind control make sense to the international community.

Why democracy in the Arab world is no foregone conclusion, Takis S. Pappas

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Takis S. Pappas
One way of assessing the prospects for democracy in the Middle East is to compare this region not only with eastern Europe in the late 1980s but also with southern Europe in the mid-1970s, where aged authoritarian regimes gave way to young democracies.

Tackling corruption in revolutionary Egypt, Marc Michael

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Marc Michael
“Corruption” is the word on every Egyptian’s lips as the misuse of public funds and office is exposed from Mubarak downwards. The answer is to repeal the semi-privatisation of the state bureaucracy and introduce a minimum wage, argues Marc Michael

It’s not easy speaking for Qaddafi

from FP Passport by Joshua Keating

The Telegraph‘s correspondent in Libya, Damien McElroy, suggests that one reason for Moussa Kusa’s defection may have been that he was growing tired of trying to spin his boss’s bizarre pronouncements:

Islamophobia and the Arab spring, Paul Norton

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Paul Norton
If the opportunity can be seized to help more people to build prosperous lives of liberty in their own countries, perhaps Europe?s Islamophobes will be able to stop worrying about immigration or insecurity.

 

What Obama has to tell America about Libya

from Mark Mardell | The Reporters by Mark Mardell (the Reporters)

President Barack Obama tonight makes a speech he’d rather not be making: Explaining to his country, proud of its military but weary of war, why he has decided to bomb the armed forces of another Middle Eastern country.

 

Why the Libyan No-Fly Zone is good: Juan Cole’s open letter to the left, Anthony Barnett

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Anthony Barnett
Anthony Barnett agrees with Juan Cole that humanitarianism sometimes trumps all other considerations. And this is the case in Libya today.

 

Libya, Arab democracy, and western policy, Godfrey Hodgson

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Godfrey Hodgson
The United States and European intervention in Libya leaves open key questions about the future of western power in the wider region, says Godfrey Hodgson.

 

Have the jihadis lost the moral high ground to the rebels?

from The Immanent Frame by Mark Juergensmeyer

It has been a season of earthquakes, and the political ones in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Middle East may have shifted the moral high ground within Islamic opposition movements. Put simply, Tahrir Square may have trumped jihad.

The freedom cloud, Becky Hogge

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Becky Hogge
The tools that help Arab democracy protesters also extend the reach of three United States corporations. The power of Facebook, Google, and Twitter represents an appropriation of the hacker-utopian ideals of the early internet, says Becky Hogge. The challenge to those who still uphold these ideals is to recover a true freedom path.

 

Serbia: Gaddafi’s Cyber Army Oppose Rebels and NATO

from Global Voices Online by Sasa Milosevic

Written by Sasa Milosevic

This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.

A Facebook page entitled ?Support for Muammar al-Gaddafi from the people of Serbia? has become a show of support for the controversial Libyan leader, with over 62,500 members. Libyan opposition activists have also reported cyber attacks on opposition websites coming from Serbia.

 

Libyan Karzai? Chalabi? Forget it

from AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (IN DEPTH)
Predictable Western political interference in Libya is reminiscent of recent involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MAIN FOCUS: World discusses Libya’s future | 29/03/2011

from euro|topics

The international alliance’s military intervention has weakened Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi’s troops and the rebels are now on the advance. The foreign ministers of more than 40 states will meet today in London to discuss the situation and the future of the country. According to the press this will test the cohesion of the alliance, which should now also help the opposition in Libya politically.

Libya’s challenge: democracy under the gun, Mark Taylor

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Mark Taylor
The military intervention in Libya now threatens the Arab democracy risings. This makes diplomacy and demilitarisation essential, says Mark Taylor.

Libya and a decade?s war, Paul Rogers

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Paul Rogers
The west?s military-political strategy against the Gaddafi regime echoes its flawed approach to Afghanistan and Iraq, says Paul Rogers in this, his 500th weekly column for openDemocracy.

 

MAIN FOCUS: Gaddafi’s power crumbles | 01/04/2011

from euro|topics

Libya’s Foreign Minister and former head of the secret service Moussa Koussa fled to London on Wednesday. The press sees Koussa’s departure as evidence that the regime is collapsing and argues that he should not be tried for possible involvement in Gaddafi’s crimes.

 

Turkey Steps Up to Mediate in Libya Crisis – “but Erdogan’s motives look suspicious? “

from Turkish Digest by A-News

Senior Turkish diplomat Selim Yenel said a political solution is crucial for Libya. “Turkey is now talking to both sides, and we believe one of the few countries that can to talk to both sides. In the end it’s the only way out, otherwise more and more military actions will push people into a corner and you have to show a way out. And we believe a diplomatic solution is a way out. ”

The Libya intervention, in light of a brief history of humanity by Markar Esayan

from Today’s Zaman, your gateway to Turkish daily news :: Interviews
It?s too bad that the heart of Cain was filled with such anger as the result of jealousy towards his brother. But that is what happened, and thus it?s also a shame that just as Cain was about to plunge a dagger into his brother?s side, there was no miracle that could have prevented him from taking action, thereby keeping Cain from turning into a murderer, and his brother Abel from losing his life.

 

AKP’s Middle East policies in turmoil

by HDN
Given the latest dramatic developments in both the Middle East and North Africa, it will be difficult for Ankara to maintain its policy on the region as originally drawn up.

 

Libya: Cameron and Sarkozy demand that ‘Gaddafi must go’

by Nicholas Watt, Richard Norton-Taylor

Leaders of Britain and France issue joint statement ahead of conference, and are keen to ensure Gaddafi stands trial

Britain and France have demanded that Muammar Gaddafi should stand down immediately and declared that the era of the Libyan leader is over.

Libya Peace Talks: UN Resolution 1325?, Kirsten Smith

from open Democracy News Analysis – by Kirsten Smith
For the sake of Libyan society as a whole, women must play a more equal and visible role in shaping it.

The international community stood united at the London conference on Libya this week – all 42 of them. But you could be forgiven for thinking that there was something monotone about the massed ranks of suits: only four of them present were women.  There was Hillary Clinton of course; if you?re interested, the others were Cathy Ashton, Inaan Osseiran the Lebanese ambassador, and Asta Skaisgiryte-Liauskiene from Lithuania. Should this matter?

 

The Libyan Rift

by Yigal Schleifer

I have a briefing up on the World Politics Review website that looks further at the difficulties Turkey has faced in formulating its Libya policy, how that has affected relations with some of its allies and what lessons that might provide in other cases of regional instability. From the briefing:

Keeping a united front in Syria

from AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (IN DEPTH)
If Syrians are to succeed in forcing reform they must not allow the ghost of ethnic communalism to be conjured up.

U.S. Journalist in Libya Finds Audience Via Kickstarter

by Zachary Sniderman

How the Al Khalifahs are spreading hatred in Bahrain

from From the field by arn

Pulitzer prize winner Caryle Murphy offers a distressing report from Bahrain, where the Saudi-encouraged monarchy is bent on fomenting sectarian enmity.  The Al Khalifah’s path will undermine and discredit precisely the opposition figures that are potential interlocutors.


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