ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

How did the baby-faced leader of the pariah state win? Blame it on online messageboard 4Chan Supremely popular? Kim Jong-un. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Age: 29. Probably. Appearance: Kim Jong Deux. As in the leader of North Korea? No, as in the Supreme Leader of North Korea. Is there a difference? Of course. A Supreme Leader is better than a normal leader. Do we have any evidence for that? We do now. Kim Jong-un was just voted Time magazine readers' person of the year . Seems legit. Was it close? Not even slightly. He beat the second most popular candidate, US satirist Jon Stewart, by more than three million votes. Seems less legit. What happened? Users of online messageboard 4Chan hijacked the poll and sent Kim Jong-un , as he would put it, "onwards toward the final victory". How come they were able to vote for him at all? He was one of 40 possible candidates put forward by Time's editors. Why exactly? Maybe because he had already been

The US has said that North Korea's rocket launch in defiance of a UN ban has left no option but to increase pressure on Pyongyang.  North Korea was also condemned on Sunday by South Korea and Japan for launching the satellite last week, while some officials feared it was a veiled test for a long-range ballistic missile.   The criticism on Sunday comes as a US scientist said that the satellite appears to not be functioning properly. North Korea had succeeded on Wednesday in putting an object into orbit that the communist state said was observing the earth and airing patriotic songs. "What's left to us is to continue to increase pressure on the North Korean regime and we are looking at how to best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward until they (North Korea) get the message. We are going to further isolate this regime,'' Victoria Noland, a US state department spokeswoman, said on Monday. The US and its allies are pushing for tig

Middle East Syrian forces surround Palestinian camp Troops stationed outside Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus day after air raid killed eight people there. Last Modified: 17 Dec 2012 20:06 Syrian troops have surrounded a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus a day after air raids killed at least eight people sheltering in a mosque there. Many residents on Monday fled the area amid clashes between Palestinian factions loyal to and opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Rasim Abu Thawra, an activist who lives close to Yarmouk, told Al Jazeera that the neighbourhood has been bombarded again on Monday. "Hundreds of families had the opportunity to escape the camp this morning," he said. "They headed to different destinations. Some of them have relatives outside the camp so they can take shelter there. Others went to mosques in neighbouring areas like al-Midan and al-Zahira." Hundreds of Palestinians also crossed into Lebanon. The attack o

Solidarity summit The European Council agreed on December 14 to establish a single supervisory mechanism (SSM) for the banking system within the euro-area. The first sentence of its conclusions explains that this outcome reflects the desire for "deeper integration and reinforced solidarity". Many observers will regard that statement as ironic. The results of the summit were less than was anticipated when the European Council met last June. Instead of offering a fully fledged set of legislative proposals for banking supervision, resolution and deposit insurance, it only seemed to sketch the broad principles for just one of these three pillars of a European banking union. Indeed, the conclusions provide little details on how SSM will work, beyond insisting that it should be "effective" . Space for backsliding This qualification is important, because the June 29 Euro-Area Summit Statement provides for the European Stability Mechanism (E

Foreign minister asks western powers to reach a conclusion and end the current stalemate over Iran's nuclear programme. Last Modified: 17 Dec 2012 12:48     Iran's foreign minister has said that his country was making progress to end the deadlock with six world powers over Tehran's nuclear programme. "The two sides have reached a conclusion that they must exit the current stalemate," Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying on Monday by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). Western powers accuse Iran of trying to develop the means to build atomic bombs, but Iran insists that the programme is only for civilian nuclear energy. Iran and the six powers - the United States, Russia, Francem China, Great Britain and Germany - expressed readiness to revive efforts to find a negotiated solution to the decade-old dispute, to head off the risk of a shattering new war in the Middle East. Salehi said he did not know when the next round of talks would be

Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian vice-president, has said that neither the government nor the rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad can win the country's 21-month conflict. Sharaa has rarely been seen since the Syrian revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president's inner circle directing the fight against the rebels. He is, however, the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not be able to win the conflict. Sharaa was speaking to the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper, in an interview published on Monday. Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama. Sharaa said the situation in Syria, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, according to the opposition, was deteriorating and a "historic settlement" was needed to

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Since 2001, violence has erupted in Jos city, capital of Plateau state, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region. The ostensible dispute is over the “rights” of the indigene Berom/Anaguta/Afizere (BAA) group and the rival claims of the Hausa-Fulani settlers to land, power and resources. Indigene-settler conflicts are not new to Nigeria, but the country is currently experiencing widespread intercommunal strife, which particularly affects the Middle Belt. The Jos crisis is the result of failure to amend the constitution to privilege broad-based citizenship over exclusive indigene status and ensure that residency rather than indigeneity determines citizens’ rights. Constitutional change is an important step to defuse indigene-settler rivalries that continue to undermine security. It must be accompanied by immediate steps to identify and prosecute perpetrators of violence, in Jos and other parts of the country. Elites at local, state and federal level must