ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Iraqi government has transferred USD 500 million to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq as part of a deal hoped to end long-running domestic oil and budget disputes, Iraqi finance minister says. Hoshyar Zebari said in Baghdad on Wednesday that his ministry transferred the sum to the account of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) earlier in the day under the deal which requires Iraq to resume funding Kurdish civil servant salaries in return for a share of Kurdish oil exports. He said the KRG began supplying 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day to State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) storage tanks in the Turkish port city of Ceyhan on Tuesday. "This mutual implementation means that the two sides are ready to resolve all the other issues and all the issues are up for discussion," Zebari stated. Iraqi Oil Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi has praised the deal between Baghdad and the KRG, saying it reduces friction "that threatens not only economic, secur

Screenshot from RT video To prevent European converts who listen to extremist preachers from fighting for ISIS, European governments should revoke their travel documents, defense consultant Moeen Raoof told RT. Jihadists released a video of the beheading of a foreign hostage, US aid worker Peter Kassig, on the weekend. The footage also shows at least 14 Syrian soldiers beheaded by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) fighters. It revealed that several of the executioners which appear on the video were Europeans: a former UK medical student and 22-year-old Frenchman Maxime Hauchardt. Allegedly, there were more British, French and German militants, but no names have yet emerged. Kassig is the fifth foreign hostage to be executed this way. He was captured a year ago in Syria while he was helping war causalities. RT: What reaction do you expect from foreign governments after their citizens were recognized as jihadist killers? Moeen Raoof: [Foreign governments] will have the normal reaction of

By William Blum – Published November 19th, 2014 “Russia reinforced what Western and Ukrainian officials described as a stealth invasion on Wednesday [August 27], sending armored troops across the border as it expanded the conflict to a new section of Ukrainian territory. The latest incursion, which Ukraine’s military said included five armored personnel carriers, was at least the third movement of troops and weapons from Russia across the southeast part of the border this week.” None of the photos accompanying this New York Times story online showed any of these Russian troops or armored vehicles. “The Obama administration,” the story continued, “has asserted over the past week that the Russians had moved artillery, air-defense systems and armor to help the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. ‘These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway’, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said. At the department’s daily briefing in Washington, Ms. Psaki a

Myanmar army soldiers hold a guard of honor during a ceremony at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in the city of Yangon, July 19, 2012. Myanmar’s army has voiced its opposition to the potential amendment of the constitution that would allow opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi to run for president. Myanmar’s military representatives told MPs during a debate in the parliament on Monday that the army would reject amending the constitutional charter that bans Suu Kyi from high political office. “I would like you all to remember that the constitution is not written for just one person but for the future of everyone,” Colonel Htay Naing said during the debate, which was televised on Tuesday. Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest during the military rule in Myanmar, has announced her intention to run for president. The National League for Democracy (NLD) leader is predicted to post big gains at the election scheduled for October or November next year

The golden Dome of the Rock (C) in Jerusalem's old city is seen in the distance beyond a section of the controversial Israeli barrier in the West Bank city of Abu Dis, October 29 , 2014. (Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly) Israel could soon find itself in trouble and face the wrath of Brussels: any further attempts to pose obstacles to a two-state solution with occupied Palestine could result in sanctions, Haaretz revealed, citing a 'confidential' EU document. The classified paper was originally intended for internal circulation among the 28 member states, but word of its existence reached Israel after some of its diplomats in the EU leaked the fact to the Foreign Ministry back home. Although the Israelis could not secure the full text of the document, some important details have come out, thanks to three EU diplomats and two senior Israeli officials. Speaking to Haaretz on condition of anonymity, they say the paper outlines a “sticks and carrots”approach (consisting mainly of

AFP Photo / Ahmad AL-Rubaye Dozens of vehicles carrying oil leave Syria’s petroleum capital, Raqqa, currently under IS control, every hour, earning the extremist group a million dollars daily, according to an oil refinery employee in the occupied city, who has spoken to RT. The man, Abu Al-Hakam, would not agree to a video call for fear of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), and said he himself was not part of the extremist group. Part of the Raqqa oil, according to Al-Hakam, stays in the region, which is currently cut off from governmental supplies. Another bigger portion finds its way to the black market. “It is being pushed through underground pipes towards Turkey and remote areas where no one can see them,” the whistleblower told RT’s Maria Finoshina. “Part of it is distributed by IS through brokers. Most of it is raw, but there’s diesel and benzene as well”. With an estimated net worth of $2 billion, the Islamic State is believed to be the world’s richest terrorist org

Exclusive: Last April, much of the world was horrified when the Boko Haram rebels of northern Nigeria kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls and vowed to marry them off. But the violence in Africa’s richest country has a complex back story of religion, ignorance, corruption and injustice, as Don North explains. By Don North Nowhere in northern Nigeria is there a bolder symbol of Western values and education – concepts that the militant Boko Haram rebels have vowed to eradicate – than the American University of Nigeria in Yola of the northeast Adamawa State. With the U.S. and Nigerian flags flying side by side, AUN is a modern university for 1,500 mostly African students and a faculty from over 30 nations set amid desperate poverty and a population with an estimated 80 percent illiteracy rate. It is also a campus near the frontline of a worsening conflict that threatens this fragile foothold of advanced learning in Nigeria, an oil-rich western African nation of 174 million people divided b

The previous post showed that the Fragile States Index did not capture the fragility of Syria and Libya on the eve of the so-called Arab Spring. The question is then raised about the performance of other indices of state weakness in this this regard. As it turns out, they did little better. Consider, for example, the World Bank’s 2010 map of political instability (which, unfortunately, simultaneously assesses “absence of violence/terrorism,” a somewhat different issue). On purely cartographic grounds, the map is a disaster: employing an inappropriate Mercator projection, it makes Greenland appear to be the global core of political stability, while its incomplete labeling system is misleading at best. But our concern here is with its categorization scheme, which is also problematic. Note that it placed Libya in the same category of stability as Spain and Brazil, while slotting Syria in the same group as Turkey, China, Russia, and India. What really seems odd, however, is the placemen