Item 1: "Why Obama does not want a multipolar world order" by Zaki Laidi
- Power is currently expressed in terms of three assets:
i. material wealth, without which nothing is technically possible
ii. strategic power, which implies the capacity to project force to one’s periphery and beyond
iii. power instinct – that is, the will to weigh in on world affairs - through one’s ideas, capabilities or attractiveness.
- There are now four great economic centres of power: the US, Europe, China and Japan. They are very distantly followed by India, Brazil and Russia
- Europe is the only region in the world that refuses to increase military expenditure
06 December 2009
05 December 2009
Fifth December Two Thousand Nine
Item 1: "Switzerland’s Invisible Minarets " by Peter Stamm
- However bellicose the political face of Islam often appears, in everyday practice what I experienced was a religion of hospitality and tolerance.
- Islamic immigrants don’t live with us but beside us, just as French, German, Italian and Romansch-speaking Swiss live alongside each other without a great deal of animosity — or interaction.
- Muammar el-Qaddafi’s absurd proposal to abolish Switzerland.
Item 2: "‘Neo-Ottoman’ Turkey?" by Suat Kiniklioglu
- Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu - “we are indeed neo-Ottoman.” - Davutoğlu and all of us in the AK Party foreign policy community never use this term, because it is simply a misrepresentation of our position.
- Turkey’s neighborhood policy is devised to reintegrate Turkey into its immediate neighborhoods, including the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean
- The symbol of the Byzantine and the Selçuk empires, which occupied roughly the same geography that Turkey does today, was a double-headed eagle looking both east and west
Item 3: "Dubai is Still a Beacon of Success" by Hamida Ghafour
- It is simply that Dubai remains a beacon of hope, opportunity and stability in the midst of a strife-torn region and, as such, helps stem a descent into extremism among the young.
- For India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka cash transfers represent between 4.2 and 11.4 per cent of the country’s entire GDP
- The youth unemployment rate in the Middle East is 25 per cent, twice the global average
- In The Times of London’s ranking of top 200 universities, not a single institution in a Muslim-majority country made the grade
- The fact that 79 per cent of university students in the Emirates are women sends a powerful signal
- However bellicose the political face of Islam often appears, in everyday practice what I experienced was a religion of hospitality and tolerance.
- Islamic immigrants don’t live with us but beside us, just as French, German, Italian and Romansch-speaking Swiss live alongside each other without a great deal of animosity — or interaction.
- Muammar el-Qaddafi’s absurd proposal to abolish Switzerland.
Item 2: "‘Neo-Ottoman’ Turkey?" by Suat Kiniklioglu
- Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu - “we are indeed neo-Ottoman.” - Davutoğlu and all of us in the AK Party foreign policy community never use this term, because it is simply a misrepresentation of our position.
- Turkey’s neighborhood policy is devised to reintegrate Turkey into its immediate neighborhoods, including the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean
- The symbol of the Byzantine and the Selçuk empires, which occupied roughly the same geography that Turkey does today, was a double-headed eagle looking both east and west
Item 3: "Dubai is Still a Beacon of Success" by Hamida Ghafour
- It is simply that Dubai remains a beacon of hope, opportunity and stability in the midst of a strife-torn region and, as such, helps stem a descent into extremism among the young.
- For India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka cash transfers represent between 4.2 and 11.4 per cent of the country’s entire GDP
- The youth unemployment rate in the Middle East is 25 per cent, twice the global average
- In The Times of London’s ranking of top 200 universities, not a single institution in a Muslim-majority country made the grade
- The fact that 79 per cent of university students in the Emirates are women sends a powerful signal
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