19 February 2012

1. "A Long March" - The Economist - Muslim Brotherhood - dominate politics in both Egypt and Tunisia, having captured nearly half of parliamentary seats in post-revolutionary elections - King Muhammad VI of Morocco has empowered his own country’s Brothers by appointing the head of their Justice and Development Party as prime minister - Their political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, has been the country’s strongest party for decades, playing the role of a loyal opposition. Their wing in Iraq, the Islamic Party, worked with both Saddam Hussein and the American occupiers after 2003. Branches in Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait and Yemen have maintained substantial parliamentary representation since the 1990s. The National Islamic Front, the Ikhwan’s political vehicle in Sudan, backed a military coup in 1989 and was rewarded with a slew of cabinet posts. Palestine’s Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, grew out of a Brotherhood charity in the West Bank and Gaza which sought and obtained recognition from Israel in the 1970s. - the group’s General Guide, Muhammad Badeea - former professor of veterinary science - The head of Tunisia’s Brotherhood-linked Nahda Party, Rachid Ghannouchi, says he will tolerate both alcohol and bikinis in his country, and his government continues to license prostitution. The Libyan chapter next door vows to continue Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s bans on all three. 2. "Medvedev's Foreign Policy: Period of Stabilization" by Fyodor Lukyanov - highlights of Medvedev’s foreign policy include the new European security architecture initiative launched during his visit to Germany in June 2008, a month after he assumed office, a five-day war with Georgia later that year, the subsequent statement on “the sphere of privileged interests” and the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. A gas war with Ukraine left part of Europe without heat in the middle of winter, but then Russia signed the “Gas for Fleet” agreement, under which it cut gas prices for Ukraine in return for an extension of the deployment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea