For Azerbaijan’s political and human rights landscape, 2011 was a year of tumult, small triumphs, and anguish. I’ve written a great deal on topics this year such as the arrests and imprisonment of Jabbar Savalan and Bakhtiar Hajiyev, the opposition protests in February through mid-June, and the tragic death of Rafiq Tagi, stabbed to death […]
Georgia 2011 was the year when former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze put the finishing touches on her long campaign to discredit former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze. Ms. Burjanadze began her re-branding effort from responsible, clear-headed opposition leader to uncompromising radical after forming her own political party in 2008. The disastrous Russo-Georgian War in the same […]
Summary of 2011 For the EU, any summary of the 2011 will necessarily be dominated by the sovereign debt crisis. The crisis, starting in late 2009, seems to have no end. The past year, and the year before that, has seen a string of crisis talks resulting in an ever-increasing number of initiatives: First the […]
Reflecting on 2011: where to start? 2011 has been another busy year for writers, analysts and students of foreign policy: from the Arab revolutions, to the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, to the war in Libya, to the Euro crisis, to the domestic turmoil in the US, so on and so forth. Instead of examining certain […]
The son of the Iranian ayatollah who issued the 2006 fatwah calling for the assassination of Azeri author Rafiq Tagi has issued a statement on his web site praising Tagi’s murderers. Sheikh Mohammed Fazel Lankarani, a prominent ayatollah like his late father, has written on his site that “Without a doubt, the man who performed […]
Wednesday, November 23, 2011, Germany sold 10-year Bunds at its debt auction worth 3.64 billion euro with an average yield of 1.98%, and the bid-to-cover ratio was 1.1 , while the Bundesbank retained the remainder of the 6 billion euro offering. To most people, that’s just Wall Street gobbledegook, but in fact, it is a […]
I just wanted to post this powerful photo taken by Aziz Elkhanoglu today at Rafiq Tagi’s funeral.
Another sad day for Azerbaijan, a country saddled with more than its fair share of injustice and pain. Rafiq Tagi, who was hospitalized a mere three days ago after being stabbed by unknown assailants, died today in a Baku hospital of complications after initial treatment for his wounds and surgery to remove his spleen. He […]
In a shocking incident, independent journalist Rafiq Tagi was stabbed repeatedly today in Baku, according to this RFE/RL report. Tagi is best known for his thought piece entitled “Europe and Us,” published in 2007 in the Sanat newspaper. In the article, Tagi compared modern Muslim societies to their European counterparts, and argued that Islam had […]
Brussels has always had a bum rap in Europe. Brussels is that faraway place where decisions are made over the heads of people. Brussels is considered undemocratic and technocratic, and is contrasted unfavorably with the familiar closeness of national politics. In the past 40 years or so, selling the EU to the public has often […]
The eurozone saga (it isn’t a crisis as the Greek word implies a short time-frame) could end happily today – and that has been the case since the whole sorry affair began. All that is necessary is for the European Central Bank to announce that is it willing to back all the debt issued in […]
This year has been all about Greece. The troika, meaning the IMF, ECB, and Commission, have been working on containing the Greek crisis and limiting the contagion to the rest of the Union and ultimately to the global markets. The outcomes of the meeting over the weekend are a new bail-out plan and more ‘haircuts.’ […]
The Foreign Policy Association just released its latest annual National Opinion Ballot Report. Many issues have been tackled in this very interesting report, from the reconstruction of Haiti to the financial crisis to multilateralism to the Horn of Africa. Interestingly, one section was dedicated to Germany and its relevance to US interests. However none dealt […]
The recent release of the FPA’s National Opinion Ballot Report once again provided valuable insights into the thoughts and opinions of informed Americans on the important foreign policy issues of the day. Among other items, the poll returned an overwhelmingly positive response to Germany’s insistence on austerity measures for the crisis stricken euro countries. By a […]
Since 1959, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna [ETA] has waged a violent campaign for Basque independence from Spain and France. The body count since the first murder in 1968 stands at 829. On October 20, ETA announced an end to its paramilitary activities in a statement that read in part, “ETA has decided on the definitive cessation […]