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Suvi Dogra: India's quest for Arctic ice

For months, the Arctic Council has been debating the issue of admitting observers to its gatherings. Last week the Council decided to admit six new observers – China, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.

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    Suvi Dogra: India's quest for Arctic ice

    21 May 2013.  By Suvi Dogra, Research and Liaison Officer, Geo-economics and Strategy Programme From the Antarctic to the Arctic? Over 30 years ago, India surprised the world with its expedition to the Antarctic. It may have surprised once again by securing observer status at the Arctic Council – a grouping of Arctic States (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US). For months, the Arctic Council has been debating the issue of admitting...

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    How Iran’s Syria policy is hurting its regional popularity

    21 May 2013.  By Dina Esfandiary, Research Associate, Non-proliferation and Disarmament Program and Islam Al Tayeb, Research Analyst, IISS-Middle East These days, there are not many things that Arabs agree on. In fact, it may be fair to say they agree to disagree more often than not when it comes to regional policy. But Iran, once the darling of the Arab Street, is finding both popular and government opinion turning against it. And at the heart...

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    Kiran Hassan: A ‘naya’ (new) Pakistan?

    17 May 2013.  By Kiran Hassan, Research assistant, South Asia Programme Can a third-time prime minister rescue a nation in trouble? This is a question being asked about Nawaz Sharif since his party won the most number of votes in historic elections in Pakistan last weekend. The poll – in which one elected Pakistani government succeeded another for the first time since independence in 1947 – leaves Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League–N (PML–N) in charge...

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    Mona Moussavi: Rafsanjani, the accidental reformist

    17 May 2013.  By Mona Moussavi, Editorial assistant This year’s Iranian presidential election race got a lot more interesting last Saturday when former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani registered his candidacy just minutes before the deadline. The move transforms the race to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot stand in June’s poll after serving two full terms. Rafsanjani has a turbulent relationship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. And despite being a conservative, he is attractive to...

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    Wafa Alsayed: Bridging the Gulf: Kuwait and a GCC Union

    15 May 2013.  By Wafa Alsayed, Research Analyst, IISS-Middle East In February of last year, Ahmed al-Saadoun, Kuwait’s speaker of the parliament at the time dismissed the idea of a Gulf Union. In an interview with Al-Arabiya, he stated that Kuwait, with its open political system, could not withstand a union with the more authoritarian Gulf states. However, since then Kuwait has undergone yet another chapter of political turmoil accompanied with harsh government reaction to public...

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    Sanjaya Baru: Rio's man takes WTO reins

    15 May 2013.  Sanjaya Baru’s most recent column in the Indian Express focuses on Brazil’s Roberto Carvalho de Azevedo, who has just been announced as the next director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Azevedo will be the first Latin American in the job when he takes over from Pascal Lamy on 1 September. Baru, the IISS director for geo-economics, says that the media stereotyped the Brazilian Azevedo as the voice of protectionism and of the...

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    Pierre Noel: Change of tack needed in Baltic gas policy

    08 May 2013.  By Pierre Noel, Hassanal Bolkiah Senior Fellow in Economic and Energy Security In the Baltic states, energy security remains perceived as a truly serious issue. It’s seen as a question of survival rather than, as it is in much of the world, merely an exciting topic for after-dinner speeches. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania depend entirely on Russia for their gas supply and have complicated political relationships with Moscow. Recent numerical indicators of gas-supply security...

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    Emile Hokayem: Israeli air strikes add to fog of Syrian war

    07 May 2013.  By Emile Hokayem, Senior Fellow for Regional Security, IISS-Middle East Israel’s recent air strikes on Syria were intended as a warning to both Syria and Iran, and to stop weapons falling into Hizbullah’s hands – but they have increased the likelihood of a regional conflict. Last week, the Israeli air force struck two targets inside Syrian territory. The first seems to have been a shipment of surface-to-surface missiles destined for the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah...

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    Jenny Nielsen: Egypt exits non-proliferation meeting

    02 May 2013.  By Jenny Nielsen, Research Analyst, Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme Egypt has walked out of talks on the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) this week, over the slow progress on the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East (MEWMDFZ). The unprecedented move presents a serious headache for the non-proliferation regime. Announcing his delegation’s withdrawal from the Preparatory Committee to the 2015 NPT Review Conference (2013 NPT PrepCom) on...

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    Wafa Alsayed: Kuwait’s opposition finds a focus

    29 April 2013.  By Wafa Alsayed, Research Analyst, IISS-Middle East The trial of outspoken political activist Musallam al-Barrak seems to be galvanising Kuwait’s fragmented opposition – at least for the time being. Thousands of Kuwaitis took to the streets in protest on 15 April, after Barrak was sentenced by a lower court to a five-year jail term on charges of ‘offending the emir’. The Court of Appeal’s decision to release him on bail last Monday defused some...

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