APS Diplomat News Service articles from July 2006

APS Diplomat News Service archives from July 2006

East African Turmoil Worsens As Somalia Falls To Islamist Hardliners.
July 3, 2006... *** When Bush Hosted Ilham Aliyef At The White House In April 2006, The US Embassy In Baku Had A Seminar On How The Opposition Could Topple The President In Azerbaijan *** Then Dick Cheney Went To Astana To Persuade Pres. Nazarbayev To...

The US Effort.(Somalia)
July 3, 2006... A senior US State Department official on June 29 told Congress the Bush administration will work to bolster the police force and other security troops of Somalia's government in exile in the hope of marginalising the Islamic militias now...

The Caspian Power Game Is Back.
July 3, 2006... The US is stepping up its drive to secure energy supplies from Central Asia in a bid to counter Russia growing clout and thwart a mounting challenge from China, as signals of a tense new Great Game began to appear in May. The US is pushing for...

GCC States Invest Over $1 Trillion At Home To Defuse An Unemployment Time-Bomb:.(Gulf Co-operation Council )
July 10, 2006... *** August WTI At NYMEX Hit A $76/B Record On July 7 On News That Iran Was Not Responding As The Western Powers Had Hoped; But The Crude Oil Price Later On That Day Fell To Less Than $75/B - The Oil Futures Markets Will Remain Nervous...

The Saudi Time-Bomb.(youth unemployment)
July 10, 2006... Security experts in Saudi Arabia have identified unemployment as the most serious problem among the country's youth, despite the presence of more than 6m foreign workers. The work ethic in Saudi Arabia is still lacking in a traditional society...

The Geo-Political Challenge To Riyadh.
July 10, 2006... Saudi Arabia accounts for 34% of the GDP of the whole Arab world, although it has only about 8% of its population. This sort of economic power brings with it political clout that Saudi Arabia - which has long relied on US power to protect...

The Saudi Socio-Economic Experience.(Brief article)
July 10, 2006... King Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz criss-crossed Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, unveiling at every stop generous promises and new projects. He laid the foundation stone for a university in Qassim, north of Riyadh; announced construction of an economic...

Following The Dubai Model.(Brief article)
July 10, 2006... Other GCC oil producers have developed similar confidence, fuelling a flurry of construction projects which are changing the Gulf landscape. Dubai, well ahead in its diversification drive to make up for dwindling oil revenues, is establishing...

GCC Risks.(Gulf Cooperation Council)(Brief article)
July 10, 2006... The financial boom is bound to fuel excesses and ill-conceived ideas in a region where corruption is rife and government accounts are murky. Defence spending is on the rise. The risk of duplication of projects - it is doubtful the GCC will need...

Debts Down; Reserves Up.
July 10, 2006... According to the IMF, savings have been used to pay down internal debt and to build up foreign reserves. But unlike the oil booms of the 1970s and 1980s, when the extra oil revenues were largely recycled to the west through western banks, there...

Private Sector Boost Advised.
July 10, 2006... AFP on June 30 quoted Mustafa Nabli, chief economist and director of the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa branch, as saying Middle Eastern states must work to expand the private sector to sustain the current boom. Oil incomes alone are...

Neo-Salafis Are Moving Their Base To Iraq, With Bin Laden-Mullah Omar Ties Strained.
July 17, 2006... *** Hizbullah's Nasrallah Was Too Arrogant To Think That By Taking 2 Israeli Hostages July 12 He Had Made The Worst Blunder In His Career; He Relied On Iran's Shi'ite Mullahs Who Are Trying To Survive With A Nuke Bomb & On A Bankrupt Ba'thist...

Taliban's Focus On Afghan Front.
July 17, 2006... In a report on July 12, ATO noted that the Taliban's three-month-old offensive in Afghanistan was the biggest ever mounted against foreign forces in the country since the group's ouster in late 2001, and it had taken a heavy toll on both the...

Lebanon War: The End Is Western Control, Iran-Syria Control, Or A Big Change In Syria:.(Hezbollah-Israeli War, 2006)
July 24, 2006... *** Moderate Arabs Complain That, With Hizbollah's And Hamas' Moves Described As "Advantures", Iran Hijacked The Palestine Cause To Divert World Attention From Its Nuclear Programme And Geo-Political Expansionism; The Ba'thist Dictatorship In...

Arabs Hit Hizbullah.(Hezbollah-Israeli War, 2006)
July 24, 2006... With the battle between Israel and Hizbullah raging, the Arab world is split on the issue of Hizbullah having seized two Israeli soldiers for an exchange with Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held for years by the Jewish state. The split is...

US Think-Tank Predicts Full-Scale Israeli Invasion.(Strategic Forecasting Inc.'s report)
July 24, 2006... Texas-based Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), a private company providing global intelligence information to the business world, says in a July 13 report there would be a full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon to root out Hizbullah, a move...

The Iranian Position.(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad wants Israel to be wiped off the world map)(Brief article)
July 24, 2006... Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Hizbollah will in no way be disarmed. President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad has repeated his favoured slogan: Israel must be wiped off the world map. Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, a...

The Saudi View.(Hezbollah-Israeli War, 2006)
July 24, 2006... Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has become he hero of the Muslim street. Those who wanted to see pain inflicted on Israelis organised massive parades in his favour in Damascus, Amman, Baghdad and Cairo. The Saudis, however, said...

The Background.(Israeli Invasion of Lebanon, 1982)(Excerpt)
July 24, 2006... The following are extracts from a column by H.D.S. Greenway, published on July 20 by The Boston Globe: "It has not quite been a quarter of a century since the day I sat on a hillside watching the Israelis shell Beirut. The image that came to me...

Lebanon's Is A Proxy War For The US & Iran; Terms Too Tough For Tehran's Offspring.
July 31, 2006... *** Neo-Con Experts Say The US Would Finish Off The Tehran Theocracy Before A Sunni- Shi'ite War Spreads Beyond Iraq & Lebanon *** Walid Jumblatt Continues To Believe The Iran-Led Axis, Which Includes A Ba'thist Dictatorship In Damascus,...

How Syria Sees It.
July 31, 2006... Damascus being an Arab capital, The New York Times on July 26 noted, "all manner of conspiracy theories swirl". One theory the paper mentioned was that the Israelis were planning the assault for months due to a US attack on Iran's nuclear...

Swift $1.55 Bn Saudi Aid To Beirut.(Brief article)
July 31, 2006... Acting quickly before Iran made such a move, Saudi King Abdullah on July 25 pledged $500m in aid for the Beirut government and $1 bn in deposit with Lebanon's Central Bank to prop up the country's currency. King Abdullah said he was granting...

EU Denies Giving Green Light To Israel.
July 31, 2006... The EU on July 27 said it did not give Israel the green light to continue its offensive against Hizbullah as air strikes were stepped up across Lebanon. Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon had said Israel viewed divisions among world leaders...

Iran Nuclear Deal In Peril.
July 31, 2006... The FT on July 26 quoted Sadegh Kharrazi, Iran's former ambassador to Paris and an influential pragmatist, as saying Israel's assault on Lebanon could complicate attempts to reach a settlement on Iran's nuclear programme but added that Tehran...

Iraqi PM In USA.(Nouri al-Maliki)
July 31, 2006... Visiting Washington for the first time, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki on July 26 told a joint session of the US Congress his country's future depended on continued US commitment, stressing that the "fate of our country and yours is tied". He said...

Hizbullah's Surprises.
July 31, 2006... The Israeli Army's chief of intelligence says the "surprises" Hizbullah keeps promising could go beyond long-range rockets and could mean the capture of more Israeli soldiers or an attack on Israeli targets abroad. "I believe that Hizbullah is...

US Congress Support For Israel.
July 31, 2006... US Jewish organisations "launched a major lobbying offensive in... [Washington] to give Israel more time to deal a decisive blow", wrote The Forward, a US Jewish newspaper. Both the US Senate and the House of Representatives have unanimously...