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Your targets can only be realized on the basis of dreams

Helmut Sorge | Posted : July 19, 2018

Recep Tayyip Erdogan was humming and he had reason to feel joyful. His people had entrusted him with reforming their constitution, which would give him more power, incredible power. Possibly, he could realize his dream after all, the revival of the Ottoman Empire. Such Turkish power last seen in the era of Osman I at the end of the 13th century in northern Anatolia. A neo-Ottoman, is it a vision of a megalomaniac?

Espace euro-méditerranéen : Intérêts et défis en partage

Mokhtar Ghailani | Posted : July 13, 2018

Les participants aux travaux de la Conférence annuelle du réseau EuroMesco, autour du thème « Un regard nouveau sur les relations euro-méditerranéennes », co-organisée par l’OCP Policy Center et l’Institut Européen de la Méditerranée IEMed, à Rabat, les 12 et 13 juillet 2018, ont été unanimes à faire leur le constat selon lequel la situation qui prévaut dans l’espace euro-méditerranéen, les rives nord et sud confondues, est prédominée par des tensions et des défis. 

The Slow Death of our Planet

Helmut Sorge | Posted : July 11, 2018

Who would cry because a whale has died, thrown onto a beach somewhere on our globe by a giant wave, the noble mammal ceasing to breathe through its blowhole in the head. No news on television, possibly a note on the third page of a local newspaper. Eight billion humans, most struggling to survive themselves, will never know or care. A pilot whale has died in Southern Thailand, after consuming more than eighty black plastic bags? A sperm whale discovered dead on a beach of Spain, whose life was ended, a veterinarian confirmed, because the whale had consumed 29 kilos of plastic, which caused an inflammation of the abdomen and then death? So what? Migrants drown each day, look at Libya, and watch the coast of Greece. Another whale found dying off the coast of Norway, apparently suffocated because he confused 30 plastic bags with natural food and was not scared off by labels written in English and Danish, the whale digested them as well.

Four Dangerous Illusions about the Looming Trade War

Uri Dadush | Posted : July 10, 2018

Historians often offer different interpretations of the events that have shaped our destiny, yet, with respect to World War 2, the bloodiest conflict in history, they seem to concur on two points. First, that those yearning for peace underestimated the National Socialists’ determination to wage a war of conquest until it was far too late to deter them, and, second, that Nazi Germany failed to anticipate that Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union – each of which it provoked - would eventually combine and exercise overwhelming power to destroy it. These combined errors help account both for the breakout of the war and its subsequent murderous intensity. Fortunately, trade wars do not kill people, but the consequences for the living standards of the world’s citizens could turn out to be disastrous. Moreover, as the great tariff conflicts between the United States, Europe and China escalate, similar errors are being repeated today as happened in the run-up to World War 2. 

Où va le Mali?

Lemine Ould M. Salem | Posted : July 05, 2018

Cinq ans et demi après l’intervention militaire internationale conduite par la France pour chasser les jihadistes du nord du Mali, l’ancien Soudan français s’apprête à organiser une élection présidentielle censée accélérer le processus de paix issu des accords inter-maliens négociés à Alger et signés à Bamako en juin 2015. « Un scrutin décisif”, soutient en marge de l’African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO), organisé les 18 et 19 juin 2018 à Rabat au Maroc par l’OCP Policy Center, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, le chef de la mission onusienne au Mali (Minusma). Entretien. 

Americans in Africa

Helmut Sorge | Posted : July 04, 2018

“NONE OF AFRICA’S PROBLEMS CAN BE RESOLVED THROUGH MILITARY FORCE”

Colonel Raul Rivas arrived in dress uniform, his parachute citations well polished. His ribbons for bravery and combat duty were aligned at the upper left-hand side of his jacket, a colorful display of combat, death and battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Emerging markets face multiple tantrums

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : July 03, 2018

The addition of a fourth US rate rise to the Federal Reserve’s 2018 dot-plot graph after the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee sparked a bout of portfolio outflows from emerging markets. This followed a fleeting upswing at the beginning of the month that fell short on reversing the unwinding of exposure and sell-off of assets in May (Chart 1). Country differentiation has been accentuated, with exchange rate devaluation pressures and capital outflows occurring more notably in economies exhibiting higher vulnerability to sudden stops in foreign finance.

Le "Printemps arabe" : analyse des conséquences, 7 ans après

Mokhtar Ghailani | Posted : July 02, 2018

Le tout dernier ouvrage qui vient d’être publié par l’OCP Policy Center, intitulé « Mutations politiques comparées au Maghreb et au Machrek, 7 ans après le ‘’Printemps arabe’’ », a fait l’objet d’une présentation au public, organisée le 27 juin 2018, à la Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Economiques et Sociales de l’Université Mohammed V-Agdal- Rabat.  Mr Abdallah Saaf, qui a supervisé l’ouvrage, a ainsi partagé avec l’assistance de l’Amphi I la raison d’être de cette nouvelle publication et, surtout, l’esprit qui a présidé à son élaboration. Et le résultat est « une mine d’information », mais aussi et surtout, d’analyses signées par la pléiade d’experts et d’analystes qui ont pris part à l’oeuvre.

The Lethal Legacy of Nuclear might

Helmut Sorge | Posted : June 29, 2018

Not far from highway 95, near a town named Lathrop Wells, only one establishment, besides the petrol station, was known to the rough cowboys and joyless soldiers of the nearby nuclear testing site, and that was “Mabel’s whore house”, advertised as such without shame and ready to accept credit cards. Luigi Raugi, a legal immigrant (from Sicily), as it is wise to insist these repressing days of  American immigrant bashing, was running the local drugstore and really excited, as were those two  dozen hospitable ladies, about the dramatic changes announced by the government in Washington: six miles from their dusty town, which had long been deserted by birds and their friendly chatter, replaced by the engine noise of heavy trucks and an occasional underground nuclear test, America had finally decided that the 70,000 tons of toxic, highly radioactive, nuclear trash, gathered in 80 different locations in 35 states, would finally be dumped into deep tunnels in the Yucca mountains, a remote area centered in a military zone, where the U.S. in early cold war days had released nuclear clouds, deliberately, upon GIs in maneuvers and civilians breathing nearby, possibly the ladies of “Marble’s” as well, radiated by radioactive overdoses, eventually dying of cancer. When I went to report about progress and hope in the mountains for the first time (in 1990), the gigantic project, which was estimated to cost initially eight billion dollars, and once completed and filled to capacity, 120 billion, I was able to climb the hill of hope, the most expensive mountain in the U.S., observe the distant desert, visit the outline of the construction site, but there was no activity - the state of Nevada, whose legendary gambling city Las Vegas was just 100 miles away, had opposed the site, claiming possible earthquakes or biblical floods could tear open the mountains, liberate the lethal legacy of nuclear might, including the hulls of contaminated submarines. 

Jihad au Sahel : recul ou extension ?

Sabine Cessou | Posted : June 28, 2018

Qui sont les groupes jihadistes actifs dans le Sahel, vaste région de 3 millions de kilomètres carrés ? Quels sont leurs objectifs, leurs moyens d'action et comment évoluent-ils ? Quelles sont les solutions en cours pour faire face à ces groupes ?  Les experts réunis lors du séminaire sur le Jihad au Sahel, organisé le 20 juin à Rabat par l’OCP Policy Center, ont tenté de répondre à ces questions. 

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