Volume 6  Issue 1

February 2009

Bimonthly Electronic Newsletter

OBAMA AND U.S. DOMESTIC ECONOMIC POLICY (by Monroe Newman). As the world watched from afar and 2 million did so in person, a new era began when Barack Hussein Obama became the U.S. president. In his person, he exemplifier how far the country had advanced from its sorriest history. He announced that the country was returning to its … MORE

CRIMES OF WAR AND “PEACE” (by Andreas Theophanous). Undoubtedly the confession by Turkish actor Atilla Olgac of the brutal murder of Greek-Cypriot prisoners of war during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus shocked public opinion and the political leadership, brought back memories of 1974, and sparked heated discussions in Cyprus … MORE

DEMOCRACY ACCORDING TO MR. TALAT (by Michael Attalides). In his recent interview (Politis 8^th January 2009), Mr. Talat expressed views about the meaning of democracy which can only be described as deceptive. At one point, Mr. Talat argues that since there is agreement in the negotiations on equal representation of the two communities in the Senate and in … MORE

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY: THE DEBATE OVER THE REVISION OF THE HISTORY BOOKS (by Emilios Solomou). The nature and purpose of History has been the subject of both intellectual and political debate for decades. A careful study of historiography indicates the changing interpretations and … MORE

THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY AND THE EU (by Tozun Bahcheli). “We shall shock the Europeans”, boasted Turkey’s foreign minister Abdullah Gul, a few days after his Justice and Development Party (JDP) swept to power in the elections of November 2002 with a huge parliamentary majority. Led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the JDP … MORE

THE FURIOUS PASSAGE OF TAYYIP ERDOGAN (by Robert Ellis). Turkey’s prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, is not a man who brooks being contradicted and a panel debate on the Gaza war at the World Economic Forum was no exception. What was hoped to be bridge-building exercise to ameliorate Erdogan’s harsh criticisms of Israel’s incursion into Gaza … MORE

EU ENLARGEMENT AND THE ISLAMIC CHALLENGE (by Joseph S. Joseph). The geographic expansion of the European Union, known as widening, poses challenges and presents opportunities to the EU itself, but also to the member states and the candidate countries. It also affects the deepening of the Union and its efforts for institutional reform, … MORE

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE UNION’S MEDITERRANEAN POLICIES (By Roderick Pace). As this piece was being written the guns fell silent in Gaza after 22 days of war. More than 1000 people have lost their lives so far, the bulk of them Palestinians – one third of them children. Five thousand have been injured, scores of homes destroyed. As soon as hostiles … MORE

WAR IN GAZA (by Farid Mirbagheri). The recent war in Gaza was the latest violent episode in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israeli forces unleashed their military might on the break-away Hamas, who in defiance of the mainstream Fatah movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had through a coup taken control of Gaza and its one and a half million … MORE

TOWARD A “NEW” THIRD? (by Michalis Persianis). After years of blind belief in the markets, economists were forced – largely by the crises in Southeast Asia and Latin America in the turn of the century – to accept the need for regulation and institutional arrangements in the market. The turn to the role institutions was even acknowledged by the IMF and the … MORE