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(Own report) - The regional government in Kurdish-speaking northern Iraq, which enjoys Berlin's support, is calling for breaking up the country and establishing its own state. A referendum on secession is a "natural, God-given right of the people in Kurdistan," declared Masoud Barzani, President of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The issue is national independence, KRG Foreign Minister Falah Mustafa underlined. Consultations on these topics were allegedly held on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Barzani explicitly does not include Syrian and Turkish Kurdish-speaking regions in his plans to establish a state. Experts have long been warning against the possibility of Iraq's disintegration or being plunged into a new civil war, once IS/Daesh is defeated. The KRG can rely on Germany's legwork, in its demand for national independence. Berlin has been particularly keen to support the Kurdish-speaking regions in Iraq and has even trained and armed the KRG's military forces, the "Peshmerga," since September 2014 - within the framework of the war against IS/Daesh. Berlin has consistently ignored human rights organizations and US experts' allegations that, in the wake of this war, the Peshmerga is carrying out "ethnic cleansing," to expel unwelcome Arabs from its "Kurdistan" of tomorrow.

On November 24, 2016, the government of Colombia and the biggest guerrilla group in the country, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP), signed a final peace agreement. This accord put an end to the longest armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere and to long and convoluted peace talks.

Timeline of the peace process in Colombia (Click to view full graphic)

What elements of the process contributed to its success? While it may be too early to properly speak of “lessons learned,” IPI’s latest paper highlights the key elements that seemed to have worked and those that made progress difficult. Over the course of the process, several factors emerged as central, both to its successful resolution and to the problems likely to arise during implementation:

• A limited agenda: Previous talks with the FARC-EP had been burdened by an extremely long agenda that included many issues the public believed should not be settled in a negotiation with an insurgent group. Reflecting this experience, the agreed final agenda addressed just six issues.
• A peace process removed from Colombia: Cuba’s hosting of the negotiations buffered the talks from the daily occurrences of war and politics in Colombia and provided a controlled environment. While this proved to be essential for the parties to come to an agreement, it left many Colombians feeling removed from the process and limited their sense of ownership.
• A strategic use of the international community: The dialogue was guided by a central premise: this would be a process “for Colombians, by Colombians.” This meant that the government tightly controlled the process and excluded the possibility of an external mediator. Nonetheless, the Colombian government reached out to and mobilized the international community. Although the involvement of these actors was essential to the successful outcome of the talks, it did not translate into wider legitimacy inside Colombia.

This report will be available in Spanish shortly.

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Elsősorban a civil szervezetek ügyében tervezett kormányzati intézkedések és az idegenrendészeti törvény szigorítása körül csaptak össze a magyar kormány képviselői és szimpatizánsai, illetve kritikusai az Európai Parlament állampolgári jogi bizottsága által hétfőn az alapvető jogok magyarországi helyzetéről tartott meghallgatáson.

Last year, I spent some days in the UN archives in New York to find out more about the topic of my current research on budgeting in the United Nations.

As I am going through the material (hundreds of photos of archive documents), I stumbled over a document that is only incidentally relevant to my research: a summary of a meeting of then-US-President Bill Clinton with then-UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (who died while I was in New York last year). The meeting took place on 27 September 1993, so in the first year of Clinton’s first term, and the second year of Boutros-Ghalis single term.

This is how the 4-page meeting summary (written by the UN Secretariat and now archived) starts:

Well, starting a meeting that goes on afterwards with topics Somalia, Bosnia, UN reform and the Middle East – this sounds like a classic Bill Clinton, doesn’t it?

I guess today, it would rather be on the Secretary-General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, to make the “hopefully nobody shouts ‘Fire’” joke.

Today, the USA threatened to leave the UN Human Rights Council, which will probably not the last time the Trump administration will start laying actual fire.

But, to be fair to Trump: looking through the archive material on budget politics in the UN during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, this administration and the present Congress would not be the first who try to mess with the United Nations – it’s actually a pretty common patterns coming from the US.

 

 

The post The President’s joke: Bill Clinton shouts ‘Fire’ at the United Nations appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Bosnian Serb lawmakers voted to impede state-level decision-making in response to attempts by Bosniak presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic to launch an appeal against the 2007 judgment that cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide.

L'élu apparenté Front national, proche de Marine Le Pen, a déposé devant l'Assemblée nationale un texte visant à suspendre les poursuites dont il fait l'objet dans l'affaire de la photo d'un homme mort postée sur Twitter.

Several thousand supporters of the former ruling party - VMRO DPMNE – rallied in the capital on Monday to protest against the formation of a new coalition government they claim endangers Macedonian interests.

Das House of the Lords befasst sich mit dem Gesetzesvorschlag, der die Grundlage für die Verhandlungen mit den EU-Institutionen über den Austritt des Landes aus der Union bilden…

Lundi 27 février à 20h15, rencontre autour de Le Soleil se lève-t-il à l'Ouest ? Portraits de migrants de Roumanie et Moldavie à la librairie Jonas (4 Rue de la Maison Blanche, Paris 13ème -métro Tolbiac).
La soirée sera rythmée par la présentation du livre, des lectures d'extraits, des témoignages de migrants de Roumanie et un échange avec l'équipe d'Habitat-Cité.
En prime, un buffet aux notes roumaines…(P.A.F : 2,50 (...)

Pályázat a nőket a család- és a munka összeegyeztetésében segítő projekt megvalósítására és Női Információs és Szolgáltató Központok (Nő-Köz-Pont) létrehozására

Même les remaniements passent désormais inaperçus, ou presque.

En accusant les fonctionnaires de parti pris, Marine Le Pen attaque un changement de registre du FN.

POZSONY. Évről évre nő az öregségi nyugdíjat kapó idős emberekkel szembeni végrehajtások száma. A Szociális Biztosító adatai szerint tavaly az összes szlovákiai nyugdíjas közül minden 41. ellen folyt végrehajtás.

OSLO. Több mint 200 embert kellett kitelepíteni egy pusztító lavina miatt a Norvégia és az Északi-sarkpont között található Spitzbergák szigetcsoport fővárosában.

ROTTERDAM. A gólvonal-technológia segítségének is köszönhette a Feyenoord, hogy 2-1-re legyőzte vasárnap a vendég PSV Eindhovent a holland labdarúgó-bajnokság 24. fordulójának rangadóján.

Civil Liberties MEPs voted on Monday for stronger protection and a shorter retention period for data stored in the new EU entry/exit system, which is designed to modernise and step up checks on non-EU nationals travelling to the European Union.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Civil Liberties MEPs voted on Monday for stronger protection and a shorter retention period for data stored in the new EU entry/exit system, which is designed to modernise and step up checks on non-EU nationals travelling to the European Union.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Civil Liberties MEPs voted on Monday for stronger protection and a shorter retention period for data stored in the new EU entry/exit system, which is designed to modernise and step up checks on non-EU nationals travelling to the European Union.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP