Monday, 17 February 2014

Egypt and Russia sign mutual cooperation pact in Moscow

Egypt and Russia sign mutual cooperation pact in Moscow
Egypt and Russia have signalled their determination to work together at a meeting in Moscow to seal new military, political and economic ties. Talks between the two countries are being widely seen as part of Egypt’s shift to reduce reliance on the United States. But Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi said the meeting was not against anyone but meant to diversify Cairo’s partners.
'Our bilateral relations are founded on a solid basis with historic roots. We feel a friendly atmosphere and expect to build our common future together in the interests of our countries and people and to develop relations in all spheres from politics, to culture and military cooperation,' said Fahmi.
The high-profile delegation includes Egypt’s army chief, Field Marshall Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who is on his first trip abroad since ousting the country’s Islamist president. He is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks on Thursda

World’s fastest mobile data traffic growth? The Middle East, of course!

World’s fastest mobile data traffic growth? The Middle East, of course!
MEA mobile data traffic is predicted to reach 1.49 Exabytes per month by 2018
The Middle East boasts one of the most tech-receptive and youthful populations on the planet. Now make that official. According to a Cisco study, the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will post the world’s-fastest mobile data traffic growth rate from 2013-2018.
The study, titled Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2013 to 2018, reports that mobile data traffic in the region will increase 14-fold by 2018.
Some interesting pointers from the report:
  • MEA mobile data traffic will reach 1.49 Exabytes per month by 2018 – the equivalent of 4,105 million text messages each second.
  • MEA mobile data traffic will grow 2 times faster than region’s fixed IP traffic from 2013 to 2018.
  • MEA mobile data traffic will account for 39% of region’s fixed and mobile data traffic by 2018, up from 10% in 2013.
  • In MEA, 36% of mobile connections will be 'smart' connections by 2018, up from 10% in 2013.
  • In MEA, 90% of mobile data traffic will be 'smart' traffic by 2018, up from 76% in 2013.
According to the report, the MEAmobile data traffic growth is being driven by the world’s-fastest uptake of Internet Protocol version 6 (Ipv6)-capable smartphones and tablets, rising from 133 million in 2013 to almost 598 million in 2018. In the region, smart wearable devices like watches, glasses, and fitness trackers are also slated to post strong growth from 700,000 in 2013 to 8 million in 20

HE THINKS IT COULD PROVE A DECIDING FACTOR IN THE GAME

"We can hurt them in the air," says Negredo

02/17/2014
One thing that Barcelona will have to be wary of is aerial balls. Tata's side has shown throughout the season that its Achilles Heel comes in the form of free-kicks and corner kicks.
There is a significant height difference between Barça and City. When looking at the possible starting line-ups for tomorrow's game, the English side has an average 10cm height advantage over the Catalans.
"One of our trump cards is aerial play; we know we can hurt them there. I don't know if they've conceded many goals from aerial play this season, but it's obviously something that plays in our favour and we'll try and take full advantage of it," said Álvaro Negredo.
Height of City's players in metres:
Hart: 1.96
Zabaleta: 1.76
Kompany: 1.90
Nastasic: 1.87
Kolarov: 1.87
Touré: 1.91
Javi García: 1.87
Silva: 1.70
Nasri: 1.75
Negredo: 1.86
Dzeko: 1.93
Average: 1.85
Height of Barça players:
Valdés: 1.83
Alves: 1.73
Piqué: 1.92
Mascherano: 1.74
Alba: 1.70
Xavi: 1.70
Busquets: 1.89
Cesc: 1.75
Pedro: 1.69
Messi: 1.69
Iniesta: 1.70
Average: 1.75


Peace talks between Pakistan and Taliban collapse after killings

Peace talks between Pakistan and Taliban collapse after killings
Peace talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban insurgents broke down on Monday, the government said, after insurgents executed 23 paramilitary soldiers in what they said was revenge for army operations in the volatile tribal regions.
Pakistan watchers have always been sceptical that negotiations with the outlawed militant group could ever bring results in a country where the Taliban are fighting to topple the government and set up an Islamic state.
"It is sad that we are not moving in the right direction," Irfan Siddiqui, a government negotiator, said in a statement, adding that there was now "no use" holding a planned Monday meeting with Taliban representatives.
The Taliban's arm operating in the tribal Mohmand agency said in a statement the Pakistani soldiers had been executed in revenge for the killing of their fighters by army forces. It also issued a video message in Pashto explaining its motives.
The Pakistani Taliban's main spokesman could not immediately say if Mohmand Taliban actions had been endorsed by the movemment's central command, but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif responded with anger.
"Such incidents are affecting the peace talks negatively after they started to bring a peaceful solution to the problem," Sharif said in a statement.
"Pakistan cannot afford such bloodshed. ... The situation is very sad and the whole nation is shocked."
On Thursday, the official Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for killing 13 policemen and wounding 58 by bombing their bus

Iran und Israel: The best of enemies

Iran und Israel: The best of enemies
If Israeli President Shimon Peres were to be asked whether Iran can be trusted, he would certainly answer 'No.'
'Iran is the center of world terror in our time,' Peres warned the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. He's convinced that Tehran continues to support the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon with weapons, and that Iran is trying to develop nuclear arms, despite repeated denials by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. For years, Jerusalem has more or less openly speculated about the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Speculation was particularly rife during the presidency of Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who routinely ranted against Israel, challenged the Holocaust and condemned the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. His successor Rouhani has taken a more tempered approach: he also doesn't recognize the existence of the state of Israel, but he has dissociated himself from his predecessor's anti-Israel comments.
Nevertheless, the relationship between the two countries is defined by deep mistrust. This was not always the case.
Common interests
Israelwas founded on May 14, 1948 - and found itself immediately at war with its Arab neighbors.
The Israelis managed to thwart the Arab attack, but the Palestine War showed Israel's founding father David Ben Gurion quite clearly the hostile surroundings in which the young state would have to hold its ground. He developed a so-called 'alliance of the periphery,' a foreign policy strategy that called for Israel to form alliances with non-Arab states and forces in the region, including Turkey, Lebanese Christians - and Iran.
In the early 1950s, Tehran, too, was suspicious about growing Arab nationalism - in particular after 1953, when Iran developed into a dictatorship strongly influenced by the US.
Tehran regarded Israel, which was also supported by Washington, as a welcome political counterbalance to its Arab neighbors. 'The two countries had an excellent relationship,' says Henner Fürtig from the Hamburg-based GIGA-Institute.
Israeltrained agricultural experts, supplied technical know-how and helped build and train the Persian armed forces - in return for crude oil, a resource urgently needed in economically ambitious Israel.
'In the late 1970s, Iran covered 80 percent of Israel's oil requirements,' says Fürtig. 'It was an existential relationship which was developed between the two states.'
Secret deals
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran put an abrupt end to that cooperation.
The new regime's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, harshly criticized Israel for the occupation of the Palestinian territories. As soon as he had assumed power, he cancelled all agreements with Israel. When Israel intervened in the Lebanese civil war and marched into southern Lebanon in 1982, Khomeini sent Iran's revolutionary guards to Beirut to support the local Shiite militia. To this very day, the militant Hezbollah group that emerged back then is regarded as the long arm of Tehran in Lebanon.
There were increasingly public tensions between Iran and Israel, but at the same time, cooperation was secretly revived, triggered by the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980.
Unimpressed by the revolution in Tehran, almost the entire western world supported Iraq, which had been armed to the hilt by the United States. Israel, on the other hand, regarded Saddam Hussein's regime as the greater threat - and sided with Khomeini.
According to a study conducted by the Tel Aviv Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel supplied Iran with arms totaling $500 million (365 million euros) in the first three years of the war.
Political scandal
According to Fürtig, 'Things were not looking good for Iran in the war with Iraq, partly because 90 percent of Iran's armaments had been acquired in the US during the Shah era.' Those supplies were running out: 'Iran was desperate for new suppliers prepared to provide US weaponry.' Israel's offer was just what Iran needed.
Ayatollah Khomeini returned the favor when rumors started that Iraq was working on a nuclear bomb - a threat neither Jerusalem nor Tehran could accept. Iran's intelligence agency passed on valuable information to the Israeli air force, which bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, setting back the suspected Iraqi nuclear program by years.
Such secret cooperation was highly sensitivem, says Fürtig, 'and both sides tried to keep it under wraps. Neither Iran nor Israel wanted this to become public knowledge.'
In November 1986, the Iran-Contra affair hit the United States: senior administration officials had secretly sold thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Tehran and used proceeds from the weapons sales to fund rightwing Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Israel was significantly involved in the transactions.
The final break
In the wake of that scandal and the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, ties between Israel and Iran were finally severed. Iraq, the common enemy, was weakened, and eventually more or less neutralized by the US-led Operation Desert Storm three years later.
Iranno longer had a reason to maintain its cooperation with Israel. In addition, Tehran began to focus on the Palestinian question. Iran habitually takes the Palestinian issue out of an Arab context and moves it into an Islamic context, Fürtig says: 'By pulling the issue into the spotlight for all Muslims, and not just Arabs, Iran hopes to be awarded leadership competence - something Tehran doesn't want to relinquish.'
Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, says rivalry between two nations is by no means unusual, but 'the problem with Israel and Iran is that their rivalry has taken on existential dimensions.'
Iranprophesizes that the state of Israel will disappear, while Israel denies Iran the right to nuclear technology and actively participates in efforts to change the regime in Tehran. In such circumstances, says Fürtig, 'an real substantial improvement in Iranian-Israeli relations is not to be expected any time soon

Renzi will lead Italy successfully – analyst=

Renzi will lead Italy successfully – analyst
Sabrina Pisu, euronews: 'Matteo Renzi has been asked to form a government. As Italy’s probable next premier, what are his strong and weak points?' Aldo Cazzullo, editorial writer, Corriere della Sera newspaper: 'He really has a lot of weak points. His government move follows presidential steps; he doesn’t have the people’s mandate. He has a fragile majority and a divided party. He not only has Enrico Letta against him, who is obviously irritated, but also a big part of the Italian establishment, which doesn’t really want change. The two things in his favour are, one: himself – Renzi has quite a few faults, and he’s shown some of these in the past few days, but his energy is unsurpassed among Italian politicians these last 20 years. His second asset is Italy, because part of Italy is just waiting to be shaken up so it can reboot. If politics shows it knows how to reform while cutting its costs, starting with parliamentarians’ salaries, and shows it can simplify fiscal policy and red tape and give hope to the unemployed, then Renzi could succeed.' euronews: 'Matteo Renzi is the third prime minister in three years; why should he succeed?' Cazzullo: 'Because I think Mario Monti and Enrico Letta, who were actually very good prime ministers, showed themselves to Europe with a sort of ‘Italian abroad’ complex. They took care to express themselves in English, and tried not to push too hard. In contrast, I think Italy has to face Europe to make itself heard – even in poor English – its clout, its interests, its desperate need for public investment and new jobs.' euronews: 'What obstacles could Matteo Renzi encounter next on his path to become premier?' Cazzullo: 'First of all he has to form a solid team of ministers. The names going round don’t look that great to me. We’re going to have to see what kind of team he manages to put together and what kind of support it can get, not just in parliament but especially from the country.' euronews: 'What absolutely has to appear in his reform programme?' Cazzullo: 'Jobs, jobs and more jobs. That’s the absolute priority. It’s not only about making money circulate again. Italy does have a financial crisis but above all it has to get its confidence back, give young people back their confidence. Youth unemployment in Italy today is higher than 40 percent, and one young person in every four is neither in work, studying or training. No country can survive that. The country is going to have to be kickstarted so that young people go back to work. I think Renzi has a chance.' euronews: 'Will Matteo Renzi succeed?' Cazzullo: 'Yes.'

Kerry visits largest mosque in Southeast Asia

Kerry visits largest mosque in Southeast Asia
US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Southeast Asia's largest mosque during his visit to Indonesia Sunday, paying tribute to Islam in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation.
After removing his shoes outside the Istiqlal mosque in the heart of Jakarta, Kerry walked through the vast building accompanied by grand imam Kyai al-Hajj Ali Mustafa Yaqub.
Calling it an "extraordinary place", the top US diplomat told Indonesian reporters: "I am very privileged to be here and I am grateful to the grand imam for allowing me to come."
The administration of US President Barack Obama has worked hard to try to repair relations with the Muslim world, which were badly frayed under the previous administration with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The United States and other Western powers have often referred to Indonesia -- the world's third biggest democracy -- as a bridge to the Muslim world.
Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Jakarta, also visited the mosque in 2010 when he travelled to the archipelago.
In signing a note to be placed in the mosque's guestbook, Kerry wrote: "It has been a special honour to visit this remarkable place of worship.
"The amazing space and light and the extraordinary dome are the perfect way to welcome prayers.
"We are all bound to one God and the Abrahamic faiths tie us... together in love for our fellow man and honour for the same God. May peace be with you."
The Istiqlal mosque was commissioned in 1961 by the then-Indonesian leader Sukarno and took 17 years to complete.
Its vast 12 columns hold up an impressive green dome, and at Ramadan it is often packed to capacity with space for some 130,000 worshippers.
Ninety percent of Indonesia's 250 million people identify as Muslims, and most practise a moderate form of Islam.