European troops have begun training Malian forces to help ensure security and stability following a planned French withdrawal in July. From the start, the mission is unlikely to succeed. The program has too few European trainers and will train a paltry four Malian battalions—roughly 2,600 soldiers—to secure a country twice …
This week, the parliament of Bahrain voted unanimously to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization. “It is time we join the world in outlawing this group, which has terrorized the region enough and has been instrumental in spreading evil among us,” said lawmaker Shaikh Jassim Al Saeedi, a sponsor of the …
A Cypriot court on Thursday sentenced a member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, to four years in jail for planning to attack Israeli citizens and targets in Cyprus. Yaacoub’s conviction a week earlier marked the first time a Hezbollah member had been found guilty in a European …
Today, Cyprus’s banks opened for the first time in more than 10 days, after Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades—without seeking approval from his parliament—agreed to bailout terms that will raid citizens’ bank accounts. Those banking in Cyprus should not get too excited about the banks reopening. Strict capital controls are in …
As Cypriots come to grips with this week’s agreement to bail out its banks, Russian policymakers need to think about why their citizens are involved in this crisis. Around 40 percent of Cyprus bank deposits belong to Russian individuals or businesses, and accounts with more than 100,000 euros now face …
A last-minute accord struck early Monday morning between Cypriot authorities and International Monetary Fund and European Union officials is being hailed in Brussels as a breakthrough. In reality, the agreement simply papers over serious structural fractures within the eurozone and is likely nothing more than a temporary solution to long-term …
As opposition to the euro continues to build within the eurozone, Germany, the motor of the eurozone—frankly, the only thing holding it all together—is not immune. Recently, a new political organization has formed in Germany called Alternative for Germany. So far the group is only a collection of like-minded euro-skeptic …
The Cyprus bailout fiasco continues, elevating the four-year-old eurozone debt crisis to a new level of volatility and uncertainty. At the core of the debacle lies the tiny island’s outsized banking sector, which is over eight times the size of the economy. But the third-smallest European Union (EU) member has …
The parliament of Cyprus today emphatically rejected a European Union (EU) bailout plan that would have taxed private bank deposits. The plan did not garner a single vote in support, while 36 members voted against the plan; 19 parliamentarians abstained and one was absent for the vote. The deeply unpopular …
