Open Government and Freedom of Information: Policy and Practice in Asia and the Middle East SpringerLink

Deteriorating integrity of government in Lebanon will entrench political corruption. Rampant corruption will only deepen the distrust in politics and the social tensions tearing apart the country. Existing conflicts will worsen without decisive political reforms to reign in corruption and alleviate the impact of the crises. Across the region, lack of transparency in state security budgets allows funds to be spent without public input, and even for them to be redirected by corrupt actors. In a region with so much conflict, such budgets are significant – offering substantial gains for corrupt actors.

In other countries, the ideology (usually out of power) has fostered both pro-democratic and anti-democratic sentiments. The Justice and Development Party is a moderate democratic Islamist party that has come to power in traditionally secular Turkey. The United Iraqi Alliance, the winner of the recent elections in Iraq, is a coalition including many religious parties. In the book “Islam and Democracy – A Historical Overview”, the author Bernard Lewis draws the comparison of increased democratisation and draws attention to the country embracing liberal democracy values. This has been seen recently with the 2022 protests in Iran, sometimes referred to as the Mahsa Amini protests which have come about after opposition to extreme Islamic law in the country, limited freedom of expression and violation of women’s rights. They started when Mahsa Amini was executed by the state, and has seen solidarity across some Islamic countries as well as professional Irianian footballers in the 2022 world cup, where they refused to sing their national anthem to draw attention to the protests.

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A few hours later, a suspicious net.exe command was executed to mount the c$ share of another machine using stolen credentials. After this, net.exe was used to list all mapped drives, before WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) was used to execute Plink in order to open port-forwarding on the compromised host, allowing for remote RDP access. The script appeared to be designed to query and collect information about local user groups and their members on a Windows system.

Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition. The three North African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states. In addition, geographic factors often require statesmen and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East.

No going back: How America and the Middle East can turn the page to a productive future

The project, which will end in March 2026, is supported by a generous contribution from the Government of Canada, and will be implemented by UNDP under the leadership of the Center for Restoration of Iraqi Marshes & Wetlands at the Ministry of Water Resources of Iraq. The project’s critical activities are geared towards achieving restoration of the unique ecosystems and biological diversity of the country’s most renowned heritage site. After decades of costly US failures in the Middle East, both on the strategic and diplomatic levels, losing wars and failing to mediate peace, the US seems addicted to Middle East chaos. The US naval buildup is risking another regional conflict and drawing America into another Middle East war, despite Biden’s commitment to end forever wars. In the last year, cybersecurity firms have identified several campaigns against the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and more.

• The Muslim Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s, but they continue to organize politically—even achieving a short-lived election to Egypt’s presidency in 2012.
• Civil society organisations are not engaged in public administration and public financial management processes.
• Given the book’s datedness, readers might want to assess the degree to which authors have accurately predicted the future prospects for each country.
• Tunisia (40) dropped by four points since last year as the country continues down a path toward authoritarianism.
• The Israel Democracy Institute’s Peace Index runs monthly surveys on public sentiments in Israel regarding the Palestinian conflict.

We seek to promote knowledge of the Middle East in America and strengthen understanding of the United States by the peoples and governments of the region. We believe pursuit of this goal is integral to building a world of peace and stability, in which the people of our two regions value our shared humanity. Since early last year there has been a surge in drug-related assassinations in Syria’s southwestern Daraa Province, adding a new layer to the region’s persistent violence. The regime’s complicity, driven by financial and political motives, has fostered a climate where drug networks operate with impunity, spurring locals to take matters into their own hands. The Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs examines the future of Palestinian politics and the Palestinian national movement as well as the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of the conflict in the stability of the broader Middle East. MEI’s Frontier Europe Initiative explores interactions between Middle East countries and their Frontier Europe neighbors – the parts of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus which form a frontier between Western Europe, Russia and the Middle East.

During the Cold War, the United States of America and the Soviet Union competed for allies in Southwest Asia and North Africa, and the United States has been accused of supporting dictatorships contrary to its stated democratic principles. The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine was the beginning of a policy of American democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa, leading, for example, to American intervention on behalf of the democratically elected government in the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Russian is spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, because of emigration in the late 1990s.[51] Russian today is a popular unofficial language in use in Israel; news, radio and sign boards can be found in Russian around the country after Hebrew and Arabic. Circassian is also spoken by the diaspora in the region and by almost all Circassians in Israel who speak Hebrew and English as well. The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates.

Efforts also have been made to increase participation in education by marginalized and/or special populations. The range of efforts is large with some focusing on involving migrants/immigrants/refugees in primary education while others aim at opening up choices at the university level. Recently, nations in the region have recognized the possibilities of digital learning (online learning) as cell phones and other widely used portable wireless devices have made it possible to sell the idea that one can learn from anywhere at any time.

In the same year a referendum was held by Ruhollah Khomeini, that asked whether there should be an ‘Islamic Republic’ or not. The 1979 referendum (in favor of an Islamic Republic) got 98% support of those who voted. The constitution was modeled on the 1958 constitution of the French Fifth Republic by the Assembly of Experts for Constitution (who were elected by direct popular vote) and Khomeini made himself the new Supreme Leader of Iran. After Khomeini’s death, the Assembly of Experts (which is made of Islamic scholars elected by direct vote) appointed Ali Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader. The constitution was also amended through a referendum in 1989 with 97% support a few months before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died increasing the powers of Supreme Leader.

While some governments may not be too keen on expanding freedoms, they may be very willing to fight corruption or reduce poverty. We should work with them on these priorities, while insisting that — at the very, very least — they don’t turn back the clock on freedom, and ideally advance it. That is why the Open Government Partnership and the Kingdom of Morocco are hosting the 2022 OGP Africa and the Middle East Regional Meeting on November 1-3, 2022 in Marrakech, Morocco. This event will bring together open government champions and stakeholders from the region and key international partners to raise collective ambition, energize the community, and generate new political support to make governments more transparent, accountable and responsive to citizens. Strong adoption and delivery have placed the UAE in the 3rd position globally in providing superior digital government services.

But with an estimated 150,000 dead and millions of Syrian refugees abroad or displaced at home, the economy is in ruins. Isis’s embryonic Islamic caliphate, straddling the border with Iraq, is likely to continue to be a magnet for Sunni extremists. Fear of Isis has weakened western support for Assad’s enemies and boosted his image as a bulwark against extremism. Increased optimism and confidence in the Middle East sports sector has attracted investments from Middle East sovereign wealth funds and government-backed investment groups. The positive outlook is well-founded amid an increasingly packed calendar of global sporting events in the region, with several high-profile athletes choosing the Middle East as a destination to continue their legacy.

It defines the region and identifies the conceptual pillars of political study – in particular states, regimes, regime types such as democracy and authoritarianism, and the role of foreign policy. It also reviews the MENA’s modern political history, underscoring the major events, conflicts, and trends that have marked its evolution over time. In sum, this is the definitive framework for how to engage all other chapters, and which particular concepts to track and absorb. MEI’s Afghanistan and Pakistan studies center aims to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of the politics, economy, society and foreign policy of these two countries. It works with scholars to produce original research, sponsors lectures, produces opinion pieces, and provides expert analysis with the goal of promoting knowledge about Afghanistan and Pakistan among the American public and within policy making circles. The change in usage began to evolve prior to World War II and tended to be confirmed during that war, when the term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt.

This places a strategic importance on cities and local government as a priority sector. Finally, the World Bank provides a plethora of economic data and studies on Turkey’s ongoing financial issues. Useful websites on Egypt proliferate for news and analysis, and exist almost entirely outside the country given the climate of media repression and informational control currently in place. Increasingly, Libyan media providers have become aligned with different political figures and blocs. For instance, a pro-Haftar website is Libya Address, while a supportive publication for some Islamists is Libya Observer.

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