Recent studies of Egypt's long-standing dispute with Ethiopia over the distribution of the waters of the Nile River assume that the adoption of the Nile Basin Initiative in 1999 heralded a sharp turn ...toward regional conciliation and harmony. This assumption is unwarranted, given Cairo's insistence that its “historic rights” to the Nile be preserved and the belligerent response by Egyptian politicians to Ethiopia's inauguration of the Millennium Project in the spring of 2013. A careful survey of recent relations between the two states demonstrates that the dispute retains a high potential for severe conflict.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Egypt maintained a policy of antagonism at arm's length toward Ethiopia throughout Husni Mubarak's presidency. This pattern changed immediately following Mubarak's ouster. The burst of rapprochement ...and diplomatic activism that took shape in the spring of 2011 signaled a fundamental shift in the content and form of Egyptian policy vis-à-vis Ethiopia, which was reflected in President Muhammad Mursi's reluctance to respond belligerently to Ethiopian initiatives 2 years later that threatened to diminish the northward flow of the Nile. Cairo's evident restraint during the Mursi era cannot be explained by a change in the strategic circumstances that confronted Egyptian policy-makers. A more promising explanation can be found in a reformulation of desecuritization theory, which highlights the internal dynamics whereby potentially dangerous aspects of a country's external environment get transformed into matters of routine political contestation.
Iran’s relations with surrounding states exhibit a shift from unremitting radicalism to pervasive moderation, a transformation that is usually explained in terms of changes in the Islamic Republic’s ...domestic affairs. Yet the marked turn toward moderation may equally result from the dynamics of entrapment and pre-emptive realignment, which are inherent in alliance politics under conditions of anarchy. Attempts by Syria to strengthen ties to Iran set the stage for the 2006 Hizbullah–Israel war in Lebanon. Policy makers in Tehran recoiled from the fighting, opening the door to rapprochement with Ankara. Improved relations between Iran and Turkey both distanced the Islamic Republic from Iraq and prompted Iranian leaders to make unprecedented overtures to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Iran’s moves to conciliate Turkey and the KRG gained momentum as the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant seized territory across northern Syria and western Iraq. Nevertheless, ongoing Turkish initiatives in the Caucasus have created unpalatable strategic choices for the Islamic Republic, which put Tehran’s continued commitment to external moderation in jeopardy.
Why the uprisings that broke out across the Middle East and North Africa in 2010-11 ousted the leaders of republics but left monarchies largely intact remains puzzling. One promising explanation for ...the resilience of monarchical regimes argues that monarchs exercise repression in a comparatively restrained and largely effective fashion. Proponents of this theory tend to conflate two crucial causal factors: the level of state coercion exercised against opposition activists and the degree of indiscriminateness with which coercion is deployed. By treating these variables as analytically distinct, a more compelling explanation for monarchical resilience can be advanced. The advantages of the revised argument are illustrated by revisiting the divergent trajectories of the uprisings in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
On March 2, 2016, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) posted on its official website a scathing condemnation of the Lebanese Islamist movement the Party of God (Hezbollah), accusing it of carrying out ..."hostile acts" in the six GCC memberstates and engaging in campaigns of "terror and incitement" in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The pronouncement was attributed to GCC Secretary General Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayyani, but was widely acknowledged to have been issued at the instigation of the organization's most influential member, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Three days earlier, the Saudi-owned MBC television network in Lebanon broadcast a comedy program that lampooned Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrullah, and depicted him as nothing but a stooge of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nasrullah replied on March 1 with a vituperative public riposte, in which he charged that the Saudi government was interfering in domestic politics all across the Middle East, most notably in Lebanon.
The purpose of the present study was to identify the ideal polidocanol (POL) concentration for mechanochemical ablation (MOCA) of the great saphenous vein (GSV) using the ClariVein system (Merit ...Medical, South Jordan, Utah).
We performed a multicenter, randomized, controlled, single-blind trial with a follow-up period of 6 months. Patients with symptomatic primary truncal GSV incompetence were randomized to MOCA + 2% POL liquid (2% group) or MOCA + 3% POL liquid (3% group). The primary outcome was technical success (TS), defined as an open part of the treated vein segment of ≤10 cm in length. The secondary outcomes were alternative TS, defined as ≥85% occlusion of the treated vein segment, postoperative pain, venous clinical severity scores, Aberdeen varicose vein questionnaire scores, and short-form 36-item health survey questionnaire scores, and complications.
From 2012 to 2018, 364 patients (375 limbs) were included, of which, 189 limbs were randomly allocated to the 2% group and 186 to the 3% group. The TS rate at 6 months was 69.8% in the 2% group vs 78.0% in the 3% group (P = .027). A higher overall TS rate was seen in GSVs of ≤5.9 mm compared with GSVs >5.9 mm (84.3% vs 59.5%, respectively; P < .001). The alternative TS rate at 6 months was 61.4% in the 2% group and 67.7% in the 3% group (P = .028). The venous clinical severity scores, Aberdeen varicose vein questionnaire scores, and most short-form 36-item health survey questionnaire domains had improved in both groups (P < .002). Postprocedural pain was low. Two pulmonary embolisms and two deep vein thromboses were seen. Superficial venous thrombosis had occurred more often in the 3% group (18 vs 8 in the 2% group; P = .033).
The results from the present study showed a higher success rate for MOCA with 3% POL liquid than for MOCA with 2% POL liquid at 6 months of follow-up. However, the difference in quality of life was not significant. Long-term follow-up studies are required to investigate whether these results will be sustained in the future.
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In the past half-decade, the role of the Gulf in the international political economy has changed dramatically. The region's position as a supplier of world hydrocarbons has slipped, even as local ...consumption of oil and gas continues to expand. Gulf investments have shifted from the industrialized countries to the Middle East and North Africa. Saudi Arabia no longer exercises disproportionate influence in the Group of 20. Finally, relations with the People's Republic of China and India have become truly interdependent, which gives the Gulf the capacity to exercise leverage over these two rising powers, despite its diminished position in global affairs.
