søndag, februar 24, 2013

Marc Lynch: Plan B i Syrien

"Currently, military aid to the rebels flows through Gulf and regional governments and private citizens directly to local commanders and fighting forces, while humanitarian aid is channeled primarily through NGOs operating with the consent of the Syrian government. This generates a distinctive political economy of war that has distinctly pernicious effects -- encouraging the fragmentation of the opposition, deepening geographic and political divides, discouraging a coherent political strategy, and creating rent-seeking incentives for ongoing warfare. The uncoordinated, often competitive, financing of favored proxies by outside players has actively contributed to emergent warlordism, intra-rebellion clashes, and the absence of a coherent political strategy."
Here’s Your Plan B - By Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy

fredag, februar 15, 2013

Economist: Afghanske flygtninge i Iran lever som andenrangsborgere

More than 1m Afghans are registered as refugees in the Islamic Republic, which is also home to another 1.5m-plus illegal Afghan migrants. But a mixture of Iran’s worsening economic malaise and its government’s policies has prompted an exodus of Afghans back home or westward... Hamid, a 43-year-old legal refugee, has been living in Iran for over a decade. “They treat us very badly,” he says, visibly upset. “We don’t have the advantages of Iranians. We can’t have mobile phones or cars and they make the paperwork more complicated and expensive every year.” Referring to illegal refugees, he says “everything is about money. The police look for their houses, steal savings and then deport them.”
Afghan refugees in Iran: Go back home | The Economist