• Research Briefing

    Prospects for Afghanistan as ISAF withdrawal approaches

    2014 is a pivotal year for Afghanistan, with a crucial presidential election in April and the end of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission in December. Security overall is deteriorating in Afghanistan and although the Afghan National Security Forces are taking the lead, questions remain about their effectiveness and the government’s dependence on international help to pay for them. It is unclear whether there will be any Western military presence after 2014. Negotiations with the Taliban do not seem to offer much hope.

  • Research Briefing

    Syrian refugees and the UK

    In July 2013, the United Nations estimated that more than 100,000 people had been killed in the conflict in Syria. Since then the UN no longer makes estimates. More than 9 million Syrians need help in the country, 6.5 million of whom are internally displaced. 2.4 million Syrians have fled abroad. 2 million Syrian children

  • Research Briefing

    The Prawer-Begin Plan

    There has been a lot of controversy about the Prawer-Begin plan to relocate some of Israel’s semi-nomadic Bedouin population to approved towns, with the UN Human Rights Council saying that it violates Bedouin rights and is discriminatory. In December it was announced that the bill would be substantially amended after opposition from both left- and right-wing politicians in the Knesset.

  • Research Briefing

    The Deal with Iran

    On the 24th of November, the world woke up to news that a deal had been reached between the Permanent Five plus One (the UK, US, France, China, Russia and Germany) and Iran. A Joint Plan of Action was the outcome of weeks of hard negotiations. The deal was indeed revealed to be the fruit of years of US-Iran secret negotiations alongside a decade of public Iranian diplomacy following the revelation of a wide scale Iranian enrichment programme. This note seeks to outline the terms of the deal and reactions to it, background information for context and give a sense of potential technical and geopolitical outcomes.

  • Research Briefing

    Interpal

    The UK charity collects money for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and in Lebanon and Jordan. It has been the subject of controversy because of allegations that money distributed by it has gone to promote terrorism. After some delays it has been cleared by the Charity Commission, but it is still a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organisation, on the US Treasury’s list.

  • Research Briefing

    Election monitoring troubles in Azerbaijan

    The 2013 presidential election in Azerbaijan set off a row between different groups of election monitors. The European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) all had groups of parliamentarians in Azerbaijan, while the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) mission consisted of a

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