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Kazakhstan and the United States: Twenty Years of Ambiguous Partnership
The Five Futures of Cyber Conflict and Cooperation
US Lessons for the Eurozone Restoring Confidence through Transparency
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Council News
Jonathan Paris Discusses Syrian Crisis with France 24
Jonathan Paris, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, appeared on France 24 to discuss Russia's support for the Assad regime and what it means for a possible UN resolution against Syria.
Damon Wilson US Senate Testimony: Ukraine at a Crossroads
On February 1, Atlantic Council executive vice president Damon Wilson testified at a hearing of the US Senate Committe on Foreign Relations on the topic: "Ukraine at a Crossroads: What's at Stake for the US and Europe?"
Michele Dunne on US-Egypt Relations for NPR's Morning Edition
Relations between the US and Egypt have taken a downturn since Egyptian authorities raided the offices of seventeen nongovernmental organizations in December - three of them US-funded. Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, spoke on NPR's Morning Edition about the situation and what it means for US aid to Egypt.
FEATURED ISSUE
The South Asia Center receives guidance and support from many experts throughout the world. Our senior fellows, guest-speakers, Center patrons, and visitors contribute heavily to the Center’s mission to “wage peace,” and engage the international community in the region. The Center asked our contributors the simple, but key question, “What you do expect in 2012?”
REGISTER
Canada's Parliament Suspended
Peter Cassata | December 05, 2008Prime Minister Stephen Harper successfully convinced Canada's governor-general to suspend parliament, avoiding a vote of confidence he most likely would have lost. The Economist:
Only seven weeks ago Stephen Harper, the prime minister, won a second term for his Conservative government, but once again without winning a parliamentary majority. Now the three disparate opposition parties—the centrist Liberals, the socialist New Democrats (NDP) and the separatist Bloc Québécois—have ganged up in order to oust the Conservatives and replace them with a centre-left coalition. That left Mr. Harper scrabbling for survival.
On Thursday December 4th he asked Michaëlle Jean, who as governor-general acts as Canada’s head of state, to suspend Parliament until January [26]. After a two-hour meeting, she agreed to do so. That means that for now Mr. Harper has dodged a confidence vote scheduled for December 8th that the opposition parties, provided they stick together, were bound to win. The opposition holds 163 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons.
Their alliance is an unlikely one. Stéphane Dion, the Liberal leader, is an academic from Quebec who came into politics a decade ago expressly to oppose the French-speaking province’s separatists, represented by Gilles Duceppe and his Bloc Québécois. Jack Layton, the NDP leader, has spent his career savaging previous Liberal governments.
For the last week, Canada's government has been near collapse as the country faces the prospect of its first coalition government since 1926. The BBC called Harper's request to the governor-general, who officially represents head of state Queen Elizabeth II, "unprecedented."
CNN reported that Harper has dismissed the idea of a power-sharing coalition: "Harper rejected the idea of a 'power-sharing coalition with a separatist party,' referring to the Bloc Québécois, and insisted the country must stand together." He has been prime minister since February 2006.
