This policy brief of the Macedonian Centre for European Training (MCET) focuses on the priorities and actions of the Spanish Presidency, the bilateral relations between the EU and Macedonia and the future development of the relations under the Team Presidency. Also, special attention is given to the relations and potentials for strategic partnerships between Spain and Macedonia in light of EU Accession.
DI - 15/2/2010
Published by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED), the second annual report on Arab Environment Climate Change analyses the region’s response to the urgent need for adaptation measures.
DI - 12/2/2010
The European Union Heads of State and Government pledged their support to Greece to tackle its debt crisis at the meeting on 11 February in Brussels. The statement stresses both the Greek government’s responsibility and the EU’s solidarity.
DI - 8/2/2010
According to this report of the Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM), emigration from South and East Mediterranean countries (SEM) is continuing at a steady rate, while immigration to these countries is increasing, particularly in various irregular forms. However, this trend differs from those preceding it in 2007 and 2008.
DI - 5/2/2010
According to the 2009 edition of the Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean, the economy of the region grew an average 4% from 1950 to 2009 while the population increased 2.1% annually during the same period. Published in February 2010, this report is one of the main sources of statistical information in the region that gather social, economic and environmental data from the Latin American and Caribbean countries.
DI - 1/2/2010
This year’s edition highlights the continued need to further enhance global resilience to risks. It also stresses global governance gaps as one of the nexus of global risks that need an increasingly urgent coordinated global action. The report was published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in February 2010.
DI - 28/1/2010
U.S President Barack Obama delivered his 2010 State of the Union Address on 28 January 2010. The President lays out his priorities for jobs and bolstering the middle class.
DI - 26/1/2010
The 20th annual World Report documents ongoing human rights abuses by states and non-state armed groups across the globe. The report also stresses that governments responsible for serious human rights violations have over the past year intensified attacks against human rights defenders and organizations that document abuse.
DI - 22/1/2010
The latest edition of Freedom in the World – the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties published by Freedom House on 12 January 2010- states that 2009 marked the fourth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline, ‘the longest consecutive period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report’.
DI - 21/1/2010
Following the devastating earthquake that struck this country on 12 January, the UN Security Council –as its 6261st meeting on 19 January 2010- decided to boost the force levels for military and police components of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The mission will consist of a military component of up to 8,940 troops of all ranks and of a police component of up to 3,711 police and that it will keep the new levels of troops and police in MINUSTAH under review as necessary.
DI - 15/1/2010
According to this Statistics in focus report, the significant growth in the EU’s population in recent years is a trend ‘mainly due to a relatively high net migration rate, which in 2008 was almost three times higher than the rate of natural population growth’. It also presents the latest available figures on the foreign population usually resident in the EU-27 and EFTA Member States, broken down by country of citizenship.
DI - 13/1/2010
This paper critically examines the relevance of the US intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan in the last eight years. It was written by Major General Michael T. Flynn (Senior Intelligence Officer in Afghanistan), Captain Matt Pottinger (company-grade Officer) and Paul D. Batchelor (Senior Executive Service of the Defense Intelligence Agency).
DI – 13/1/2010
The new study (in Spanish) of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean estimates that the value of total exports from the region fell by 24% with regard to the previous year due to the global crisis, though there could be an improvement in 2010.
DI - 12/1/2010
The African Women Report 2009: measuring gender inequality in Africa Experiences and Lessons from the African Gender and Development Index is based on a technical tool of the UNECA (the African Gender and Development Index). It provides a gender-responsive definition of accountability and focuses on the key elements that are required to ‘make accountability work’ for women.
DI - 11/1/2010
The special report of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies is focused on India-Bangladesh relationship security issues as follows: maritime demarcation, environment/water security, border issues and Indian Border Security Force’s (BSF) killing of civilians, human insecurity in unsettled enclaves, gross imbalance in trade, disparity in sharing information, transnational security threats and the issue of militancy and terrorism.
DI - 7/1/2010
Published on 5 January, this Congressional Research Service report highlights the threats posed by a crime-terrorism nexus, as the scale and nature of their cooperation are believed to vary widely. US efforts to combat the relationship between crime and terrorism are a subset of broader policy responses to transnational crime and international terrorism individually.
4/01/2010
Spain took over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 January 2010. We offer the official programme of the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council 2010.
DI - 28/12/2009
The report provides analysis of the economic situation in 2009 and prospects for the future. It is a joint publication of the UN DESA and the five regional commissions (UNECA, UNECE, ECLAC, ESCAP and ESCWA).
DI - 21/12/2009
The advance unedited version of the Copenhagen Accord agreed on 19 December 2009 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which recognises the need to limit the increase in global temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius.
DI - 16/12/2009
This publication series of the American Security Project (Are We Winning?) provides empirical data as the foundation of reasoned discussion and principled debate. It has developed 10 criteria to measure progress—or lack of it—in the struggle against anti-American Islamist terror groups such as al-Qaeda.
DI - 16/12/2009
One of the conclusions of this UNESCO report is that ‘companies which invest in cultural diversity, whether at the management, human resources or marketing level, can benefit economically from it’. Also, this publication aims to become a reference tool for cultural diversity.
DI - 15/12/2009
The latest survey of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows an increase in opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar for the third year in a row – an 11% rise from 28,500 ha in 2008 to 31,700 ha in 2009
DI - 9/12/2009
The official website of the UN Climate Change Conference COP 15/CMP 5, which is being held in Copenhagen from 7 to 18 December 2009. The conference has brought together more than 20,000 delegates from 192 countries, NGO representatives and activits from ecologist movements, and aims to set up a new international framework that will substitute the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.
DI - 3/12/2009
This is the text of Barack Obama’s speech on the Afghanistan-Pakistan situation, delivered at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) on 1 December. President Obama has outlined the new strategy in the region which include additional American and international troops.
1/12/2009
This paper is focused on the U.S and the EU partnership, and aims to generate new ideas and thinking about the roles of both actors in a changing global environment. It is a result of a collaborative project among three U.S think tanks - the Atlantic Council of the United States, the CSIS and CTR at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)- and a number of European think tanks - the CEPS, the Elcano Royal Institute, the Fundacion Alternativas, the Swedish Insitute of International Studies, and the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI).
