Algérie Presse Service
http://www.maghrebemergent.info/politiques-publiques/algerie/
Tronçon algérien de la Transsaharienne: opération modernisation
La Route de l’Unité africaine servira-t-elle un jour les économies des Etats africains qu’elle traverse ?
La question se pose toujours : comment rentabiliser, sur les plans économique et social, cette route de 4.000 kilomètres et la mettre au service des pays qu’elle traverse ?
Karam-Kara-Békir, mercredi 28 août 2013 15:40
http://www.maghrebemergent.info/energie/hydrocarbures/item/
Algérie – Dès la mi-septembre, Statoil et BP reviendront « progressivement » sur le site gazier de Tiguentourine
Le site de Tiguentourine : 12% de la production gazière algérienne, 18 % du gaz exporté.
Stillstand und Schattenökonomie: Wie der Krieg Syriens Wirtschaft zerstört
Von Ulrike Putz, Beirut
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/syrien
„Lebensmittel werden rar, die Währung stürzt ab, ganzen Branchen droht der Stillstand. Syriens Wirtschaft leidet immer stärker unter dem Krieg. Das Ende der Kämpfe rückt durch den ökonomischen Niedergang dagegen kaum näher.
Energie 2013-08-19
Des accords énergétiques au Mali pourraient renforcer la région du Sahel
Par Jemal Oumar à Nouakchott pour Magharebia
La décision prise par le Mali d’accorder des autorisations d’exploration pétrolière à des entreprises internationales dans le Bassin Taoudeni est considérée comme un nouveau signe de stabilité régionale.
Le spectre du terrorisme, des trafics et des enlèvements a longtemps hanté le Taoudeni, qui s’étend de la Mauritanie à l’Algérie, et à travers tout le Mali.
Mais au mois de juillet, le gouvernement transitoire malien a donné l’autorisation à des entreprises étrangères d’explorer les terrains en quête d’hydrocarbures dans le Nord du pays.
„[…] Die Ölförderung ist vielleicht die einzige Erfolgsgeschichte nach den libyschen Revolutionswirren im Jahr 2011. Obwohl viele ausländische Experten das Land verlassen hatten, gelang es, die Ölförderung in relativ kurzer Zeit wieder auf das Vorkriegsniveau von 1,6 Millionen Fass pro Tag zu steigern. Die Staatseinnahmen stammen fast ausschliesslich von den Ölverkäufen. Jetzt droht das Rückgrat des nordafrikanischen Landes zu brechen. Seit Wochen werden die wichtigsten Ölverladestationen entlang der Mittelmeerküste bestreikt. Die Produktion ist im Juli auf ein Rekordtief von 330 000 Fass gefallen und liegt im August etwa bei 700 000 Fass. Die Folge sind grosse finanzielle Einbussen, auch für die ausländischen Partnerfirmen, und ein Verlust an Vertrauenswürdigkeit. Nach den Angaben von Ölminister Abdulbari al-Arousi beziffern sich die Verluste seit dem 25. Juli auf 1,6 Milliarden Dollar. […]“
Standard & Poor’s abaisse la note de la Tunisie de deux crans
L’agence d’évaluation financière Standard & Poor’s a abaissé vendredi de deux crans la note de la Tunisie, devant la contestation croissante à laquelle fait face le gouvernement en place. La note accordée à la dette long terme du pays passe de „BB-“ à „B“, ce qui traduit une faible confiance de Standard & Poor’s dans la capacité du pays à faire face à ses engagements financiers. Cette note est assortie d’une perspective d’évolution négative. Cela veut dire pour l’agence qu’il y a une chance sur trois qu’elle soit de nouveau abaissée dans les douze mois à venir si la situation politique et sociale devait menacer la mise en œuvre de réformes favorables à la croissance. „Cet abaissement traduit l’augmentation des incertitudes politiques, la légitimité des institutions de transition étant de plus en plus contestée dans le sillage de nouvelles violences politiques“, a remarqué SP dans un communiqué. L’agence d’évaluation financière s’inquiète en particulier de l’impact de cette situation sur le tourisme, „qui reste un pilier de l’économie de la Tunisie, et sur l’investissement étranger et intérieur“.
via Standard & Poor’s abaisse la note de la Tunisie de deux crans
Egypt’s new interim government is not a leftist coalition
Joel Beinin and Giuseppe Acconcia 29 July 2013
A historian of the Middle East from Stanford University discusses Egypt’s new interim government and the labour movement.
Giuseppe Acconcia: Professor Beinin, we are told that the Muslim Brothers have been abandoned by the armed forces to foster a government more engaged in the defense of social justice, as requested by millions of protesters, is this true?
Joel Beinin: To be sure the army is aware that with this economic crisis, with rising prices and the fall in the import of wheat, the Egyptian people’s social rights have to be addressed. I would not say that the new government looks likely to follow this path. The prime minister Hazim Beblawi is a man of the centre and his government arises out of an agreement between the youth movements, the liberal party al-Dostour, led by Mohammed el-Baradei, and the Nasserists, supporting Hamdin Sabbahi: it is not a leftist coalition.
GA: In terms of political direction, what does the Minister of Manpower, Kamal Abu Eita, president of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, lend the government?
JB: Eita is a Nasserist, not a socialist. It is enough to read his first commentary after the offer: “Workers should become the heroes of production”. According to the Nasserists, strikes should never take place: the national economy must ameliorate to the point that all salaried workers can live properly. For this reason, Eita has been criticized by the left, for instance by Fatma Ramada, representative of the Independent Syndicates’ board, who harshly opposed his appointment.
GA: Have the Muslim Brothers lost their support among the Egyptian workers?
JB: They never had any such support. The workers in the industrial sectors showed their clear opposition towards the Brotherhood; for instance, by rejecting the Constitution in the Nile Delta region and Cairo, the biggest industrial areas of the country.
GA: During this year, did the many leftist parties that supported the rebel campaign swell their ranks before the 3 July military coup?
JB: The true leftist parties, such as the Revolutionary Socialist party, do not have a significant constituency. They are not able to mobilize the workers. They had some political space before and after Mubarak: but the economic crisis alienated their support in the workers movement. The Tamarrod (rebels) always described itself as a big coalition. Among the signatures collected, a fifth come from the left. But this component is rather lost in nationalist discourses. The campaign which led to Morsi’s fall speaks to and for the nation, without expressing the demands of any one class.
GA: This secular change has been helped by the Nasserist component within the army?
JB: The true Nasserists were eliminated within the top posts of command inside the military, years ago. In the political arena, the army has always fought against both Nasserists and Islamists, which explains why Marshal Hussein Tantawi needed a week to admit that Morsi won the elections against Ahmed Shafiq last year.
GA: Why has the law on independent syndicates, approved after the revolts, never been enforced?
JB: At the last syndicate elections in 2006, the Muslim Brothers and leftist movements did not participate, because the activists of those groups had already been identified, removed or rounded up and put under arrest by state security. The military junta did not permit the governments, after 2011, to apply a law that could revitalize the Egyptian trade union movements.
The parliament elected in 2012 had been discussing the new syndicate law, and three different versions were proposed. However, the process was abruptly terminated by the Parliament’s dissolution. Last August 2011, members of the Brotherhood, remnants of the old regime (feloul) and leftist independents entered the Central Committee of the Egyptian syndicate’s federation. At that stage, the Islamists began to work with the feloul. Last year, the syndicate elections were postponed and the same will happen again this year. In the meantime, the Muslim Brothers and the National Democratic Party’s former members still control the trade unions.
GA: Is it correct that the Mahalla al-Kubra’s workers were active in these latest revolts?
JB: At the moment, nobody knows who represents whom. The workers in Mahalla are a force that could lead the movement, but up till now none of the political parties have been able to organize it. The real socialist parties are very far from power; while social-democrats, already active in the previous regime, have been co-opted within the new government. This means they have become party to a nationalist ideology that for years has categorically rebuffed the workers’ requests.
via Egypt’s new interim government is not a leftist coalition | openDemocracy.
GIGA Working Paper No 231 has now been published and is available free of charge at: www.giga-hamburg.de/workingpapers.
Contingent Democrats in Action: Organized Labor and Regime Change in the Republic of Niger (Sebastian Elischer)
Abstract
The effects of organized labor on regime change in developing countries are not clear-cut. Optimists argue that union agitation is conducive to both democratic transition and consolidation processes. Pessimists hold that unions will support any regime that is conducive to their demands. Accordingly, unions may support regime transitions; however, once their economic interests are under threat, they will jeopardize the subsequent consolidation process. Systematic studies on the effects of organized labor on regime change in sub-Saharan Africa are sparse and largely confined to the (pre)transition phase. This article examines the role of organized labor in Niger between 1990 and 2010. Given the high number of regime breakdowns during the period, a longitudinal study of Nigerien labor enables a critical examination of motives and actions of organized labor toward different regime types. In contrast to other recent findings on African unionism, the article confirms the pessimistic view.
SWP Studie: „Ägyptens Unternehmerelite nach Mubarak“
Ägyptens Unternehmerelite nach Mubarak
Machtvoller Akteur zwischen Militär und Muslimbruderschaft
Ägyptens Unternehmerelite hatte in der Mubarak-Ära nicht nur wirtschaftlichen Reichtum erlangt, sondern auch politischen Einfluss. Nach dem Umsturz Anfang 2011 war sie sehr erfolgreich darin, diese Machtposition zu bewahren. Die ägyptischen Großunternehmer profitierten nicht zuletzt davon, dass das Militär, das zunächst die Führung des Landes übernommen hatte, Korruption und Misswirtschaft nur unzureichend aufarbeitete. Von der Muslimbruderschaft wurde dieser Kurs unter der Präsidentschaft Mohammed Mursis 2012/2013 fortgesetzt. Zudem orientierte sich die Bewegung programmatisch an der unternehmerfreundlichen Wirtschaftspolitik des Mubarak-Regimes. Ihr Versuch, dadurch die Unternehmerelite zu kooptieren, scheiterte jedoch ebenso wie die Bemühungen einiger Muslimbrüder, die eigenen wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten in nennenswertem Umfang auszubauen. Viele der meist säkular geprägten Großunternehmer hegten ein grundsätzliches Misstrauen gegenüber der Bruderschaft. Sie unterstützten daher die Gegner der Organisation – durch Finanzierung von oppositionellen Parteien, Politikerinnen und Politikern sowie über private Medien. Dieses Vorgehen trug dazu bei, dass es der Bruderschaft nicht gelang, ihre durch Wahlen erlangte Macht zu konsolidieren.
Egypt plans quick steps to spur economy, then ‚Marshall Plan‘
Deputy PM for economic affairs Ziad Bahaa El-Din says interim cabinet will maximise impact by building on existing investment projects, restoring confidence
Egypt’s new cabinet plans quick steps to spur the economy while laying the ground for a broader „Marshall Plan“ to present to Gulf countries and other donors, its chief economic strategist said.
