By Khalid Aziz

In a meeting of Nato heads of state in Lisbon last November, it was decided that foreign forces would withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The meeting envisaged the handing over of security duties to Afghan forces.

By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

New demands for political reform in the Gulf are meeting a repressive response by regimes especially panicked when pro-democracy protests swell into cross-sectarian movements for meaningful political reform. This brutality polarises opinion between advocates of reform and proponents of repression. It also poses a dilemma for western policy makers in their engagement with their strategic partners in the region.