Democracy for Arabs? Not in the Murdoch world. Here’s a senior Australian editor, Alan Howe – the man has form – writing today on Egypt in Melbourne’s Herald Sun. It’s all about Israel, screw freedom or rights. The Zionist state has corrupted our souls: Sayyid Qutb. Remember that name. You’ll hear it often in coming…
Showing all posts in June 2019
A young girl in Egypt tells Mubarak to shove it
We see and hear female protesters in Egypt far too infrequently:
Wikileaks told us that Mubarak was going to appoint a VP
2005: The London-based Financial Times reported on June 15 that President Mubarak intends to name a Vice President – a step he has refused to take throughout his 24 year tenure as President – after the September Presidential elections. We reached out to the reporter who filed the story, who confirmed to us that Soliman…
Journalists, don’t be afraid to rely on Arabs to tell you Egyptian truth
Here’s an idea for a Western newspaper trying to report in Egypt. Rather than sending your own correspondent who doesn’t get anywhere near the action – or know any of the important writers, bloggers, Tweeters etc – you actually rely on other, perhaps indigenous sources, who are seeing the real action on the streets. Not…
Israel “surprised” that Arabs may want democracy
Almost funny: Despite its renown for gathering precise intelligence about its Arab neighbors, Israel was caught completely off guard by the political upheaval in Egypt, officials said Sunday. The dramatic outpouring of Egyptians demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Israel’s longest standing ally in the Arab world, has shaken this country’s foreign policy establishment.…
Boys with deadly toys in Egypt and US don’t want any change
Democracy is a messy beast, especially if it isn’t reliability “pro-US”. Hence, the last decades have seen very close relationships between Washington and a host of brutal dictatorships. Cairo is no different. No wonder America is worried that a “reliable” state – read pro-torture and pro-Israel – is teetering: The officer corps of Egypt’s powerful…
El Baradei man of the people?
BBC World just tweets: A number of political movements in Egypt have asked Mohammad El Baradei to form a transitional government.
Memo to MSM; Assange is less important than his leaks
Julian Assange, facing a barrage of personal attacks from media companies and foreign governments, rightly tells the UK Observer today that it’s highly revealing how much attention is directed at him as opposed to the allegations presented in the Wikileaks-released documents. He slept with women? Sure, that’s clearly more vital than criminality or torture backed…
Sri Lankan elites crave “normality” post Tamil massacres
The significance of the Galle Literary Festival statement that I signed recently is now clear; it’s caused massive debate at the event itself and forced the question of Colombo’s appalling human rights record to the fore: During a lunchtime session at the Galle Literary Festival, one isolated-looking teenager sat among the audience. He watched for…
“This is not Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt anymore”
Democracy Now! journalist Sharif Kouddous returns to his homeland Egypt from New York and reports on the ground from a nation in transition: I grew up in Egypt. I spent half my life here. But Saturday, when my plane from JFK airport touched down in Cairo, I arrived in a different country than the one…