Submitted by admin on Thu, 2006-02-09 21:20.
"The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel"
| Keeping it light |
The Skeptic الشكاك
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More violence in Alexandria this afternoon. Jar al-Qamar has another post worth translating. I’d like to post it here. I’m getting really depressed. I want to go to Alexandria tomorrow to see for myself.I’m also way past deadline on an article I promised a friend. I might still go. But she’ll kill me if I [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 5 reads |
| Sectarian Violence in Alexandria: اخ تالت لينا |
The Skeptic الشكاك
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Clashes broke out today at a murdered Christian’s funeral. Alexandrian blogger Jar al-Qamar’s account of the tensions immediately following the attacks provide a depressing window into what sparked them. Here’s a translation:Yesterday we were a minority, and today I am a minority. Yesterday, [Alexandrian blogger] Solo and I were the only Muslims in a crowd [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 2 reads |
| Hamdan v. Rumsfeld |
The Skeptic الشكاك
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The wolves are circling around U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Great. Hope they eat him. But the swing in sentiment against him makes me tired. Back when most Americans polled thought the war Iraq was a swell idea and sat around the dinner table cursing the French, Rumsfeld was a hero and was even [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 6 reads |
| Poor Mohamed… |
The Skeptic الشكاك
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This really must be seen to be believed.(I’m late to this party. Thanks to Forsoothsayer and Cerise for cheering me up. Poor Mohamed Osman. I personally would be very happy if I looked like him.)Technorati Tags: Egypt, Mr. Egypt |
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full article | source | read more | 5 reads |
| A Tale of Two Cities |
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N’DjamenaChad cut ties with Sudan today after Khartoum-supported rebels tried and failed to take over N’Djamena. President Idriss Déby, a Zaghawa of the Bideyat clan (one of the groups against which the janjaweed, with the support of the Sudanese government, have conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur), has threatened to expel the hundreds [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 5 reads |
| Enemy at the Gates |
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I’ve been following this for a while, but had gone to sleep while the rebels poured out of Darfur and made it all the way across Chad to the capital N’Djamena. This is huge:Heavy fighting has subsided in Chad’s capital after breaking out at dawn, between government troops and rebels trying to overthrow the president.A [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 6 reads |
| Viva Mubarak |
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Here’s what President Hosni Mubarak said on Al-Arabiya the other night:Definitely Iran has influence on Shia. [They] are 65 percent of the Iraqis … Most of the Shia are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in. [Full Text]Not his best moment as a statesman. It was pretty clear those comments [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| Muslim Brotherhood: “Screw Egypt” |
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The weekly Rose al-Yousef, which admittedly is not above making shit up, says it has a taped interview with Mohammed Mahdi Aakef, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, in which he says some pretty impolitic things. Among them: “Screw Egypt, screw the father of Egypt [no one’s sure whom he means], and screw [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 9 reads |
| Priorities in the Blogosphere |
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Consider this: Last week I linked to a Washington Post op-ed attacking an American academic paper published in an abbreviated form in a little-read British publication a month ago and wrote seven oblique words about it. Visitors spent thousands of words repeating the arguments in the Post op-ed. Never mind that some hadn’t read even [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 6 reads |
| “The Long War” |
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First a confession: I’m a few steps behind. Here in Cairo, a blissful step removed from the U.S. news cycle (but, I like to think, a few steps closer to the events that shape it), I missed this. Only today’s BBC online story alerted me.The Pentagon’s new 20-year plan seems sensible enough from the Post’s [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| Iraqis Call for Unity as Killings Continue |
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What more can anyone say about this than that it’s awful?Al-Hayat’s Jihad Al-Khazen warns that “if the Iraqi political situation does not clear up during the next 48 or 72 hours, then it will most definitely explode.” But he’s optimistic because the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and The Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| Brinksmanship, Money, and Hamas |
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File this under “Join the Queue to See Hamas Fall.”And as a new stage in the game of brinksmanship that will probably end in Hamas’ climbing down from its old rhetoric. This will probably happen faster if they’re allowed to do so without losing face.Hamas had some success on a fundraising tour of the Gulf. [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 6 reads |
| Democratic Media |
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Dictators of the region take note: You don’t need an official press to get propaganda on the front page. You can do it without the expense of serving a city-block full of journalists tea six times a day.Technorati Tags: Bush, Libby, United States, Iraq |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| One to watch |
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Just ran across this blog from Tekla Szymanski, a polyglot journalist and editor who’s worked as a journalist in Germany, Jerusalem, and, most recently, New York. Her recent comments on the Israeli elections and her recollections of coming to Amrika are worth checking out.Tekla and I used to get into daily debates about Middle Eastern [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| End of Walt’s Term ‘Completely Unrelated’ To Uproar Over Israel Remarks |
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…The Harvard Crimson reported April 1. And the student daily ran this photo and caption on its front page today:“Danielle L. Charlop ‘09 and Rory M. Sullivan ‘09 make beaded bracelets with Hebrew letters yesterday at Harvard Students for Israel’s ‘Israel Fest’ celebration outside the Science Center. Former Virginia governor and prospective Democratic presidential candidate [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| Right of Return |
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Rania Khallaf has an article on Egypt’s under-reported “Nubian problem” in the new edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. It’s a bit jumbled, but worth the detour.Here’s a taste:According to activist Samir El-Arabi, originally from Daboud — thought to be the first village to be submerged — Nubians were furious “when the ministry was going to sell [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 7 reads |
| Judicial Independence in Tunisia |
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Those following the Egyptian Judges’ Club’s battles with the state might be interested to hear about similar problems in everyone’s favorite beach resort police state, Tunisia. I got this as a text message from a Tunisian colleague a few days ago, but haven’t had time to post:Sanction tres grave contre magistrats militants. M. khilifi et [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 10 reads |
| Hoax |
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I feel I should clarify that that IAEA memo was a brilliantly executed April Fool’s Day hoax sent out by Greenpeace. Don’t call the number listed. |
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full article | source | read more | 10 reads |
| I Hope You’re Ashamed of Yourselves |
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Just wanted to send my warmest regards to all the loud-mouths who piled on Jill just after she was released from three months in captivity with a gun pointed at her head. I hope one day to see how you, particularly the guy who wrote in to Little Green Footballs to say that he’d be [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 9 reads |
| Breaking News: Wafd Party Headquarters “Occupied” |
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I just spoke with two journalists from the Wafd Party’s organ Al-Wafd who said that ousted party leader Nomoan Gomaa and armed “thugs” have occupied the newspaper’s offices in Doqqi and that they have been shooting at journalists trying to get into the building to do their work. Fifteen journalists have reportedly been injured, some [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 11 reads |
| Jill Freed |
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Thank God. At last, Jill Carroll has been freed. I think I mentioned here that we had dinner together a few times when she was in Cairo last summer, and that I became an instant admirer of hers. She puts every journalist who strikes a world-weary, cynical pose to shame with the strength of her [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 9 reads |
| Bye-bye, Bibi |
The Skeptic الشكاك
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While we’re on the subject of The Entity, I should note what strikes me as the first good news to come out of that neck of the woods in as long as I can remember: Kadima and Labor trounced Likud, Netanyahu and the rest of the Greater Israel gang in the elections.I hate talking about [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 12 reads |
| Some Old Gossip |
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In the end, Seif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, the Colonel’s son and probable successor, is a lot more interesting than Gamal. If you haven’t heard, he’s been dating Israeli actress Orly Weinerman. She plans to convert to Islam and marry him. Seif al-Islam is also on record as saying Israel doesn’t represent a threat to Libya’s security.I [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 10 reads |
| Baheyya for President |
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The government newspapers ran front-page items yesterday and terrestrial TV ran advertisements all day. In this desert country, the skies opened and lighting streaked across the sky just before the event began (”At least the dust will be washed away tomorrow,” I optimistically told one guy in an elevator. “There will be no tomorrow,” he [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 13 reads |
| ‘Under the Guise of Elections’ |
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Many thanks to Petroushka for alerting me to what has to be my favorite quote of the year so far: “We will not allow the seizure of power under the guise of presidential elections.” —Stepan Sukhorenko, head of the KGB secret service in Belarus, as reported in The Times, March 17, 2006. Technorati Tags: Belarus, elections |
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full article | source | read more | 10 reads |
| Baheyya on Judges |
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Don’t miss Baheyya’s recent posts providing excellent background on the stirrings in the Egyptian judiciary. This is a huge issue, and one that hasn’t gotten enough attention. |
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full article | source | read more | 18 reads |
| Tunisia: ‘Youths of Zarzis’ not released (or were they?) |
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A sad correction to yesterday’s post. Apparently AP and AFP got it wrong. The ‘Youths’ are still in jail. UPDATE: Now the word is that they have been released, after all. Can’t stand this emotional roller-coaster. Comité international de soutien aux internautes de ZarzisPrésidente : Hélène Flautre, Parlementaire européenPorte Parole : Térésa Chopin, mère d’Omar [...] |
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full article | source | read more | 24 reads |
