Oct
18
Exams
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
I’ve been pretty busy with university the past week, finishing up some of my classes and getting ready for exams the next few days. For those who read this blog regularly, posting will be irregular for a bit, but it’ll only be a few more days. Thanks for reading this blog!
Oct
10
From Ynet News: Apparantly Nasrallah survived an attempt to remove him from power, with the threat coming from competing senior members who want Hezbollah to focus solely on their relationship with Iran, and subservience to Ahmadinijad and Khomeini.
Also, remember that gaff by the Iranian president at Columbia University about no there being no homosexuals in Iran? Well, he just mispoke.
Mustapha from Beirut Spring asks of the returning Naher El Bared refugees, what does home mean?
And finally, a long but worthwhile piece by Michael Totten: Reason Magazine - The Next Iranian Revolution
Oct
10
More On The Israeli Airstrike
Filed Under turkey, Syria, Israel | 2 Comments
So now that people are talking about it, and the Israeli strike on Syria has been confirmed, the debate is centered around Israeli intelligence showing North Korean assistance with a Syrian nuclear program. An article in the NYT describes the split in the U.S administration over the intelligence, and what it means in regards to their policies towards Syria and North Korea:
The debate has fractured along now-familiar fault lines, with Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative hawks in the administration portraying the Israeli intelligence as credible and arguing that it should cause the United States to reconsider its diplomatic overtures to Syria and North Korea.
By contrast, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her allies within the administration have said they do not believe that the intelligence presented so far merits any change in the American diplomatic approach.
“Some people think that it means that the sky is falling,” a senior administration official said. “Others say that they’re not convinced that the real intelligence poses a threat.”
Several current and former officials, as well as outside experts, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the intelligence surrounding the Israeli strike remains highly classified.
Besides Ms. Rice, officials said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was cautious about fully endorsing Israeli warnings that Syria was on a path that could lead to a nuclear weapon. Others in the Bush administration remain unconvinced that a nascent Syrian nuclear program could pose an immediate threat.
Oct
10
Very possibly, and they’re stepping up the threats to the ‘rebels’ over the border. Although an incursion, or what the article describes as a raid, is may not be happening immediately it seems the Turkish military is close to getting full government approval for military action. ME Times: Iraq incursion threat is what Turkish generals were waiting for.
Erdogan confirmed Wednesday the government was drafting a motion asking parliament to authorize the deployment of Turkish soldiers abroad - a move required by the constitution.
“The preparations for a motion have started and are continuing,” he said.
The draft could be submitted to parliament as early as next week, political sources said.
Ankara’s move comes after PKK militants were blamed for attacks, this weekend, which killed 15 soldiers, most of them in Turkey’s southeast Sirnak province near Iraq’s northern border.
It was the worst death toll - 13 soldiers in one attack alone - since 1995.
Oct
9
Egypt Signs Treaty With NATO
Filed Under cooperation, NATO, Egypt | 1 Comment
The second Middle Eastern nation to do so, along with Israel. Egypt will now cooperate on border control, the war on terror and intelligence sharing:
BRUSSELS - Egypt has signed a treaty with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), thus becoming the second Middle Eastern country, after Israel, to sign such a pact.
A senior NATO official told Ynet that other countries in the region were expected to sign similar treaties soon.
The treaty will allow Egypt to discuss the possibility of NATO securing the border it shares with the Gaza Strip along the Philadelphi Route.
The treaty was signed Tuesday afternoon at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, after a prolonged negotiation between representatives of both sides. NATO sources welcomed the treaty, the details of which are expected to be released shortly.
I think this is pretty good news, and while we still have to wait for more details, cooperation is always good. It can only improve Egypt’s standing in the world. Read more
Oct
9
62 Islamists Plotting To Blow Up Ibn Khaldun Center For Development Studies; Updated
Filed Under Terrorism, Egypt, News | Leave a Comment
62 Islamists were arrested, allegedly belonging to a terrorist group called Takfir & Higra, on suspicion of plotting to attack the Ibn Khaldun Center For Development Studies in Cairo. The center is led by Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
62 terrorists trying to blow up one target? Is this the beginning of a bad joke?
The Reuters piece linked above gets interesting midway through (emphasis mine):
The director of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre, Ahmed Rizk, said he had received no formal notice from the government about the arrests but planned to increase security around the centre.
Security sources said the men, who have not yet been formally charged but were in custody pending an investigation, denied the accusations.
Over the years the Egyptian authorities have detained several groups of what they call extremists on suspicion of planning acts of violence. But some of the cases have never gone to trial and the suspects have been freed.
Egypt’s Al Masry Al Youm newspaper reported that the men were plotting to blow up the centre with a car bomb and had been in contact with “extremist elements” abroad. The paper reported that the group had hatched the plot after reading Ibrahim’s secular writings and learning of his ties to the United States.
Ibrahim is currently outside Egypt and has said he faced possible arrest should he return as old accusations against him were revived, this time in the form of private lawsuits.
Ibrahim has been lobbying Washington and the European Union to demand greater progress toward more judicial independence, greater media and civil freedoms and internationally supervised elections in exchange for foreign aid.
Doesn’t it sound like it’s the government that is trying to send him a message that he’s in danger and not welcome back in the country anymore?
Updated: Read more
Oct
9
Comment Moderation: My Bad
Filed Under Ridiculous, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Proving that I really am an absolute technical novice in the field of blogging, I discovered today that I had quite a few comments that were in que for moderation. I never knew my comments were moderated, or anyone else’s on this site, so if you’ve been wondering why your comments never show up on the posts, blame it all on me. My apologies, and I sincerely regret the missed opportunity to discuss some of these posts further in the comments section with some of you. Now that I’ve figured out the whole commenting deal on this blog, I hope you all will continue read and discuss some of these posts.
The past few weeks have kind’ve been slow for me in terms of blogging, I know. But to those wondering, I haven’t quit or gone on hiatus. I’m trying to balance a few things out here in the real world so I can spend more time writing in the virtual one.
I also figured that I’d use this chance to share this book with you by Saad Eddin Ibrahim: Egypt, Islam and Democracy. It’s a collection of essays written over the past 20 years, including his groundbreaking sociological study of Islamic militants in Egyptian prisons. I read that particular essay while I was still at AUC, but I only recently finished the rest of the book. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in reading an informed sociopolitical analysis of one of the Middle East’s most interesting countries.
Oct
1
Egypt Nabs Terror Suspect
Filed Under Terrorism, Egypt, News | Leave a Comment
There’s a report today of a deal that saw 85 members of Hamas enter Egypt through the Rafah border in exchange for extradition of a terror suspect whom Egyptian intelligence services have been tracking for a while.
Hamas transferred a fugitive al Qaida member to Egypt on Sunday, in return for Egypt’s opening the Rafah Crossing to dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, Israel Radio quoted Palestinian news agency Ma’an as reporting on Monday.
On Sunday, Israel was taken by surprise when Egypt abruptly allowed 85 Palestinians, most of them Hamas members, who had been stranded in Egypt since the Islamist group seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June to return home.
The unexpected move contradicted agreements Israel had with Egypt regarding the Rafah Crossing.
The Palestinians refused to enter Gaza through any of the crossings controlled by Israel.
Sources in the defense establishment estimated that many of the group had undergone training in Iran and Syria
Oct
1
Fatwa TV
Filed Under religion, Egypt, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
A couple days old, but still food for thought: Egypt’s Al-Azhar Wants TV Channel For Fatwas
(Reuters) - The head of Egypt’s Islamic al-Azhar University wants to set up a satellite television channel to broadcast Islamic legal rulings to try to end “fatwa chaos”, state media reported on Friday.
The state news agency MENA quoted al-Azhar President Ahmed al-Tayeb as calling for “a special al-Azhar satellite channel entrusted to true scholars who do not desire fame or money and who will be guardians over the science of issuing fatwas and presenting Islamic issues”.
MENA said Tayeb wanted the channel to combat what he described as “fatwa chaos” proliferating on other satellite channels and which he said harmed Islam and spread confusion in society.
State-run al-Azhar, Egypt’s most prominent institute of Islamic learning, wants to ensure that there is only one authority for issuing fatwas, or Islamic legal rulings, in coordination with al-Azhar, the agency said.
Earlier his year, al-Azhar suspended a lecturer who sparked controversy with a suggestion that male and female work colleagues use symbolic breastfeeding to get around a religious ban on being alone together.
All I’ll say is that giving them a TV channel can only make things worse.
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