Egypt protests continue as opposition heaps pressure on Hosni Murabak – video
February 1, 2011 No Comment
Crowds continue to fill Tahrir square, with prayers interrupting through the demonstrations
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Playwright Simon Stephens is right – writers should take to the stage and make their voices heard, no matter how ugly it gets “The Bruntwood prize is a clarion call to all playwrights throughout the country,” declared playwright Simon Stephens in Manchester last night at the launch of the 2011 Bruntwood competition and the premiere of Vivienne Franzmann’s Mogadishu , one of the winners of the competition, open to all UK and Irish-based writers to write on any subject they choose. Stephens continued: “This year there is a real urgency to it. It’s the first time the award has been given under this new government and conditions of work for playwrights have changed. No government in my memory has taken such a sudden, clinical, brutish attitude towards arts funding. I can’t remember any government having such an attitude towards financial restrictions across the economy. I am fascinated to see the way playwrights throughout the country will use image and idea, irony, language, content and form to make sense of and dramatise this changed landscape.” Questions of how playwrights and theatre-makers can and should respond to the current political situation were also very much to the fore at last weekend’s Devoted & Disgruntled , which took place against the unfolding dramas on the streets of Cairo and – nearer to home for those attending – in Oxford Street, where police used CS spray on those protesting against corporate tax avoiders. With so much theatre taking place on our streets in protests over tuition fee rises (one of the sessions at D&D discussed whether a performing arts degree was worth £40,000), and with UK Uncut cleverly using situationist-style playful interventions to draw attention to tax avoidance, how is theatre to respond urgently and incisively to the times – particularly when plays take time to get written and productions must find a slot? The Royal Court’s Dominic Cooke may talk of “a desire for stories that address where we are now”, but the truth – with rare exceptions such as Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children – is that the journey from page to stage often takes months, if not years. If playwrights are going to stay on top of the times, they often have to be prescient rather than thoughtfully responsive. There are some signs of movement, with initiatives such as Theatre Uncut at Southwark Playhouse in March, which will offer a number of plays on the spending cuts by writers including David Greig, Lucy Kirkwood, Dennis Kelly, Mark Ravenhill and Jack Thorne, among others. The plays are available free to download from the Theatre Uncut website, and the idea is that productions will be staged all over the country, not just in theatre spaces, on 19 March. Theatre Uncut sounds like a terrific idea and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the plays, but Stephens may be right when he highlights that one of the good things about the Bruntswood is that it allows playwrights complete freedom to write the play they want to write, rather than the play a theatre tells them they should write, or one they feel gives them a better chance of getting a production. The rise of playwriting schemes and professionalised literary management over the last 15 years means that many writers are caught in a culture that encourages them to write in order to please rather than to please themselves. Not long ago a major mid-career playwright said to me that “we have a generation of playwrights so infantalised by theatre managements I worry that they won’t protest against the cuts”. I hope he’s wrong. If students can take to the streets to protest then playwrights should be able to take both to the streets and our stages to make their voices heard, but it’s a concern that the careerist nature of modern theatre – where writers are treated like cogs in a machine, and the small company hopes to become a larger company slowly but surely climbing the funding ladder – creates a passivity to the often deeply conservative management systems and structures that have become the norm in theatre. As the playwright Naomi Wallace has suggested: “theatre, embroiled as it is in mainstream cultural and economic pressures, tends to reward and applaud those who ask questions that allow for its continued existence, albeit it with a few adjustments here and there. But overall the status quo stands largely untouched: heterosexuality continues to be foregrounded; white privilege continues to go unquestioned; writing against injustice continues to be sidelined; and to question our most deeply felt assumptions is, finally, deemed unproductive, not to mention impolite.” I hope that playwrights and other theatre-makers will heed Stephens’s clarion call, and that they will do so in the most impolite fashion possible. Theatre Arts funding Protest Egypt Students UK Uncut Tax avoidance Lyn Gardner guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Howard Fineman Compares Those Upset About Stolen 2000 Presidential Election to Birthers
February 1, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Howard Fineman gives us a big heaping dose of false equivalencies by comparing the birthers who are trying to delegitimize President Obama to those on “the left” that were upset that George W. Bush had the presidential election stolen for him by the Supreme Court in 2000. Yeah Howard, those two groups of people are just alike.
Continue reading …Jordan’s King Abdullah appoints new prime minister as Egypt unrest spreads
February 1, 2011 No Comment
New Jordanian prime minister Marouf Bakhit to preside over ‘real political reform’, says royal palace Jordan’s prime minister has been replaced as the political shockwaves from Egypt continue to reverberate across the Arab world. King Abdullah asked Marouf Bakhit to form a new government following the resignation of Samir al-Rifai after weeks of protests by Jordanians calling on him to step down. Bakhit was asked to take “practical, swift and tangible steps to launch a real political reform process, in line with the king’s vision of comprehensive reform, modernisation and development”, said a statement from the royal palace. But the opposition Islamic Action Front quickly attacked the appointment as “inappropriate”, blaming Bakhit for presiding over corruption, electoral fraud and mismanagement during what spokesman Zaki Bani Rashid described as the “bitter experience” of Bakhit’s first term in an interview with the Ammanet website. Abdullah has dismissed prime ministers in the past but the background of protests at home and the intense focus on Egypt gives added significance to this move, which was immediately seen as an extension of spreading regional unrest. Bakhit, prime minister from 2005 to 2007, also served in the sensitive posts of national security chief and Jordan’s ambassador in Israel. As a member of the al-Abbadi tribe, he is considered a loyal member of the country’s East Bank elite. Demonstrators had demanded Rifai’s departure in demonstrations that began after last Friday’s prayers in Amman’s main mosques and were given added impetus by the dramatic events in Cairo. The recent unrest in Jordan was inspired by the Tunisian uprising, and focused on anger about poverty and the well-heeled Rifai’s apparent inability to offer relief. Protests over poverty, inflation, unemployment, corruption and a lack of democracy have been going on for weeks. The prime minister became a lightning rod for discontent, though he recently found $550m in subsidies for fuel and staples such as sugar, rice and gas. The package included pay rises for civil servants and security personnel. The Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, is now playing an active opposition role and has been calling for political reform, while still treading carefully. “There is no comparison between Egypt and Jordan,” the IAF leader, Hamzeh Mansur, said yesterday. “The people there demand a regime change, but here we ask for political reforms and an elected government.” Abdullah has promised reforms, particularly on an election law. But it is unlikely that he will surrender his right to appoint the prime minister and cabinet officials. Unemployment is officially around 14% in the country of 6 million people, 70% of them under 30. The minimum wage is $211 a month. Poverty levels are 25%, while the capital, Amman, is the most expensive city in the Arab world. Many ordinary Jordanians are also vehemently opposed to the 1994 peace treaty with Israel, signed by the late King Hussein, and at the heart of the country’s close alliance with the US, which was enhanced by the war in neighbouring Iraq. Jordan King Abdullah Egypt Middle East Ian Black guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Cable dated:2009-04-30T15:00:00 S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 000746 NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/26/2019 TAGS: PREL, MASS, MOPS, PARM, KPAL, IS, IR, SO, EG, SU SUBJECT: ADMIRAL MULLEN’S MEETING WITH EGIS CHIEF SOLIMAN Classified By: Ambassador Margaret Scobey per 1.4 (b) and (d). 1. Key Points: – (S/NF) During an April 21 meeting with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, Egyptian General Intelligence Service Chief Omar Soliman explained that his overarching regional goal was combating radicalism, especially in Gaza, Iran, and Sudan. – (S/NF) On Gaza, Soliman said Egypt must “confront” Iranian attempts to smuggle arms to Gaza and “stop” arms smuggling through Egyptian territory. – (S/NF) Soliman shared his vision on Palestinian reconciliation and bringing the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza, saying “a Gaza in the hands of radicals will never be calm.” – (S/NF) On Iran, Soliman said Egypt was “succeeding” in preventing Iran from funneling financial support to Hamas through Egypt. Soliman hoped that the U.S. could encourage Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions and stop interfering in regional affairs, but cautioned that Iran “must pay a price” for its actions. – (S/NF) Egypt is “very concerned” with stability in Sudan, Soliman said, and was focusing efforts on convincing the Chadean and Sudanese presidents to stop supporting each others’ insurgencies, supporting negotiations between factions in Darfur, and implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). “Egypt does not want a divided Sudan,” Soliman stressed. —- Gaza —- 2. (S/NF) Soliman said radicalism was the “backbone” of regional security threats, adding that radicalism in Gaza posed a particularly serious threat to Egyptian national security. Soliman said Egypt must “confront” Iranian attempts to smuggle arms to Gaza and stop arms smuggling through Egyptian territory. “Egypt is circled by radicalism,” he continued, expressing concern over instability in Sudan and Somalia as well. Egypt’s own successful campaign against radicalism in the 1990s provided a useful lesson in how to counteract extremist groups by reducing their ability to operate and raise funds, in additional to educating people on the dangers of extremism. Soliman noted that only the Muslim Brotherhood remained and the Egyptian government continued to “make it difficult” for them to operate. 3. (S/NF) “We do not want incidents like Gaza to inflame public anger,” Soliman said, adding that the Gaza conflict put “moderate (Arab) regimes” in a corner. To prevent another outbreak of violence, Egypt is focusing on Palestinian reconciliation and a durable cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. On reconciliation, Soliman explained, the ultimate goal was to return the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, as “Gaza in the hands of radicals will never be calm.” The problem, however, is that the PA cannot return to Gaza without Hamas’ acquiescence. Soliman said the PA must return before the January 2010 Palestinian elections, or else Gazans would be afraid to vote for moderates. 4. (S/NF) Stability in Gaza also depends on giving people a more “normal” life, Soliman continued, saying Israel must be convinced to regularly open the border crossings for legitimate commercial activity. The current system – where Egypt informs Israel of a humanitarian shipment and Israel waits two days before accepting or rejecting the shipment for transfer to Gaza – does not adequately meet people’s needs. 5. (S/NF) On Palestinian reconciliation, Soliman said he expected the factions to return to Egypt on April 26 to discuss his proposal on establishing a high committee comprised of the various factions. The committee would be responsible for preparing for the January 2010 elections, monitoring reconstruction, and reforming the security services in Gaza. On reconstruction, the committee would issue licenses for companies eligible to participate on projects, but the PA would decide who receives the money for private and government contracts. Arab governments would assist with reforming the security services and could base security assistance out of Egypt. Soliman doubted that Hamas would agree to the high committee, but said it was important CAIRO 00000746 002 OF 002 to keep Hamas and Fatah talking, so they would not resort to violence. ———————– Iran, Counter Smuggling ———————– 6. (S/NF) Iran is “very active in Egypt,” Soliman said. Iranian financial support to Hamas amounted to $25 million a month, but he said Egypt was “succeeding” in preventing financial support from entering Gaza through Egypt. Iran has tried several times to pay the salaries for the al-Qassam Battalions, but Egypt had succeeded in preventing the money from reaching Gaza. Soliman said the Egyptian government had arrested a “big Hezbollah cell,” which was Hezbollah’s first attempt to stand up a cell within Egypt. Iran was also trying to recruit support from the Sinai Bedouins, he claimed, in order to facilitate arms smuggling to Gaza. So far, he continued, Egypt had successfully stopped Hamas from rearming. Soliman noted that in six months, MOD will have completed the construction of a subterranean steel wall along the Egypt-Gaza border to prevent smuggling. He warned, however, that people will find an alternative to the tunnels to smuggle arms, goods, people, and money. Admiral Mullen expressed appreciation for Egypt’s efforts to combat smuggling, adding that he hoped Egypt felt comfortable enough to ask for additional border security assistance at any time. 7. (S/NF) Egypt has “started a confrontation with Hezbollah and Iran,” Soliman stressed, and “we will not allow Iran to operate in Egypt.” Soliman said Egypt had sent a clear message to Iran that if they interfere in Egypt, Egypt will interfere in Iran, adding that EGIS had already begun recruiting agents in Iraq and Syria. Soliman hoped the U.S. would “not walk the same track as the Europeans” in regards to negotiating with Iran and warned against only focusing on one issue at time, like Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran must “pay the price” for its actions and not be allowed to interfere in regional affairs. “If you want Egypt to cooperate with you on Iran, we will,” Soliman added, “it would take a big burden off our shoulders.” —– Sudan —– 8. (S/NF) Egypt is very concerned with stability in Sudan, Soliman said, but asked for the U.S. to be “patient” with the Sudanese government and give Egypt time to help the Sudanese government deal with its problems. He applauded the appointment of Special Envoy Gration and recent U.S. statements on Sudan. Soliman said Egypt was focused on three areas for promoting stability in Sudan: 1) repairing the relationship between Chadean President Deby and Sudanese President Bashir and stopping their support for each others’ insurgencies 2) supporting negotiations between the various factions in Darfur, and 3) implementing the CPA. Soliman encouraged a larger role for French President Sarkozy in mediating between Chad and Sudan. He said that Southern Sudan “feels no benefits from unity,” and Egypt is trying to bridge the “physiological gap” between north and south itself by providing humanitarian assistance. “Egypt does not want a divided Sudan,” he stressed. Admiral Mullen replied that Egypt’s leadership on Sudan was critical and looked forward to increased cooperation between Egypt and Special Envoy Gration. —————— Piracy and Somalia —————— 9. (S/NF) Admiral Mullen stressed that piracy was an international crime that needed an international solution, especially on support for trying captured pirates. The U.S. did not want Somalia to become the next safe haven for al-Qaeda after Pakistan, he stressed. Soliman replied that there were not enough ships in the region to provide adequate security against pirate attacks and recommended that the international community, through the UN Security Council, focus counter piracy efforts on the Somali shore. 10. (U) Admiral Mullen did not have the opportunity to clear before his departure. SCOBEY Egypt Iran The US embassy cables Middle East US foreign policy guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Utah has a state tree (the blue spruce), a state insect (the honey bee), and last week the Browning M1911 handgun came one step closer to becoming the official state firearm. On a one-time-only holiday honoring Utah gun-maker John Moses Browning, a bill that would designate the handgun as a state symbol was endorsed by a state House committee on the way to becoming Utah law. “It’s an implement of freedom that has defended America for 100 years,” bill sponsor Rep. Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman) said. “This firearm is Utah.” Some see the bill an insensitive considering a recent mass shooting in the neighboring state of Arizona that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in the hospital. “Semiautomatic pistols are the weapons of choice for those who are committing massacres,” Steven Gunn, a board member of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, told the committee. “Is this the time to adopt as a symbol of the state the same kind of weapon used to kill all these people?” Only two state representatives, Jennifer Seelig (D-Salt Lake City) and Marie Poulson (D-Cottonwood Heights), opposed the bill, which was approved 9-2. “I think a lot of people think this is a big waste of time,” Seelig told MSNBC Monday. “Particularly since we are facing some economic challenges in this state.” “If we want to honor an historical figure that’s great. Let’s do this another way than going through some official designation of a state symbol. A state symbol is supposed to be something that unifies the population in the state, and guns certainly are a divisive type of unit, and it’s polarizing,” she added. “We do not need that.” “The state bird, the beehive, they’re fun and engaging,” Rep. Carol Spackman Moss (D-Salt Lake City) told The Standard-Examiner . “Students will be coloring and drawing pictures and answering quizzes about guns and that seems inappropriate to me.” If Utah does adopt the handgun as a state symbol, the state will join the likes of the nation of Mozambique, which features an AK-47 on their official flag.
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What is the likelihood of the current unrest in Egypt spreading to other countries in the region? Ian Black looks at the evidence … Ian Black Paddy Allen Christine Oliver
Continue reading …Why do revolutions such as Tunisia’s come by surprise? | Richard Norton-Taylor
February 1, 2011 No Comment
Diplomats and intelligence agencies often tell ministers what they want to hear – and overvalue secret sources of information Reporting from Tunisia in 1997, I referred to claims by human rights groups that Ben Ali’s government in Tunisia was holding some 2,300 political prisoners. “How long,” I ventured to ask, “will the country remain a haven of stability?” The question was scornfully dismissed as the result of ignorance. Years earlier, similar scorn was directed at those, very few in Britain, who suggested the shah of Iran was about to be toppled from his Peacock Throne . The Foreign Office recently published an internal postmortem into why it utterly failed to predict the shah’s fall in the 1979 revolution. The report chastised the British embassy in Tehran, saying it “overstated the personal popularity of the shah” and “knew too little about the activities of Khomeini’s followers”. It described how the UK’s Ministry of Defence was engaged in a “helter skelter rush to sell as much [arms] as possible to Iran”. Tunisia, too, came as a surprise. Intelligence officers were always worried about Egypt, given that country’s pivotal position in the Middle East, desperately hoping that simmering anger at Mubarak’s rule would not spill over. Diplomats – and the intelligence agencies – don’t believe what they don’t want to. The occupational hazard of cognitive dissonance , to which military commanders also succumbed over Afghanistan, is implicated in evidence that Sir Gus O’Donnell, cabinet secretary and Britain’s most senior civil servant, has now given to the Chilcot inquiry into the invasion of Iraq . He disclosed that he is carrying out a review of Whitehall’s intelligence-gathering machinery, notably the role of the joint intelligence committee. The next chairs of what is known in the corridors of power as “the Jic” must avoid saying what they think ministers or government officials want to hear, said O’Donnell. “I don’t want them to repeat the mistakes of the past”. Secret intelligence services, naturally enough, want to emphasise secret intelligence – a product which only they, in their special and privileged role, can offer. As a result, they have seriously underestimated what can be gleaned from “open sources”. It was a fault brutally identified in the Franks report into the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in 1982. More accurate and timely information could be gleaned about the Argentinian junta’s intentions from local newspapers than from British secret agents in Latin America, it said. Britain’s diplomats and spooks who, in common with all western intelligence agencies, also spectacularly failed to foresee the fall of the Berlin wall, must in future pay much more attention to “open sources”, what they can hear on the Arab street, and what they can read, notably on the internet. “It is amazing”, said O’Donnell driving home the point, “what you can get through open sources with the right search engines”. The problem was how to get the right information. “The problem with the internet is there’s too much information”, the cabinet secretary told the Iraq inquiry. It is a luxury most people on the Arab street in the past have not been able to afford. They have been deprived both of information and the means of communicating it. Now they can use it. Governments, not only in the west, have been slow to recognise the importance for both their intelligence agencies and their citizens of these new – or not so new – weapons. Democratic forces are being unleashed, confronting the friends of the Arab world’s autocrats with a problem. It was spelled out by Sir John Sawers , chief of MI6 and former British ambassador to Egypt, last October. “Over time, moving to a more open system of government in these countries [what he called the Islamic world] one more responsive to people’s grievances, will help”, he said in the first speech in public by a serving head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service. He warned: “But if we demand an abrupt move to the pluralism that we in the west enjoy, we may undermine the controls that are now in place. Terrorists would end up with new opportunities”. Egypt was one country he had in mind. Egypt Middle East MI6 Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
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Q: Why is the Suez Canal important to the world economy? Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal allows ships travelling between the east and the west to avoid the long journey around the Cape of Good Hope, cutting routes by an average of 6,000 miles. Although the latest generation of huge supertankers cannot traverse the canal fully-laden, it remains one of the world’s most important waterways. Around 8% of global sea-borne trade passes through the canal. The SuMed pipeline runs close to the canal, connecting the Ain Sukhna terminal on the Gulf of Suez to Sidi Kerir on the coast of the Mediterranean, and is just as important as the canal. SuMed transports oil, partly from very large tankers that need to offload some of their cargo before they can fit into the canal. Q: How crucial is the canal to Egypt’s economy? Charges paid by ships travelling between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea are a key source of revenue, along with tourism, exports, and taxes on the earnings of expatriate workers. Total earnings from the canal were almost $4.8bn (£3bn) in 2010, up 11% as the global economy recovered. Egypt has owned the canal since 1956, when Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company – prompting the Suez Crisis. Q: How much oil travels through Suez? Around 2.4m barrels of oil are shipped through the canal each day while the SuMed pipeline carries 2.5m a day. That’s around 5.5% of world output, according to the latest official forecasts.. Q: Has the canal been affected by the protests against President Mubarak? Not yet. Egyptian officials have repeatedly insisted that the canal and SuMed both remain open. Extra armed troops have been deployed along the length of SuMed – more than doubling the number of sentry points to 30. There are currently 65 ships passing through the canal, up from 40 yesterday. Oil tankers typically make up around 10% of traffic. Q: So why did the oil price break though $100 yesterday ? Because oil traders are very nervous that the protests are going to spread beyond Egypt and across the Arabian peninsula – and probably won’t be reassured by the dismissal of the Jordanian government today. Oil prices have been rising for the last couple of months, as the economic recovery pushes up demand and eats into spare capacity. The oil price is also notoriously susceptible to geopolitical uncertainty. Q: But could shipping through the canal be hurt by the crisis? Several analysts believe some level of disruption cannot be ruled out. Risk analysis firm Maplecroft suggested today that “concerns persist that the canal may come under attack by militants or even demonstrators”. Barclays Capital, which does not believe the canal itself is under immediate threat, suggested that “some individual ships docked in port might be at risk of attack if the situation deteriorates further”. There have been local reports of major disruption at the ports of Alexandria and Damietta today, due to widespread staff shortages – this could potentially be mirrored in Suez, which has already been the scene of protests against Mubarak . Workers in the area have complained that their wages are unfairly low, compared with the value of the goods transported through the canal. Reuters also reported yesterday that some ships have been unable to get navy escorts to protect them from pirates, leading to delays. Q: What would happen if the canal closed? Sailing around Africa would add around two weeks to journey times, which could lead to some short-term supply issues – and potentially nudge up prices. A long-term closure would have major implications for the world economy. The canal was shut between 1967 and 1975 following the Arab-Israeli War, which left Egyptian troops on one side of the waterway and Israel’s forces on the other. World trade declined steadily through most of this period , according to research by James Feyrer, Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. Barclays Capital has also analysed the impact of the eight-year closure, and discovered that Asian countries suffered the most. “Much of the exports earmarked for Asia found their way into western European markets, which in turn were attempting to cope with both the obstruction to oil transport from the Middle East and a brief Arab oil embargo … The overall impact of the total eight-year closure was largely negative. Deliveries to Asia, in particular, suffered the most.” Analysts point out that the eight-year closure prompted shipmakers to build larger oil tankers, as they were not constricted by having to fit into the 24 metre-deep, 205 metre-wide canal. Oil Egypt Commodities Middle East Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Assange on 60 Minutes: ‘We Have All These Banks Squirming, Thinking Maybe It’s Them’
February 1, 2011 No CommentIn this 60 Minutes interview, Steve Kroft was no Stephen Colbert. (The Business Insider said, “Steve Kroft came across like a severe scolding parent, who needs help programming the VCR.”) Julian Assange came across as the knowledgeable one : Kroft: One bank, Bank of America, had its stock go down three to five percent based on a rumor, maybe it’s a rumor, maybe you know more about it, that you had the contents of a five gigabyte hard drive belonging to one of its executives. Do you have a five gigabyte hard drive? Assange: I won’t make any comment in relation to that upcoming publication. Kroft: You’re certainly not denying it. Assange: You know, there’ll be a process of elimination if we denied some and admitted others. Kroft: So it might not be Bank of America and you’re just gonna let them squirm until you get ready to… Assange: I think it’s great. We have all these banks squirming, thinking maybe it’s them. Kroft: You seem to enjoy stirring things up. Assange: When you see abusive organizations suffer the consequences as a result of their abuse, and you see victims elevated, it’s, yes, that’s a very pleasurable activity to be involved in. Kroft: I mean you see yourself as a check on the power of the United States and other big countries in the world. And in the process of doing that, you have now become powerful yourself. Who is the check on you? Assange: It is our sources who choose to provide us with information or not, depending on how they see our actions. It is our donors who choose to give us money or not. This organization cannot survive for even a few months without the ongoing support of the public.
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