Interim government’s committee of experts proposes eight changes to constitution Egypt’s ruling generals have unveiled a package of far-reaching constitutional reforms, following mounting criticism of the way in which the military is handling the country’s post-Mubarak transition period. A committee of legal experts appointed by the interim government has proposed changes to eight articles of the Egyptian constitution, which will be put to a national referendum next month. The amendments would create new term limits on the presidency, make it easier for Egyptians to run for president, ensure stronger judicial oversight of elections, and restrict the government’s power to maintain emergency laws – all ahead of a general election expected later this year. Committee member Sobhi Saleh, a lawyer who has previously represented the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement in parliament, described the amendments as a historic achievement. “I am very satisfied,” he said. The announcement comes at a critical time for the armed forces, following violent street clashes between soldiers and pro-change demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Peaceful protests calling for the resignation of interim prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, who was a cabinet member under Mubarak and is closely associated with the old regime, were met with a brutal response by military police who used stun guns and batons to attack those rallying in the capital. Senior generals later offered a semi-apology for the assault, insisting that the aggression was “unintentional”, but that has done little to reassure protesters, some of whom are now comparing the military to Mubarak’s much-hated central security forces. “The army and the police are one,” claimed one activist , deliberately inverting a popular protest chant during the anti-Mubarak uprising that declared “the army and the people are one”. The military remains a popular institution in Egypt for its role in defending the nation during wars in 1956 and 1973, and bound emotionally to many families through a policy of national conscription. Yet with an emerging body of evidence suggesting that the army has been complicit in torture and other human rights abuses during the past month’s unrest, plus the supreme military council’s growing intolerance of strikes and apparent unwillingness to confront lasting remnants of the Mubarak regime, many of those who initially welcomed the generals’ takeover following Mubarak’s downfall are now having second thoughts. “I’m not sure how long the Egyptian public can maintain the bizarre idea that the army is so great,” said Issandr El Amrani , a political analyst and blogger based in Egypt. “This is the army that took power in a coup in 1952 and ended political pluralism, lost tons of wars after that and continued to justify its predation on the national budget despite not having had to fight anyone since 1973.” The process of amending the constitution has been criticised by many of the pro-change protesters who helped end Mubarak’s three-decade rule and who wish to see a new constitution written from scratch. Such a move has been resisted so far by the armed forces, but in an attempt to appease its critics, the supreme military council has said that parliament will be formally mandated to draft a completely new constitution following the next election. “What is needed now is to scrap the existing constitution, not to amend it,” said Bahieddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, who has warned that Egypt is in danger of falling prey to “neo-Mubarakism”. “No amendments, however extensive, would be enough to salvage it because the philosophy and spirit of the constitution are diametrically opposed to democratic values and human rights. The present constitution can only encourage despotism.” Amrani agrees: “Although the amendments may signal some great improvements … it will also deliver the interim military government a clear public mandate. You can expect millions of Egyptians voting overwhelmingly in favour of the amended constitution, delivering a clear sign of public support for the transition model chosen by the military. It will then be difficult for opposition groups to challenge the army, which can point to this popular mandate as the source of its legitimacy.” Egypt Middle East Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media (h/t David at VideoCafe) Whew! I was a little worried after T-Paw said that a government shutdown for a month or so would be just the lesson we uppity Americans needed to take seriously the austerity measures they want to force on us that we would see a growing chorus of Republicans calling for the shutdown. But Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is deviating slightly from the Republican script to assure Jake Tapper that she doesn’t want a government shutdown. After all, the government is a “necessary evil”, isn’t it? Facing an oncoming federal government budget crisis, Republican governors Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Jan Brewer of Arizona both agreed that a government shutdown would not be productive for the country. “I think government is a necessary evil,” Brewer said. “But it’s necessary to provide services, and they should be able to come to some solution. We need to trim the budget and move on.” “We appreciate our public employees but our job as governor is to look after our taxpayers,” Haley added. I wonder, who exactly do the governors think are the taxpayers? Corporations? Not hardly . The wealthy? No, not so much . No, you nimrods, the taxpayers ARE the teachers, the firefighters, the cops, and the other public employees whose jobs you want the right to cut without union protections. Nevertheless, it’s quite a change for Brewer to go from claiming her position was divinely mandated to saying that government is a necessary evil. Is she saying God put her in charge of evil? I’d guess there’s an argument to be made for that . Like all states, Arizona is facing hard financial times, but this is a question of priorities. While Courtney’s life is on the line, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses into law last week — cuts that will cost Arizona $538 million by 2018. Yet the governor has dragged her feet in offering the mere $1.36 million needed to save Courtney and her cohort’s lives, and she has consistently ignored 26 possible funding solutions from a member of her own party. For Brewer, the fact that Courtney’s plight is forced to take a backseat to business tax cuts is “ sad but necessary .” Brewer as a death panel? Evil, yes, but necessary, I don’t think so.
Continue reading …NPR Insists Buffalo Wife’s Beheading by Muslim Outreach TV Founder Has No Islamic Overtones
February 27, 2011 No Comment
Almost the entire media skipped this chilling honor-killing verdict from Arizona on Tuesday, from Reuters : “An Arizona jury on Tuesday found an Iraqi immigrant guilty of second-degree murder for running down his daughter with a Jeep because she had become too Westernized.” Faleh Almaleki killed his daughter Noor in October 2009 because she spurned his arranged marriage and was living with her boyfriend. Apparently, to report this is to be “Islamophobic.” NPR skipped Almaleki, but they noted the verdict in another horrific killing on Monday night's All Things Considered: Aasiya Hassan was beheaded by her husband Mozzamil in 2009 as the two headed a Buffalo television project designed to create better understanding about Muslims. NPR reporter Dina Temple-Raston's objective was to deny this crime was about Islam. Instead, she said, it was simply about domestic violence. NPR anchor Robert Siegel tried to explain that “at the time, the media seized on the murder as an honor killing. That's a killing allowed in some Muslim societies when shame has been brought on a family. But NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports from Buffalo, the Hassan case is really about domestic violence and it forced an entire community to reckon with stereotypes.” “The media” didn't exactly seize on Aasiya Hassan. But Glenn Beck did, and some local news outlets. Temple-Raston was insisting Beck and Company were all wrong, that they were purveying negative stereotypes. She went directly to Dr. Khalid Qazi for her thesis, a man she said “looks like Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'” She did not explain he was a head of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a professional spin controller on these issues, or that Dr. Qazi recently welcomed Ground Zero Mosque imam Faisal Abdul-Rauf to Buffalo: Dr. QAZI: Nobody in the community can get their arms around that notion that he would not only kill her, he would stab her 40, 50 and perhaps 60 times and then decapitate her. There's absolutely no stomach for that. TEMPLE-RASTON: Because she was Muslim, because of the way she was killed, and because Aasiya Hassan had filed for divorce just days before the murder, the media assumed that the killing was sanctioned by Islam. Unidentified Woman Anchor: A brutal crime in Buffalo, New York. A Pakistani-born man is accused of beheading his wife, and there's speculation it may be a so-called honor killing. Mr. GLENN BECK (Host, “The Glenn Beck Program”): All right. This guy started a Muslim-American cable TV network to challenge stereotypes about his faith. You know, apparently, we're just too stupid. We just all think that all Muslims are bad. TEMPLE-RASTON: That was Glenn Beck talking about the case. In fact, the Muslim community was being stereotyped. Dr. Qazi said news of the murder was everywhere. Dr. QAZI: So there is this constant reminder of this monster who we all tried to project and help to establish a lifestyle television channel to show who we are and what we stand for and then we get this. TEMPLE-RASTON: Buffalo's Muslim community had already had its share of these kinds of stories. There were suspicions after the 911 attacks. And then, to make matters worse, a year after 911, six young Muslims from the Lackawanna community, just outside of Buffalo, were arrested and pleaded guilty to training at an al-Qaeda camp. Against that backdrop, stereotyping was easy. This had to be an honor killing, except it wasn't. The idea that Mo Hassan's murder was “everywhere” is simply untrue. As I noted at the time , the national media (including for a while, NPR) were certainly not picking up the story, despite the enormous news hook of “Muslim-understanding czar beheads wife.” The outlets that did report it predictably downplayed the Muslim angle. But pay attention to that part about the Lackawanna Six. Temple-Raston wrote an entire book on those terrorists in training called The Jihad Next Door. At Amazon, the Booklist review crackles with how this NPR reporter exposes the dark age of Bush: As she sensitively portrays each of the five men currently behind bars, she reveals their dire na
Continue reading …Gadhafi’s Son: It’s Just A Big Misunderstanding, No Attacks On Civilians
February 27, 2011 No Comment
In an interview with “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi and one of his chief advisers, insisted Libya was calm, the military has not attacked any civilians and reports of Libyan diplomats abandoning their posts were simply a ‘miscommunication. : There was a “big, big gap between reality and the media reports,” Gadhafi told Amanpour. “The whole south is calm. The west is calm. The middle is calm. Even part of the east.” In response to President Barack Obama’s call for Moammar Gadhafi to step down and the UN Security Council’s unanimous vote to impose an arms embargo on Libya and urge nations to freeze Libyan assets, Gadhafi’s son was defiant. “Listen, nobody is leaving this country. We live here, we die here,” he insisted. “This is our country. The Libyans are our people. And for myself, I believe I am doing the right thing.” “The President of the U.S. has called on your father to step down. How do you feel about that?” Amanpour asked. “It’s not an American business, that’s number one,” said Gadhafi, who was dressed casually as he spoke with Amanpour. “Second, do they think this is a solution? Of course not.” “[Obama] says if a person can only keep control by using force, then legitimacy is gone,” Amanpour pressed. Gadhafi responded, “Right, but what happened? We didn’t use force. Second, we still have people around us.” Amanpour noted the extensive reports of attacks on Libyan civilians in recent weeks.”Show me a single attack, show me a single bomb,” he told her. “The Libyan air force destroyed just the ammunition sites. That’s it.” “Show me a single attack”? Okay, since you asked: Amanpour also sat down with Gadhafi other son, Saadi, in Tripoli. A professional soccer player who is less involved with politics than his brtoher, Saadi Gadhafi still had an ominous warning about what would happen if his father were to step down.”If he were to leave today, there would be war,” he said. “Civil war in Libya.” He also described the massive protests in his country spreading like a “fever.””It’s going to spread everywhere. No one can stop it,” he said. “That is my personal opinion, and the chaos will be everywhere…they think it’s about freedom. I love freedom. You love freedom, but it’s powerful, this earthquake. No one can control it.” Regarding the UN vote calling for the freezing of Libyan assets, Saif Gadhafi said, “First of all, we don’t have money outside. We are a very modest family and everybody knows that. And we are laughing when they say you have money in Europe or Switzerland or something. C’mon, it’s a joke.” Translation: No, my $15 million mansion in London doesn’t count! Neither do those kickbacks . Hey, that’s just the cost of doing business! Amanpour asked Gadhafi about the Libyan diplomats who have resigned from their posts in DC, New York and elsewhere. “You know, we are the victims of miscommunication,” he said. “And they were under the influence of a strong media campaign, well-organized. So, you know, they are human beings at the end.” “But they’ve defected,” Amanpour noted. “Not defected, none of them defect. They were so moved because they–” Amanpour interrupted. “But they are calling on your father to step down,” she said. “C’mon, they are employees working for the government,” Gadhafi said. “It’s not their business.” Until civil unrest in Libya exploded over the few last weeks, Gadhafi, the second oldest of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s children, had been seen as the western face of the regime. Educated at the London School of Economics, he promoted Libya’s potential, telling The New York Times in February 2010 that Libya “can be the Dubai of North Africa.” Now one year later, he is defending his father’s regime. Amanpour asked, what about all those western-oriented reforms he tried to implement? “I worked very hard to implement many ideas, but things went wrong,” he said. “So now we are [in] a difficult situation,” Gadhafi added.
Continue reading …Thousands Crowd The Wisconsin State Capitol As Walker Tries To Close Building
February 27, 2011 No CommentLive Streaming by Ustream.TV Democracy at work, people. And it’s scaring the pants off of the oligarchy. From a press release sent via email: Continuing His Power Grab, Walker to Expel Wisconsinites from State Capitol Hundreds To Risk Peaceful Arrest to Defend Rights MADISON— Continuing his unprecedented power grab Governor Walker ordered the State Capitol cleared on Sunday, closing the building to Wisconsinites protesting his plan to gut civil rights for tens of thousands of Wisconsin’s citizens. Dozens of ministers, rabbis, and priests joined workers and students from across the state, risking arrest to protest the closing of the State Capitol to the public. “First Governor Walker tried to take away workers’ rights, now he is trying to take away our Constitutional right as Americans to peacefully assemble,” said Steelworker Roy Vandenberg. “I have a message for Governor Walker, your plan to silence us won’t work. We are not going away, and we will not be silenced.” “This is a critical moment for Wisconsin and for so many states,” said Rev. Leah Lonsbury of Memorial United Church of Christ. “Clearly, this is about far more than a budget. It’s a moral issue, and the rights at stake here are so basic to our common good and our common humanity, to the very idea of justice, that we are willing to risk arrest to protect them and have our voices be heard. Our faith calls us to stand with the vulnerable and speak truth to power. This is what we are called to do.” Wisconsinites from all walks of life—nurses, firefighters, snowplow drivers, police officers, students, teachers, and others—have been in the State Capitol building for 14 days. During that time, they set up an elaborate community called “Capitol City” to keep the capitol building clean, protesters safe and fed, and most importantly to keep up pressure on Governor Walker to come to the table and open up a dialogue to get Wisconsin moving forward again. “Law enforcement working at the Capitol has been impressed with how peaceful and courteous everyone has been,” said Wisconsin Professional Police Association Executive Director Jim Palmer. “As has been reported in the media, the protesters are cleaning up after themselves and have not caused any problems. The fact of that matter is that Wisconsin’s law enforcement community opposes Governor Walker’s effort to eliminate collective bargaining in this state, and we implore him to not do anything to increase the risk to officers or the public. Security cannot come at the cost of conflict.” “The police have been our allies throughout this struggle and we commend them for their professionalism and for joining us on the line during this crisis. Scott Walker hoped to drive a wedge between Wisconsin’s workers and the police. He failed,” said Peter Rickman, a student at University of Wisconsin, Madison. FDL is tracking tweets and other social media reports as the police are supposed to shut down the Capitol.
Continue reading …World Social Forum is so much more than Evo Morales | David Evan Harris
February 27, 2011 No Comment
Bolivia’s president grabbed the headlines, but the forum is a space outside formal politics with the power to change the world Bolivia’s Evo Morales, the indigenous-movement leader turned president, gave the opening speech at this year’s World Social Forum in Dakar, telling tens of thousands of activists from around the world : “I hope that the World Social Forum will be a school for future presidents: only people organised in movements can change the world!” The catch? Despite his encouraging words, some dyed-in-the-wool forum-goers were unhappy at his participation, citing the forum’s charter of principles , dating back to 2001, that forbids government representatives speaking at official events. With grassroots social movements having overthrown two dictators in the past two months, might now be a moment for these movements to start trying to put their own leaders into positions such as Morales’s? After all, what better way to change society than to take power? From Dakar to Cairo to Tunis to Washington, it is critically important that civil society groups make their mark on society more than just a few times a decade. As any resident of a democratic country knows, if you disagree with your government on a daily basis, heading to the voting booth once every few years can be a deeply disheartening and disempowering experience. And therein lies the real power of the World Social Forum. This was my fourth year in attendance. The forum functions as an ongoing platform for world-changers to exchange ideas face to face, to build international solidarity and to learn from victories and defeats on other sides of the planet. With more than 50,000 people from 123 countries and 1,200 different events, nearly every topic imaginable was on the table this year. One of my most interesting conversations was with the Egyptian activist and entrepreneur, Mamdouh Habashi . Having participated in eight World Social Forums, Habashi left his home in Cairo in the middle of last week’s upheaval to come to Dakar. He told stories of the revolution-in-the-making to eager listeners from India, France, Germany and the US, and related them to the broader movements of the left, both in Egypt and abroad. I asked him if Egypt’s revolution today is really as inwardly focused as some US media sources would have us believe, and he said no. Outcries about the collaboration of Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman with the US made up the first protest chant that Habashi heard on the street when Suleiman was announced as vice-president. Land grabbing was another hot topic at this year’s forum. Land rights activists, many themselves farmers, drew attention to the horrors of the global land-grab currently under way. They argued forcefully that small farmers having access to their own land is essential to combating poverty and to preserving the environment in the global south. Another fascinating and visible group at the forum was Attac (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens). Its core platform is the taxing of all international financial transactions by a tiny percentage for a global aid fund to combat poverty. Founded in France, it was one of the groups that started the World Social Forum, along with the Brazilian Workers party and Le Monde diplomatique. Even as an American from San Francisco, a city known for its open-mindedness and leftwing politics (we’re less than 10% Republican), one of the things I like most about the World Social Forum is that it shows that the “left” is so much more than a ghettoised island of choir-preaching radicals. It is a wide open space that political parties and electoral politics don’t often allow for. With only two major parties in the US, the room for creative thinking is even more constricted than elsewhere. Though Morales attracted the headlines, I stand behind the World Social Forum’s charter: the gathering must provide a space outside formal politics where progressive activists can hold their own conversations and build a vocal civil society capable of making changes that go far beyond the toppling of dictators. World Social Forum Evo Morales Bolivia Egypt Arab and Middle East protests Land rights David Evan Harris guardian.co.uk
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Photo: paparutzi Breastfeeding is easier on the planet because formula takes energy to produce, transport, and it wastes space in landfills. Not to mention that breastfeeding is the most natural means of giving your baby the best possible start. Michelle Obama even promoted breastfeeding as a means of reducing childhood obes… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Click here to view this media Anyone else going to be shocked if this is not caused by the massive amount of oil and dispersants these poor animals have been exposed to? There has been almost a media blackout in any coverage of what’s going on in the Gulf nationally. More Dead Dolphin Babies Found along Gulf Coast : NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the number of dead dolphins found since Jan. 1 in the area affected by last year’s oil spill is now 67, with 35 of them premature or newborn calves. NOAA regional spokeswoman Kim Amendola says five dead calves were reported Friday in Mississippi or Alabama. Scientists are looking into whether any unusual deaths in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill area may be related to toxins from oil or dispersants. However, they’re also investigating whether it could be related to the cold weather or a disease.
Continue reading …Chris Matthews Asks Who’s More Likely To Win In A Government Shutdown, But Are They Thinking About Who’s Going To Lose?
February 27, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media (h/t Heather at VideoCafe) It must be so nice to live in the rarified, privileged airs inside the Beltway, where you are untouched by those little things like unemployment, dependence on government assistance, Social Security, the Veteran’s Administration or anything else. Because as a member of the Villager Cocktail Circuit, it’s possible to talk about the possible government shutdown not as the impact it will have on very real people, but as who wins the political propaganda spin wars. Chris Matthews questions whether the four letter word to appeal to voters is “cuts” rather than “jobs”. In a word, Tweety: no. In a country where some states have double digit unemployment, the last thing voters want is to have those social safety nets cut. And the sad thing is that they are always the budget items on the chopping block. I suspect voters would be much, much happier if the cuts considered were to the bloated defense budget or even *gasp* to tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. As Jon Perr points out, all these state budget cuts (the “winning” meme, according to the panel) do is endanger the economy even more : As all eyes remained focused on the union-busting face-off in Wisconsin, the Commerce Department on Friday released a revised estimate of U.S. economic growth for the last quarter of 2010. And that downward GDP revision not only shatters prevailing myths about supposedly bloated government spending and payrolls. The numbers confirm once again that budget cutters in states and cities across the country are indeed the ” anti-stimulus ” putting the pace of American economic recovery at risk. This week, the government restated its estimate of Q4 growth, lowering its forecast from 3.2% to 2.8%. The disappointing news from the Bureau of Economic Analysis can be attributed in large part to the very bad news from state and local governments. As the AP explained : Deeper spending cuts by state and local governments slowed U.S. economic growth in the final three months of last year. The government’s revised estimate for the October-December quarter illustrates how growing state budget crises could hold back the economic recovery… State and local governments, wrestling with budget shortfalls, cut spending at a 2.4 percent pace. That was much deeper than the 0.9 percent annualized cut first estimated and was the most since the start of 2010… The government revised fourth-quarter growth to reflect a steeper contraction in government spending than previously estimated. Government spending declined at a 1.5 percent rate rather than 0.6 percent, due to weak state and local government outlays. As the National Governors Association meets this weekend, “the financial emergencies — and what to do about them — will be issue No. 1.” Even with state and local tax revenues finally on the upswing, the worst may still be to come. What sickens me is the guileless way all of the panel act as if these Republican governors are saying what they mean. We need only listen to the Walker/”Koch” call to know that this union busting has NOTHING to do with “saving” the middle class. Hell, these public unions ARE the middle class: teachers, bus drivers, cops, firefighters. So where are these Americans getting the idea that they should support the Republican governors (that’s assuming that many do–the arguable “fact” implying that tea baggers are a greater percentage of the population that they are)? Because the media (I’m looking at you, panel) never, EVER connects the dots and points out the real world implications of the governors’ actions: How it will INCREASE unemployment and dependence of government services, how it will kill the middle class, how it will drive income ever upwards to the elite (who donate their money to which party?). No, the media will never talk about the real reason that the governors want to bust unions: so that there will be no entity that could possibly vie with conservative astroturf groups on the donation level, thus ensuring a permanent Republican majority . Let’s be clear: if the Republicans are successful in busting the unions, the only winners will be the uber-wealthy. The 99.99% of the rest of the country (literally) will all lose.
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• UN imposes sanctions on Gaddafi regime • Britain urges Libyan leader to step down • Libya mounts PR campaign to show all’s well • Interim government forms in Benghazi 11.06am: The Libyan regime is doing its best to show that it retains some semblance of control in the Tripoli area at least, so it has flown in a number of international journalists into the country, including the Observer’s Peter Beaumont. I spoke to him a few moments ago as he is being taken to a town 30 kilometres from Tripoli where the opposition is said to control. We arrived last night to chaotic scenes at the airport, there’s a lot of people trying to flee, people sleeping on rugs outside. In fact at the hotel most of the staff have fled and that goes for some of the other big hotels… We’re here at the invitation of the Libyan government to show that Tripoli is safe and not as bad as reported. The traffic is moving freely and it is relatively calm, but there are queues for food and there are queues for banks… 10.42am: Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live blog of the thirteenth day of turmoil in Libya where, Muammar Gaddafi’s regime is clinging on despite international condemnation at the UN and moves to form an interim government in the east. Here are the main developments overnight and so far this morning. Foreign Office revokes diplomatic immunity of Gaddafi and his family, as Foreign Secretary William Hague urges the Libyan leader to step down. . More than 150 workers rescued from the Libyan desert as two RAF Hercules aircraft – backed by the SAS – pulled off a high-risk evacuation of British and other citizens. Some 200 to 380 Britons remain. The UN Security Council last night voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Libya. It has imposed an arms embargo and asset freeze while referring Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity. The Gaddafi is showing western journalists round the Tripoli area as it tries to portray to the world that it is still in control of at least the capital. Arab and Middle East protests Libya Bahrain Yemen Egypt Tunisia United Nations Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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