It’s unbelievable what Rosa al-Youssef is doing these days. The daily paper, which is regarded as close to Gamal Mubarak’s NDP Policies’ Secretariat, is launching a crusade against journalist/blogger and friend Wael Abbas for helping to expose the downtown Cairo molestation fiesta during Eid.
The horrific incidents went unreported by the local media, except for Al-Masry [...]

Bloody clashes have been going on for the third day on the row at Ain Shams University campus in Abbassiya, as student union elections approach.
Pro-government students assaulted Muslim Brotherhood activists at the Faculty of Education at Ain Shams University, and tore down their electoral posters. The MB mobilized demos to denounce the attacks, but they [...]

The Center for Socialist Studies will hold a seminar on Discrimination against Copts in Egypt, Friday 3 November.
The First Session, 1pm to 2:30 pm: The Roots of the Problem
The session will try to situate the historical roles of the parties involved, the Egyptian state, Coptic Church, and the Coptic masses, within the socio-economic and [...]

Police kidnapped Mohamed Hassan, an activist with Workers For Change, an hour ago in front of the General Federation of Trade Unions HQ in Cairo. Hassan was distributing leaflets denouncing the security intervention in the labor unions electoral process, and warning of serious vote rigging to come. Security personnel nabbed him, and took him to [...]

Workers For Change are holding a meeting at the Center for Socialist Studies, tomorrow Friday 6pm, on how to resist vote rigging in the coming Labor Unions elections.
The Center is located 7 Mourad Street, Giza.

Hassan Abdallah, the coordinator of Sinai’s Youth For Change, has been released few hours ago and is on his way home to Al-Arish, according to Kefaya’s website.
Hassan was detained by State Security in Arish on 7 September, then transferred to Bourg el-Arab prison in Alexandria, with no access to lawyers or family visits. His two [...]

Socialist activist Sameh Naguib’s booklet on the Muslim Brothers is available now online, in a pdf format, here.

The booklet is in Arabic, and provides a Marxist analysis of Egypt’s largest Islamist opposition group, and outlines the Socialist strategy vis a vis it.
A must read… الإخوان المسلمون: رؤية اشتراكية… تأليف سامح نجيب

I’m away from the computer for sometime because of IT problems and work commitments. Happy Eid to all of you…
When you get the time please check out the following feature I co-authored with Al-Masry Al-Youm’s Ali Zalat, on the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans to produce a movie about its founder, Hassan el-Banna.
Hassan el-Banna Super Star?
The feature [...]

The New York Times, which, despite its manifold faults, has at least remained reasonably critical of the trough-feeding manner in which the Iraqi “reconstruction” business has been funded, is retailing a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Construction that criticizes contractors for spending too much on “overhead.”
There seem to have been a bunch [...]

Take a look at this fine speech by retired US Ambassador Chas Freeman about public diplomacy and, well, everything else: Why Not Let Them Hate Us, as long as They Fear Us?
It seems like every day, a new angry retired foreign service or military officer comes out of the woodwork. I know from personal experience [...]

I don’t believe a coup in Iraq will happen, but it’s interesting that this is being reported — it suggests that there are feelers out there at the very least. (Sorry, no link.)
Oct 23, 2006- United Press International: Coup against Maliki reported in the making
Iraqi army officers are reportedly planning to stage a military coup [...]

According to Rick Santorum, anyway:
In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five [...]

Since I attacked Human Rights Watch on this site for what I still maintain was a biased (in favor of Israel) coverage of the first two weeks (at least) of this summer’s Lebanon war, it seems fair to me to bring attention for the virulent attack against HRW and its head, Kenneth Roth, by the [...]

Credit where credit is due: the generally anti-Arab, uber-neocon New York Sun does a decent job of keeping track of Arab opposition movements and their interaction with Washington. Here it writes about a Syrian opposition group — a rather loose group that includes Islamists — that is about to open a formal Washington office:
The National [...]

An interesting article about Islam, the Quran, and wife-beating. The author tackles the kind of issue that is fundamentally difficult when talking about “liberal interpretation” of Islam: if it’s written pretty unambiguously in the Quran, it’s difficult to justify change. What these interpretations miss out however is that just because something is written in the [...]

I completely agree with Abu Aardvark’s analysis of the Fernandez controversy (the State Dept. spokesman who said that the US had on occasion been stupid and arrogant in the region on Al Jazeera):
The State Department, and especially Karen Hughes, must back Alberto Fernandez to the hilt in this StupidStorm. If he’s fired, or transfered to [...]

So here we are in Antwerp, where it seems that the friendly face of the diamond trade is now a Russian with watermelon forearms and eyes like a three-day-dead fish. Passed on the diamond-rimed .357 pendant and hit the Koninklijk Museum for a bit of high-culture in low-land light.
An hour of perusing paintings of martyrdom [...]

Very interesting article in Al Ahram Weekly on Sunni-Shia relations in Egypt, looking at converts to Shiism and the mostly mundane reason they switch.

A few days ago, Muslim Brothers celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hassan al-Banna, their movement’s founder. Among the things planned to mark this event is a new film biopic of al-Banna’s life:
Muhsin Radi says too little is known about Hasan Al-Banna, the founder of a movement which would become Egypt’s strongest opposition [...]

The following is a translation of a message by Tunisian rights activist Moncef Marzouki, sent to me by my friend (exiled Tunisian activist) Kamel Labidi:
Communiqué
On 14 October, I appeared on Al Jazeera to discuss the situation of complete deadlock in which Tunisia has been for years, under the ruthless grip of an ever-worsening police state. [...]