Click on the pic below…

I really wish that they didn’t bother with that ridiculous trial and just killed him when they found him, as they did with Uday and Qusay Hussein. And so much for those people who predicted an endless appeal process.
I do regret, however, that more information was not obtained out of Saddam Hussein. About his life, [...]

A State Security Major told me this evening that sometimes these demonstrations get violent, which explains why the park in front of Mustafa Mahmoud mosque had to be sealed off with three truckloads of riot police and a couple of gangs of stick toting beltagaya tonight. “The Muslim Brotherhood sometimes comes,” he told me and [...]

Click on the picture below (of Police Captain Islam Nabih, who tortured and sexually abused driver Emad Kabeer) to read the latest updates on the case…

Nasty weather for demonstrating tonight, but around seven o’clock this evening there were half a dozen Ayman Nour supporters stamping their feet and yelling nasty things about State Security in Midan Talat Harb. Three trucks full of soldiers watched from the other side of the street and the usual array of nice young men in [...]

Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Mustafa has a blog. He likes Syrian contemporary painters — who are quite good. I hope he puts up some recipes, Syrian food is tasty.
(via Aqoul)

“JERUSALEM - Israel has approved a new settlement in the West Bank to house former Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, officials said Tuesday, breaking a promise to the U.S. to halt home construction in the Palestinian territories.”

Great news! The officer who tortured and sexually abused driver Emad Kabeer will be prosecuted.
But that will not end the practice. Those are not just “few rotten apples.” Mubarak’s policing system is classist, abusive, unprofessional and repressive. Still the campaign launched by the Egyptian bloggers and the independent press was strong enough to push the [...]

“My Name is Rachel Corrie” has been cancelled in Canada. No surprises as to why:
Jack Rose, from the CanStage board — while admitting he has neither read nor seen the script — said that “my view was it would provoke a negative reaction in the Jewish community.”
And philanthropist Bluma Appel, after whom CanStage’s flagship theater [...]

The economic side of Lebanon’s current crisis is examined at the Nation:
But in most conversations with people at the sit-in and protests, economic concerns quickly emerge: Siniora’s government is corrupt, has failed to reduce Lebanon’s crippling $41 billion public debt and has done little to improve people’s lives. Shiites are especially forgotten in the country’s [...]

Frequent Arabist reader Andrew Exum has penned an interesting report for WINEP on Hizbullah’s military tactics and strategy in this summer’s war. Andrew eschews the politics of the war to focus on Hizbullah’s surprising military prowess, bringing the perspective of his experience with the US Special Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most military accounts of [...]

Sheikh Muhammad’s vision: can it possibly get more ridiculous and megalomaniacal?

Lucky, lucky reporter who filed this:
CAIRO (AFP) - An Egyptian sniffer dog charged with ensuring the security of an EgyptAir flight from Cairo to New York has answered a call of nature that cost the airline an estimated 10,000 dollars.
The flight had to be delayed for more than an hour when the unnamed animal did [...]

It’s not often I completely agree with a Washington Post editorial. The situation in Pakistan is ridiculous and it should be considered a strategic failure on the part of the Bush administration on a par with the Iraq war.

Also, via Kafr al-Hanadwa, Tariq Ali has a LRB piece on Musharraf.

Saree Makdisi on why Jimmy Carter is right to call Israel an apartheid state.

I don’t have time to comment but to say wow:
A secret meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora took place in Egypt last October, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported.
The report quoted a “well-informed Arab source” who spoke about the meeting, which was said to take place during the [...]

Activists are holding a candle light vigil, Friday 29 December, 6pm, in front of the UNHCR office in Mohandessin, to mark the first the anniversary of the massacre of Sudanese refugees on the hands of the Egyptian Interior Ministry’s Central Security Forces.

Blogger Nora Younis witnessed the atrocity last year, and wrote her testimony here…

Nothing makes me happier than this kind of news:
TACOMA, Washington: A couple in the U.S. state of Washington has been sentenced to home confinement for forcing their immigrant niece to work long hours in their home and at the family espresso stand, and they also must pay her US$65,000 (about €50,000) for her labor.
Abdenasser “Sammy” [...]

This is the speech I mentioned a couple of days ago… It should be noted that Fatah issued a statement that the speech had “inaccuracies,” but did not elaborate further.
Also available as Word document:
haniyehspeech.DOC

I haven’t read any Thomas Friedman columns in a long time, but with yesterday’s list of rules about politics in the Middle East, the racism and condescending attitude towards Arabs that has long been implicit in his writing comes out full guns blazing. I am pasting the full thing after the jump (take that, TimesSelect!), [...]