Middle East Report Online: The Militancy of Mahalla al-Kubra by Joel Beinin.

‘The IED problem is getting out of control. We’ve got to stop the bleeding.’ – A fascinating WaPo piece on the history of the IED in Afghanistan and Iraq and the countermeasures developed against it.
Update: Part two of this series on IEDs is here: ‘The single most effective weapon against our deployed forces’.

Charles has a report on how the Jerusalem Post is trying to pass off a video of a Yazidi girl being beaten in Iraq as an honor crime by Hamas. The reporter behind the “story,” Khaled Abu Toameh, is known for his biased reporting.

Damon Albarn (of Britpop bands Blur and Gorillaz fame) is producing a kind of Buena Vista Social Club album, instead of Cuban masters you have Algerian chaabi masters: Once more, with El Gusto.
Luc Cherki is a big man. Carrying his guitar, he approaches the microphone with the swagger of Johnny Cash and sings a folk [...]

From Le Figaro, an article on how Saudi Arabia is creating a new security service specifically dedicated to protecting petroleum installations. Beyond threat perceptions about attacks on these centers, there is also the factor that this will create yet another service, exclusively under the control of Minister of Interior Prince Nayef and his son — [...]

Following up on this post from a few days ago, the office of the General Prosecutor has decided not to try al-Destour editor Ibrahim Eissa in a State Security Emergency Court:
CAIRO, Egypt: Egypt’s prosecutor general reversed a decision to send an outspoken tabloid newspaper editor who questioned President Hosni Mubarak’s health to the country’s emergency [...]

Egypt press plans day without papers in rights protest:
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian independent and opposition newspapers will not publish on October 7 in protest at a government clampdown that has seen several journalists sentenced to prison terms in recent weeks.
Editors from 15 newspapers agreed to the protest “against the fierce campaign against the free press [...]

Moroccan Unrest Over Bread Price:
CASABLANCA, Morocco — Violent protests over the cost of bread prompted the Moroccan government to annul a 30 percent price hike linked to soaring global grain costs.
Protesters clashed with police, cars were torched and buildings damaged in the demonstrations Sunday in Sefrou, 120 miles east of the capital Rabat. Some 300 [...]

Le Monde.fr : En Algérie, des adolescents sont les proies des recruteurs d’Al-Qaida:
Treize adolescents algériens ont été condamnés le 23 septembre à trois ans de prison avec sursis pour avoir entretenu des contacts avec Al-Qaida au Maghreb islamique, l’ex-Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat (GSPC). Un suivi psychologique a été ordonné, et leurs [...]

Report Says Hussein Was Open To Exile Before 2003 Invasion:
“The Egyptians are talking to Saddam Hussein,” Bush said. “He seems to have indicated he would be open to exile if they would let him take one billion dollars and all the information he wants on weapons of mass destruction.”
I can think of several others I’d [...]

Muslim Brother Ibrahim al-Houdaiby has responded to Mona al-Tahawy’s critical column in the Forward on the group. In this pieces he distances himself from Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef’s remark that she appeared “naked” because she was unveiled — not the first time I hear Ibrahim condemn al-Houdaiby in favor of the person many see as [...]

Readers may be interested to know that Berkeley Press has just launched the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights.

I cannot believe that Ibrahim Eissa, fresh from a conviction earlier this month, will now face trial in a State Security Emergency Court:
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – An outspoken Egyptian editor whose newspaper questioned the president’s health has been referred to a court notorious for handing down swift convictions of spies and Islamists, in a move [...]

Richard Silverstein got through to the Kroc Theater run by the Salvation Army that had refused to host a Marcel Khalife concert. The explanation he got from them was that they could not rent the venue to the Palestinian organization al-Awda, which aims for the right of return of all Palestinian refugees.
It’s good that [...]

Saudi Religious Police Attacked by Girls:
Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat – Members of Khobar’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were the victims of an attack by two Saudi females, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.
According to the head of the commission in Khobar, two girls pepper sprayed members of the commission after they had [...]

Two posts I put up recently featuring opposition figures — Iran’s Akbar Ganji and Syria’s Maamoun al-Homsi — generated an interesting response: attacks on these activists as being cowardly, formerly close to the regime, or having some other negative side. It could be that these criticisms are fair — I really don’t know that much [...]

Boston Review – No Going Back:
The American occupation has been more disastrous than the Mongols’ sack of Baghdad in the 13th century. Iraq’s human capital has fled, its intellectuals and professionals, the educated, the moneyed classes, the political elite. They will not return. And the government is nonexistent at best. After finally succumbing to Iraqi [...]

From Tunisian magazine L’Audace:
Souha Arafat n’a cessé de se plaindre ces derniers mois d’avoir été trompée par Leïla en opérant divers placements à la Bourse de Tunis qui se sont avérés infructueux. De son côté, Leïla reprochait à sa partenaire en affaires de lui avoir mal conseillé certains placements à l’étranger. Leur idylle avait pourtant [...]

Babelmed has an interesting interview with the former Syrian MP Maamoun al-Homsi, who was imprisoned by the regime several years ago and now lives in exile. Part one and part two.

From George Packer’s blog in The New Yorker, an odd theory about why Professor Fouad Ajami is so upbeat about Iraq:
It would be wrong to see in Ajami’s version of Iraq the same delusional thinking as in George W. Bush’s. The difference between them is the difference between a strategy and a fantasy. The President’s [...]

I don’t care about Mahmoud Ahmednijad, who is cruel and petty (as opposed to Lee Bollinger, who is just petty), but I do care about this open letter by Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji and co-signed by an A-list of academics and intellectuals.
Open Letter from Akbar Ganji to the UN Secretary-General
September 18, 2007
To His Excellency Ban [...]

Egypt jails three journalists:
CAIRO (AFP) – A court on Monday sentenced the editor of an opposition newspaper and two other journalists to two years in jail for “damaging the image of justice”, in the latest case against Egypt’s media.
Al-Wafd’s editor Anwar al-Hawari, Mahmud Ghallab and Amir Othman were jailed for “having published untrue information which [...]

Bomber strikes Sunni-Shiite meeting:
BAQOUBA, Iraq – A suicide bomber struck a U.S.-promoted reconciliation meeting of Shiite and Sunni tribal sheiks as they were washing their hands or sipping tea Monday, killing at least 15 people, including the city’s police chief, and wounding about 30 others.
Two U.S. soldiers were also wounded in the 8:30 p.m. blast [...]

White House criticizes Egypt on rights:
NEW YORK – The White House on Monday voiced displeasure with recent decisions in Egypt to crack down on dissenting voices within the media and to close a human rights group, saying it is “deeply concerned” about the moves.
“These latest decisions appear to contradict the Egyptian government’s stated commitment to [...]

Egypt and Israel team up for award-winning film ‘The Bands Visit’:
Written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin, “The Band’s Visit” centers around the plight of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra after it arrives in Israel to open an Arab Cultural Center, only to find itself stranded at the airport without a welcoming committee or [...]

Blogging Egypt’s Factory Strikes:
Whether or not this is picked up in the American press shouldn’t matter. It’s a story to pay attention to, however you can.
The textile factory at Ghazl el-Mahalla in the Nile Delta is Egypt’s largest, with over 27,000 workers. Nearly all of the factory’s workers went on strike last December to demand [...]

Update: This story appears confirmed from a press release by Khalife’s publicist.
Reports are emerging that the great oud player and composer Marcel Khalifé (a UNESCO “Artist for Peace” was barred from giving a scheduled performance in San Diego because the venue felt he should be “balanced out” with an Israeli musician:
Khalifé has a sizable number [...]

It’s with great pride that I learned that my friend and former boss Hisham Kassem, until a few months ago the publisher of al-Masri al-Youm, was given a well-earned National Endowment for Democracy 2007 Democracy Award. I also knew that he and the other recipients (from Burma, Thailand and Venezuela) got to spend 55 minutes [...]

Will break from the tradition of only discussing Middle Eastern issues in solidarity with the Buddhist monk-led protests in Burma/Myanmar:
YANGON, Myanmar – As many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched Monday through Yangon, the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar’s biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was [...]

Even Israelis are disgusted with Mahmoud Abbas:
Mahmoud Abbas has to stay home. As things stand right now, he must not go to Washington. Even his meetings with Ehud Olmert are gradually turning into a disgrace and have become a humiliation for his people. Nothing good will come of them. It has become impossible to [...]

Saudi Women Petition for Right to Drive:
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 23 — For the first time since a demonstration in 1990, a group of Saudi women is campaigning for the right to drive in this conservative kingdom, the only country in the world that prohibits female drivers.
After spreading the idea through text messages and e-mails, [...]

Hossam is writing a lot today about a massive strike taking place at Ghazl el-Mahalla, apparently the biggest such strike at a major textile factory since the beginning of the year. He has videos and complains the issue is not getting international press coverage. From an activist’s account:
After the first day of the strike and [...]

Malaysian Islamic body rules on how to pray, wash and die in space:
“Conditions at the International Space Station which are so different from those on earth are not a hindrance for the astronaut to fulfil his obligations as a Muslim,” it said in a 20-page booklet.
“In difficult conditions, Islam has conveniences to ensure that religious [...]

Israeli in Lebanon under investigation in muder case and on espionage charges – Haaretz:
During questioning, it emerged that Sharon had visited Lebanon 11 times on his German passport over the last two years. He denied allegations he was on an espionage mission and said he was in Lebanon for leisure purposes, according to the source.
Media [...]

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Mona al-Tahawy has a personal story of dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood and explains why she backs their political rights even as she (rightly) finds their views distasteful: I Will Stand Up for the Muslim Brotherhood.
I think, even more than the arrests, the sign that there is really a fierce campaign taking place against the [...]

Dear Arabist readers, I now promise you that even though the New York Times no longer has a paywall I will not link any of its Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd or other moronic commentators and will restrict linking to only the most essential stories or the ones by those NYT writers that actually do a [...]

A new poll suggests over one million dead in Iraq since the invasion:
In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.
Previous estimates, [...]

Clinton vs. Clinton on Israel:
To coincide with the Jewish New Year, fresh statements are coming out of some presidential campaigns reaffirming the candidates’ ‘pro-Israel’ credentials. It’s the kind of thing that stretches the thread between domestic political posturing and smart policy prescriptions to a snapping point. It is almost redundant to note that the content [...]

Yesterday Le Monde published a fascinating analysis of the recent Moroccan parliamentary elections. I am pasting the full article after the jump since I don’t think it’s available to non-subscribers, and will focus on a choice excerpt here:
En fait, c’est l’abstention sociologique – celle de la masse des marginalisés sociaux – qui s’est le plus [...]