Links February 21st to February 22nd

Links from my del.icio.us account for February 21st through February 22nd:

• Informed Comment: Haidar: Bin Laden is not, either, Hiding Out in Shiite Parachinar - Remember the academic paper I linked to recently that tried to find OBL throughthe same methods used for animal tracking? It turns out that the village they identified as most likely to host Bin Laden is majority Shia.


• Mashahed, "Egyptian Workers Strike against Fertilizer Export to Israel" - About the strike at the Sawiris fertilizer factory that is exporting to Israel.


• Egyptian chronicles: Mohamed El-Baradei is Persona non grata in his country official media - al-Baradei lashes out at regime on TV.


• Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Shifting sands - Very interesting analysis of the impact of Gaza on Islamist movements across the region by Hossam Tammam. He suggests the Gaza conflict was "an Islamist moment" and surveys different reactions: the Saudi establishment's concern with stability, the Egyptian MB's weak return to the Palestinian cause, Kuwaiti Salafis' embrace of activism, Egyptian salafis' cautious raising of voice on Gaza, and Amr Khaled's depoliticization of this most political of topics.


• The Beirut slave trade - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition - On the exploitation of imported domestic labor in Lebanon.


• Gideon Levy / 'Antiwar' film Waltz with Bashir is nothing but charade - Haaretz - Israel News - "Stylish, sophisticated, gifted and tasteful - but propaganda. A new ambassador of culture will now join Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, and he too will be considered fabulously enlightened - so different from the bloodthirsty soldiers at the checkpoints, the pilots who bomb residential neighborhoods, the artillerymen who shell women and children, and the combat engineers who rip up streets. Here, instead, is the opposite picture. Animated, too. Of enlightened, beautiful Israel, anguished and self-righteous, dancing a waltz, with and without Bashir. Why do we need propagandists, officers, commentators and spokespersons who will convey "information"? We have this waltz."


• The Arab world's (uneven) progress | csmonitor.com - Revisiting the Arab Human Development Report, some signs of progress - more IT, more exports, economies doing better. But still massive reliance on imports, no serious education reform, and never mind the politics.


• Egypt has bad memories of Netanyahu - Everyone except, apparently, Israelis have bad memories of Netanyahu.


• 99-year-old Palestinian bitten by Israeli army dog - Just can't make this up.


• Reform in Saudi Arabia | Tiptoeing towards reform | The Economist - On the link between the recent Saudi reforms and succession in the accursed House of Saud.