Links for May 14th

Links from my del.icio.us account for May 14th:

• FT.com / Middle East / Politics & Society - Kuwait stymied by political infighting - McKinsey and Tony Blair, both crooks: "As Kuwait has drawn up plans to transform its economy it has sought out the services of some big guns – from the World Bank to McKinsey, the international consultants, to Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who has been hired as a government adviser."


• Memo From Cairo - Egypt to Be Center Stage in Obama’s Address to Arabs - NYTimes.com - Saad Eddin Ibrahim to Obama's people: "There is, however, a way to navigate the issue of human rights, said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian democracy advocate living in self-imposed exile because the government has threatened to jail him. He said he recently spoke with Mr. Obama’s advisers and suggested that the speech address the “infrastructure of democracy, which to us is the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, free media, autonomous civil society and gender equality. If those five things are emphasized without talking about democracy as such, we democrats in nondemocratic countries would be more than happy,” he said."


• Almasry Alyoum | Specialists Demand The Inspection Of U.S. President And His Entourage For Swine Flu - Controversy over whether Obama and his 1000-strong (!) advance team and entourage should be checked for swine flu.


• Facebook | بنى آدميين ضد مذبحة الخنازير - New Facebook group: "Humans Against the Slaughter of Swine."


• جريدة الأهرام - تقارير المراسلين ـ تحليـل إخبـاري هل حان وقت بناء لوبي مصري في أمريكا؟ - Ezzat Ibrahim in al-Ahram: "Egypt needs an American-Egyptian political action committee." Actually Egypt's military has its own lobby. Not sure about country, though.


• EGYPT: Court bans pornographic websites - Uh oh I hope Arabist.net is not obscene. I fear it might be. "The Egyptian administrative court has ordered the government to block obscene websites."