Blogging for reform: the case of Egypt

Thought i would point to this article. Rania Al Malky covers the prospects of blogging as medium for promoting reform in Egypt. A good read for anyone not familiar with the recent rise of political/activist blogging that has been concurrent with the emergence (and, premature dissipation) of Kifaya.

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Drinking the Sea at Nahr el-Bared

I havent actually read the book, Drinking the Sea at Gaza (note to self). But i distinctly recall someone bringing up stories from the book about the first Intifada. Apparently, ‘activists’ would run into civilians’ homes with the IDF in hot pursuit. The strategy was meant to aggravate the Palestinians with the inevitable and indiscriminate [...]

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Mahdi Akef on Conspiracy and Compradors

So Mahdi Akef released a statement on IkhwanOnline yesterday entitled Conspiracies against the Nation (Umma): Symptoms and Confronting Them (or something of the sort). He goes on about the various political, economic, cultural conspiracies against the Muslim Nation. At the end, however, there’s a sneaky little paragraph entitled Internal Help for External Conspiracy in which [...]

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Space China

One more area where China is pushing for influence despite US obstruction. Excerpt:
Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world – the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on Earth. The latest, and most prominent, example came last week when China launched a communications [...]

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Degrees of Lebanon

Here’s Fisk’s article on the events is Lebanon. It’s nothing special but it illustrates something i’ve been complaining about.
Let me take a step back for a second. But first, i would like to assert that like just about every other commentator, i am extremely qualified to spew bullshit about Lebanon. Anyway, on Monday, when I [...]

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Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

this is really funny.

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US DoD blocks websites

Apparently the DoD just blocked access to MySpace and YouTube for “bandwidth” reasons. I’m not so sure it’d be crossing that fine line between skepticism and conspiracy theory to say: “My ass it’s for bandwidth!”

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The Axis of Uh-Oh

Funny animation on the Bush Admin’s recent ME diplomacy by Mark Fiore.

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Court Upholds Mubarak

Naturally, a court overruling Mubarak was too good to last.

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Active Islam (Qaeda and MB)

A round up of some recent stuff on Active Islam.
First, the super-evil al-Qaeda. Bruce Reidal from the brookings institute (and a 29-year career in the CIA and political intelligence and security posts) writes in Foreign Affairs on the resurgence of al-Qaeda across the globe and what the US, NATO and other allies should do about [...]

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USG vs ICRC on Humanitarian Law

OpinioJuris (an excellent law blog) has an interesting post on the USG’s response to the 2005 5k+ page “report” by the ICRC on Customary International Humanitarian Law.

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Court Overrules Mubarak

Shockingly, a court ruled Mubarak’s sending about 40 MBs to a military court illegal, saying they should be tried in a civilian court.

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Moody’s for NGOs

Moisés Naím, has an article in the Washington Post suggesting that with the rising number and activity of gongos (government- organized NGOs), there may be a need for some sort of independent rating entities for NGOs, much like Moody’s for finance. (UPDATE: meant to give credit to the OpinioJuris post but was at a [...]

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Wahhabis in Bosnia

A not so good article on the increased activity of Wahhabis in Bosnia. It’s more interesting in principle than in facts or analysis. However, for someone that’s not very knowledgeable on the balkans, it’s always great to see that the American and Saudi governments did not neglect to plant al-Qaeda seedlings (aka Mujahideen) in fertile [...]

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