“Rethinking Capacity Building”

The latest issue of Capacity.org’s journal includes an article on rethinking capacity building. The author points to some very important points that i feel are more than relevant in Egypt. The author mentions some of the causes that he believes have led to many of the instances of failure to bring about improvements in efficacy.
First, [...]

Read Full Post »

Pakistan: Islam’s Fault

UPDATE: oops! forgot the link.
I just read a pretty interesting article in the National Geographic that takes a look at Islam in Pakistan and its relationship to both fundamentalist Islam and violent Islamists, entitled “Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan”. I have always, since my insect-observing science-obsessed nerdy childhood had a certain affection for NG [...]

Read Full Post »

Niqab in Philly

Peter Spiro on Opinio Juris brings up the large number of niqab-covered women in Philadelphia, and points to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on them.

Read Full Post »

BBC on Cairo Crime

Getting the Police Version in Cairo.

Read Full Post »

NPR’s Iran and its Neighbors series

National Public Radio has a six-part series on Iran and its neighbors that’s up on their website. According to the series, while Iranian leaders have long perceived their nation as the deserving leading power in the Middle East, it has only ever stumbled along trying to get there. It is only recent external factors that [...]

Read Full Post »

The Terrorism Index

FP just released the latest version of its Terrorism index. They surveyed 100 “experts” from various branches of govt, white house staff, intelligence, defense and scholars. Their results are pretty bleak from an American perspective. Not much that’s surprising really.

Read Full Post »

Essam El Erian detained; MB party program

Security, it seems, stormed a meeting of MB members in Mohandeseen over the weekend. They detained the group of about 20 people that included Essam El Erian. Here’s an email sent to the Arabist that raises a good question regarding the detention of “moderate” leaders in the MB.
Of course, it could be read as just [...]

Read Full Post »

Amnesty and Abortion

I’ve always found abortion to be one of those areas where i am unable to make a judgment, or support one side over another. For one thing, i dont know what it’s like to conceive and bear a child. While fascinating, perhaps even magical, it seems like altogether way too much trouble. More importantly, i [...]

Read Full Post »

“Losing My Jihadism”

Someone pointed me to this article in the washington post by a writer (and apparently former imam) who tried salafism and decided the violence wasnt for him. He advocates Islam’s need for a reformation. Needless to say, he’s rather unliked.

Read Full Post »

Hurtful food aid

I’ve got a draft that i’ve been meaning to work on for a while on health aid. Soon. Anyway, in an encouraging sign, according to the iht, CARE, one of the largest international development and aid NGOs, has announced that it will stop participating in the US gov’t’s food aid programs. Or at least the [...]

Read Full Post »

Jazeera on Egyptian Police Brutality

Here’s an item on Jazeera English about recent police brutality accusations.

Read Full Post »

Women’s Rights in Egypt

Forsoothsayer covers some of the legally-sanctioned gender-based discrimination in Egypt.
UPDATE: and here’s the continuation.

Read Full Post »

1930s “Cairene Concerns”

Surfing the Web, i found this article on Cairo’s problems in the 30s from 2006 in the Ahram weekly. It’s part of their Ahram: A Diwan of Conteporary Life series. It’s funnysad how it’s all the same problems 70 years later.
Noise Pollution
The first manifestation of suffering Al-Ahram monitored was the “clamour of the streets”. [...]

Read Full Post »

“Boxing in the Brothers”

Samer Shehata and Joshua Stacher write in MERIP on the last couple of years of interaction between the Muslim Brothers and the Mubarak regime. The essay covers the regime’s scramble to contain the political influence of the MB since their surprise 2005 parliamentary success including: 100s of member arrests; charges dismissed in courts; Mubarak’s [...]

Read Full Post »

“Ideology of Development”

William Easterly of NYU writes [subscriber only, but i found the pdf] in FP on the “Ideology of Development”. The article criticizes Development for all of the reasons that development criticizes itself and its various schools. Perhaps the only addition is framing development as an ideology.
Like all ideologies, Development promises a comprehensive final answer [...]

Read Full Post »