links for 2010-04-12

• Rights group: sectarian violence potentially on rise in Egypt – Monsters and Critics
  EIPR, a prominent human rights organization, distributed its new study analyzing all 53 known incidents of sectarian violence in the country from January 2008 to January 2010.

  All incidents took place between Muslims and Christians, with the exception of one incident of violence by Muslims against Baha'is, a minority religious group which has struggled for legal recognition in the country.

  (tags: egypt religion violence)
• Arab Reform Bulletin – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  Against this backdrop, several shifts in the Obama administration’s approach to foreign assistance during its first year have sparked concern among supporters of democratization. Total bilateral funding for democracy and governance programming was reduced from approximately $50 million annually to only $20 million. Within this amount, the level of funding for civil society was cut disproportionately, from $32 million to only $7 million, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) adopted a policy of only funding those organizations officially registered and approved as NGOs by the Egyptian government. Moreover, the administration began negotiations on the possible establishment of an “endowment,” a fund advocated by the Egyptian government to remove Congressional oversight over future U.S. economic aid.
  (tags: egypt united-states aids politics democracy humanrights obama)
• Arab Reform Bulletin – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  (tags: terror policy libya)