Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq held a rally in a sports stadium on Saturday to celebrate Iraq being free of US troops. He declared a national holiday, and thousands of Iraqis were surprised to receive a text message from him on their cell phones saying “All of us are for Iraq; the glory is […]
New Year’s 2012 in Tahrir Square, Egypt
New Year’s in Tahrir Square, Cairo: The leftist crowd begins by singing the national anthem. Then a woman revolutionary calls out, “Bread, Freedom and social justice!” “A civil state, civil state!” “May the military government fall!” she chants, and the crowd repeats. “Treatment for injured [protesters]!” “Free Egypt, with God’s permission!” “Free Egypt, with God’s […]
New Year’s in Dubai 2012
New Year’s in Dubai
2011: End of US Hyperpower & its War with Islamdom
Some years are pivotal and serve to mark off eras of history. 2011 saw the end of American hyperpower, and it announced the end of a decade of US-Muslim conflict that began with 2001. It saw the killing of Usama Bin Laden, the virtual rolling up of al-Qaeda, the repudiation of al-Qaeda’s methods by the […]
Top Ten Myths about the Arab Spring of 2011
1. The upheavals of 2011 were provoked by the Bush administration’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq Bzzt! Wrong answer. None of the young people who made this year’s revolutions ever pointed to Iraq as an inspiration. The only time Iraq was even brought up in their tweets was as a negative example (“let’s not […]
Gascoigne: Syria, the Invisible Massacre
Martin Gascoigne writes in a guest essay for Informed Comment The ongoing conflict in Syria, in a year of tremulous conflict across the region and beyond, singularly fails to ignite passions in the West. Oddly, even professional media coverage is relatively lacking, certainly compared to the interest in, say, Egypt. It is not as if […]
Egyptian Blogger-Activist Alaa on Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman interviews Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who was recently released from jail, on Democracy Now! @Alaa is a renowned leftist blogger from a family of longtime Egyptian activists. He was arrested for challenging continued military rule and now supports having the speaker of parliament, who will be chosen in January, assume […]
Christian Priests Brawl at Jesus’ Birthplace
The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem has now seen its annual brawl between Armenian and Eastern Orthodox priests, who are jointly responsible for its administration. Police of the Palestine Authority broke it up but made no arrests because the pugilists are “men of God.” Somehow you get a sense that Jesus of Nazareth would […]
Egyptian Court orders Military to Cease Virginity Tests
An Egyptian court has ordered the Egyptian military to cease subjecting arrested female protesters to virginity tests. The ruling is a strike for women’s rights, but also is significant as an assertion of civil courts’ rights to tell the military what to do. The tests are administered because Egyptian conservatives in the military maintain that […]
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