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Saleh back to the fore

2012-09-30T18:37:00.000-07:00

As intense Yemeni-US attacks on Al-Qaeda continue, former president Saleh appears to be regaining popular support, writes Nasser Arrabyee
Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is still plying politics, with millions of supporters around him.
On Monday morning, 3 September, he was driving in the middle of capital, Sanaa, with hundreds of bodyguards and loyal politicians on their way to the country's biggest conference hosting location.
Thousands of men and women and children were carrying his picture and chanting, cheering and trying to get closer to his car when the procession arrived outside the Stadium of 22 May in the northern part of Sanaa.
More than 10,000 members of Saleh's party, the People's General Congress (PGC), and guest politicians and diplomats were waiting inside to start a well-prepared ceremony to celebrate the 30th anniversary of PGC that was founded by Saleh in 1982.
In a lengthy speech being aired live on three TV channels and FM radio owned by members of the PGC, Saleh urged his supporters to stand and cooperate with his successor, newly elected President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, in coming national dialogue in November.
Although President Hadi is the secretary-general and deputy chairman of the PGC, with Saleh still the head, he did not attend the ceremony Monday in an effort to show neutrality.
Saleh strongly criticised the national unity government that is chaired by his opponents (a coalition of Islamists, socialists, and Nasserites) who were behind the 2011 uprising against him.
Although Saleh's party has 17 ministers in the 34-member cabinet, he described the government as "failed and incapable".
Saleh added that the government keeps displacing its failure upon him. "Even if a storm happens in the United States, they will say Saleh did it," he said as his supporters applauded and cheered.
"What did you do to those who bombed the oil and gas, and those who blocked the roads and those who sabotaged the electricity towers? Did you put them on trial?" Saleh, who now plays the role of the figurehead of opposition, asked the government.
The Saudi capital Riyadh is hosting this week (starting Tuesday, 4 September) a conference for donors to Yemen, who include Gulf countries, Europeans, the Americans, and other countries. Yemen needs more than $10 billion to fix the economic problems it is facing during the transitional period.
Saleh thanked particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Kuwait for their support for Yemen. Ironically, he thanked Qatar for "pumping" dollars to his opponents during the protests of last year.
The UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Bin Omar, is meanwhile scheduled to arrive in Sanaa Thursday, 6 September, to continue helping the conflicting parties implement the Saudi-sponsored and US-backed deal that is supposed to entirely end the country's political crisis by conducting presidential elections in February 2014.
The success of the national dialogue in November will be the most important step of all steps taken so far since the deal was signed by Saleh and his opponents in Riyadh in November 2011.
WAR ON AL-QAEDA: The war on Al-Qaeda conducted by the Yemeni army and US drones is continuing. Al-Qaeda is still exploiting the current chaos and the mistakes of the Yemeni and American governments to recruit more and more angry youth.
On Sunday, a US drone attack missed an Al-Qaeda leader and mistakenly killed more than 12 people in Radaa, one of the strongholds in the southeast of the country.
The drone, seemingly, was targeting the car of Abdel-Raof Al-Dhahab, but its missile hit a car carrying 12 people including three from one family -- a father, mother and daughter -- according to local residents. The two cars were driving in Al-Hema area in Al-Masaneh, the main stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Radaa.
Khaled Musalam Batis, another Al-Qaeda leader, was killed by a US drone attack last Friday in the area of Hawrah in Al-Kutn district of the eastern province of Hudhrmout, according to official statements.
Khaled was killed with eight other operatives while driving their cars. He was the brother of Salah Musalam Batis, a leading member of the Islamist party, Islah (the Yemeni Brotherhood), in Hudhrmout. The Batis family identified their son from among the dead bodies found under the wreckage of the car that was hit by a missile.
A group of clerics said the US drone attacks would turn Yemen to another Waziristan after an anti-Al-Qaeda cleric was mistakenly killed in a drone attack, sparking outrage among the people.
The group to which he belonged, calling themselves the Union of Southern Clerics, said in a statement sent to media that "the drone attacks are violating [Yemeni] sovereignty and [are a] flagrant aggression."
A total of eight Al-Qaeda operatives were killed when an airstrike hit two cars in the area of Al-Khashaa, 40 kilometres west of Al-Kutn in the eastern province of Hudhrmout, according to the government-run media.
Local residents believe that all the air attacks are implemented by US drones, not by Yemeni fighter jets, their evidence being the accuracy of the attacks.
The clerics, in their statement, said one of them was killed in a recent attack when a US drone killed four Al-Qaeda operatives who were in a meeting with the cleric.
The cleric, Salem Ahmed Ali Jaber, was a teacher and mosque speaker in Al-Kutn. Jaber is Salafi and studied in the main Salafi centre of Saada. He was outspoken against Al-Qaeda. In recent sermons he said Al-Qaeda is against Islam.
According to local sources, Al-Qaeda sent last week four operatives to the cleric to redress him and while the five were in the meeting a US drone came and killed them all in the area of Al-Khshamer in Al-Kutn.
The Yemeni army in cooperation with US drones intensified attacks on Al-Qaeda operatives who try to regroup in new places after they were driven out from Zinjubar and Jaar and Azzan in June.
Sources said that Yemeni troops are being redeployed in areas close to the mountains of Marakish of Abyan in clear preparation for an attack on the newly established stronghold of Al-Mahfad where Al Qaeda train their fighters.
Earlier in the week, Al-Qaeda threatened to bomb oil and gas installations in the south if the army attacked them in Al-Mahfad, an area between Shabwa and Abyan.

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In Focus: Peace treaty must be revised

2012-09-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

Insecurity in Sinai could engulf the whole country, already teetering following the revolution. Egypt must act, which means first untying its hands, writes Galal Nassar
Egypt is in a state of disarray. In spite of the great Egyptian grassroots revolution, anarchy remained the primary trait of the transitional period, regardless of the degree to which it was fed by political developments, constitutional and legal controversies, and major and minor events in the capital, up and down the Nile from Alexandria to Aswan, and along the fringes of the country, in Sinai, Al-Wadi Al-Gadid and Marsa Matrouh. The chaos, aggravated by mounting polarisations between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the Muslim Brotherhood, and other political forces, has persisted in spite of the election of a new president. But more than any other locus of tension in the country, the current conflict in Sinai epitomises the crisis of the erosion of central control, security breakdown, and their socio-political and strategic ramifications. The recent events in Sinai, which were triggered by the terrorist attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, cast to the fore numerous crucial domestic and foreign policy questions not least of which are the security of Sinai and Egyptian-Israeli relations.
The situation in Sinai had already begun to deteriorate well before the January Revolution. This was largely due to two factors. The first was the security agencies' mismanagement of a series of difficulties and crises in that area, generating a growing gap between the people of Sinai and the central government. On one side, some entertained doubts as to the patriotism of the Sinai Bedouin in spite of the fact that they bore the burden of the resistance against the Israeli occupation of Sinai following the 1967 war. On the other was mounting resentment against a regime that ignored the developmental needs of Sinai, failed to open job opportunities to Sinai youth in tourist projects that proliferated after control over the area was restored to Egypt, and did not recruit them into military academies as a means to assimilate Sinai's society into national structures. The second factor was the spread of extremist thought in a religious guise during the Sadat and Mubarak eras. Almost intrinsically hostile to many domestic and foreign policy orientations, that type of thought inevitably spread to Sinai.
As the situation in Sinai deteriorated in the Mubarak era, Israel increasingly began to complain that this posed a threat to its own security. While a chief cause of that situation -- the malpractices of the security agencies -- may have been eliminated following the January Revolution, the grip of the central state had weakened at the same time. In Sinai, that grip became almost non-existent. The result was an unprecedented boost to terrorist groups operating in that area. They became increasingly active and more and more audacious until the latest tragic attack. The repercussions of their activities also became increasingly dangerous, especially after Israel was forced to respond to the latest attack when two of the terrorists stormed across the border into Israeli territory. Israel has since seized upon this incident as a pretext for levelling harsh criticisms against Egyptian policy in Sinai and calling into question Egypt's ability to control that peninsula. This, in turn, has stirred suspicions in Egypt that Israel may be planning to reoccupy part of Sinai or to grant itself licence to undertake military operations there or, at the very least, to call for an international force to be stationed on our side of the border.
Islamist political forces and the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in particular were quick to accuse Israel of being behind the latest attack, though to be fair a number of non-Islamist forces shared the opinion. Nevertheless, I believe that part of the Islamists' motive for pointing fingers in that direction was to deflect blame from themselves. The terrorists espouse extremist ideas that they erroneously attribute to Islam, upon which Islamist forces presumably base their political legitimacy. Also, in the immediate aftermath of the Rafah attack, President Mohamed Mursi came under fire for his "ill-considered" decision to establish closer relations with Hamas. It was argued that steps taken in this context made it easier for terrorist groups in Gaza to coordinate with and join their counterparts in Sinai in order to carry out the attack. Mursi was simultaneously criticised for his decision to grant amnesties to prisoners who had been found guilty of involvement in terrorist attacks that had claimed the lives of many Egyptians and foreigners. The critics hold that the amnesties helped create a climate conducive to terrorism which encouraged those who carried out the Rafah attack and could inspire similar attacks in the future, and all the more so if the newly released persons turn around and issue supportive "fatwas" or even actively collude in plots.
Naturally, there is always some logical basis for suspecting Israel. It remains the foremost threat to Egypt's national security to which history offers ample testimony. However, if blame is to be cast, at the very least it should be founded upon concrete evidence and clearheaded reasoning so that we do not find ourselves chasing after groundless hypotheses that prevent us from properly attributing responsibility and, hence, from ending the vicious cycle of insecurity and instability in Sinai. Proceeding from this basis, three observations weaken the contention that Israel was behind the recent attack. First, it issued several warnings of an impending attack and sufficiently in advance to give Egyptian security agencies time to take precautions. Second, sources in SCAF mentioned that the terrorists had received support from inside Gaza while they were carrying out their operation. Apparently, mortar bombs were fired from the vicinity of Gaza airport with the purpose of distracting Israeli forces from what was happening in Sinai. Third, there is no denying the already dangerously deteriorating situation that existed in Sinai and the gross negligence on our part in handling that situation. That security breakdown, mismanagement, general anarchy and disintegration at the fringes helped clear the way for the operation, regardless of the ideological or national affiliation of the perpetrators.
So, what needs to be done? Egyptian military command has deployed land and air forces, destroyed tunnels that are often suspected of being used as a transit for terrorists, and laid siege to rugged mountainous areas used as terrorist hideouts. Often such measures produce immediate results. Unfortunately, however, the benefit is temporary because they fail to address the root causes. Recourse to the "iron fist" approach cannot, in and of itself, remedy the security breakdown, the root causes of which are to be found in economic, social and educational problems that lay the grounds for extremism. Simultaneously, the "iron fist" approach will remain a kind of mirage unless the protocols of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty are revised, especially with regards to the deployment of Egyptian forces in Area C in Sinai. The provisions of those protocols were originally devised on the basis of two fallacious assumptions: firstly, that Egypt poses a threat to Israeli security rather than the reverse; and secondly, that the only threat that Egypt faces comes from Israel. Theoretically, under a peace agreement, both assumptions are invalid. Be that as it may, the situation has changed radically since 1979, which should be reason enough for revising the treaty or even abolishing it. We cannot rule out, at this juncture, the possibility that some ultra-extremist forces assume power in Israel and execute a plan to reoccupy all or part of Sinai, or assume the right to send in forces in pursuit of targets or other "security" aims. More immediately, the provisions of the treaty do not reflect the reality that terrorism in Sinai is an immediate threat to Egypt before being a potential threat to Israel. While Israel has certainly given the Egyptian military command the green light to bring in forces that are not necessarily provided for under the arrangements of the peace agreement for the purpose of counterterrorist operations, there is no logical reason why Egypt should remain at the mercy of the whims of this or that Israeli government for permission to deploy our forces as needed on our own territory.
It follows that our primary concern, now, should be to push for a revision of the unfair conditions of the protocols of the peace treaty. Indeed, President Mursi should declare this as one of his foremost priorities. The treaty does provide for the possibility of amendment, but it requires the agreement of both sides in order to set the process into motion. Therefore, as a first step, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry should submit an official request to Israel for this purpose and the president should form a negotiating team, reminiscent of our "Taba team", consisting of our best legal, military and diplomatic experts. At the same time, we should pre-empt possible Israeli intransigence by bringing in reinforcements into Area C in sufficient force to confront the threat of terrorism in Sinai, for otherwise we will be laying ourselves open to the likelihood that intermittent terrorist attacks will escalate into a flood that could overflow the bounds of Sinai and threaten the entire country.
We cannot overstate the need to succeed in restoring security to Sinai. Success there will reverse the trend of deterioration and mounting anarchy and herald the restoration of stability throughout the country.

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Squaring up on Syria

2012-09-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

With Egypt stepping into the Syrian quagmire, Shia-Sunni rivalries are increasing as a result of the Syrian civil war, writes Salah Nasrawi
With Syria's civil war degenerating into a sectarian showdown, tensions are building across the Middle East over its fallout, with growing signs that key regional players are increasingly taking sides in the conflict.
Regional rivalries over Syria's protracted war, which is pitching the country's Sunni majority against the minority Alawite-dominated regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, is complicating the conflict and raising alarms about its potential for Middle East instability.
New signs have emerged that Iraq and Iran are now teaming up to increase their help to the embattled Al-Assad regime, in stark contrast with Egypt, whose newly installed Islamist leadership is joining other Arab Sunni governments in seeking to get rid of the Syrian regime.
Last week, the Iraqi Shia-led government and Iranian leaders renewed pledges to support Al-Assad, who is facing a mostly Sunni uprising backed by Sunni governments in Turkey and the Gulf.
The new development came after Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi announced that Al-Assad had "lost legitimacy" in his fight to crush the 17-month-old revolt and bluntly called on him to go.
Mursi, a senior leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Sunni world's most powerful Islamist organisation, stunned his Iranian hosts at a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran last Thursday by likening the uprising in Syria to the struggle of the Palestinians.
That contradicts the line put out by Iran and Iraq, who have resisted efforts to oust Al-Assad and fear that the fall of the Alawite-dominated regime in Syria would embolden the country's Sunnis and upset the region's shaky sectarian geopolitics.
In response, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose Shia nation is Al-Assad's main ally, described the anti-Assad uprising as "a proxy war" waged by governments that "provide money and arms to irresponsible groups."
Syria and its allies accuse Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of giving financial support and arms supplies to the armed insurgent groups on the ground in Syria. The three countries are reportedly running a clandestine base in Turkey that is working to topple Al-Assad.
Khamenei, who appeared to criticise Mursi for being too harsh on Al-Assad, said the Syrian uprising was led by the United States "with the aim of serving the interests of the Zionists against the resistance in the region."
In a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who had traveled to Iran to participate in the summit, Khamenei said Iran, which has assumed the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, and Iraq, which holds the presidency of the Arab League, can play effective roles in resolving regional issues.
In addressing the summit, Al-Maliki submitted a plan to end the conflict in Syria based on a halt to the violence and the formation of a national unity government that could include Al-Assad.
Under the plan, the Syrian regime would negotiate with opposition groups and elections would take place under international and Arab League supervision.
The proposal rejected foreign military intervention, included an agreement by all parties in Syria to end the violence, and incorporated calls for all countries to "stop interfering in Syria's internal affairs."
Iraq, which shares a 375-mile (600-kilometre) border with Syria, has repeatedly cautioned that the crisis in Syria could spill over into other regional and neighbouring states if they do not work seriously to stop the violence and promote talks.
Last month, Iraq's military dispatched additional troops to tighten border controls with Syria in an attempt to staunch the spillover from the Syrian crisis. Thousands of Sunni Muslim fighters, including Al-Qaeda jihadists from Iraq, are believed to be fighting alongside the rebels in Syria.
They are widely expected to turn their guns against Shia-ruled Iraq once the Al-Assad regime has been removed in Syria.
Fearful of the potential rise of a hard-line Sunni regime next door, Iraq's Shia groups are reportedly rearming in southern Iraq. Reports in the local media suggest that Iraqi Sunni groups are setting up a "Free Iraqi Army" that would be ready to operate following Al-Assad's downfall.
Several top Shia religious leaders have also issued fatwas, or religious rulings, banning their followers in southern Iraq from selling their weapons after local media reports said there have been massive transfers of weapons to Syrian opposition groups throughout the area.
These are unconfirmed reports, but they send chilling signs of how ugly the Syrian conflict could turn out to be.
The new wrangling that involves Iraq, Iran and Egypt shows how sharply different visions of Syria's future could increase polarisation and fan the flames of religious tension in the region.
For now, the row could forestall proposals made by Mursi earlier to end the conflict in Syria that would include Iran together with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The quartet idea was seen as a good option for resolving the conflict, as it seemed to transcend the regional sectarian divide. However, it is far from guaranteed to succeed because both Al-Assad and his opponents see victory as the only desirable outcome in Syria.
Though it was hazy on many details, the idea meant that Mursi should have worked much more actively in order to win Iran's cooperation in mediating an end to the Syrian crisis that would avoid terrible sectarian conflict in the region.
Moreover, Mursi's efforts were hoped to bring the region's crucial Sunni and Shia players together as events in Syria unfold, especially with a view to the aftermath of the crisis.
The initiative was hailed by many inside and outside Egypt as a major diplomatic bid by Egypt's first elected president and first Islamist leader to recapture Egypt's leadership that many believe had been ceded to Saudi Arabia and even the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar.
Now Mursi has backed himself into a corner in Syria, and there are few good options for a breakthrough as regional and international diplomacy scrambles to contain the violence and keep the conflict from spilling across borders.
Given that his plan for regional mediation had little chance to succeed, it's hard to know whether by annoying Iran and Iraq in his Tehran speech Mursi has changed his calculus on Syria.
By slamming Al-Assad and berating Shia Iran for its support of the regime, Mursi seems to have been appeasing many of his own sceptics. Turkey had been cautious about his overture, apparently for fear that it could undermine its own assumed leadership role in the crisis.
It was also always doubtful that Saudi Arabia would sit down with its arch enemy, Shia Iran, while Washington had killed off a previous bid to involve Iran by the UN's former Syria envoy Kofi Annan.
Inside Egypt, Sunni Muslim Salafis who do not hide their hatred of Shias and staunchly support efforts to oust Syria's Alawite regime were quick to welcome Mursi's denunciation of Al-Assad.
Whatever the calculations may be, Mursi seems to have shot down his own Syrian initiative and probably lost his chance to reassert Egypt's role as a key Middle Eastern player.
That could give a new push to regional polarisation. Some Iranian officials have warned that Tehran, which has signed a military cooperation pact with Damascus, will do what ever it takes to prevent Al-Assad's downfall.
By floating his spoiler plan that includes Al-Assad in the resolution of the Syrian conflict, Iraq's Al-Maliki is showing his solidarity with Al-Assad. Lebanon's Shia group Hizbullah has also showed strong backing for the Syrian leader.
In the meantime, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue to fund arms for the Syrian opposition. None of this augurs well for a breakthrough in the standoff in Syria, or for Middle Eastern sectarian harmony.
With each camp throwing its weight behind one of the warring parties in Syria, the region looks to be plunging into a sharper divide than ever along sectarian lines.

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Ex-Mexican official to be sentenced in San Diego

2012-09-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Jesus Quinonez traveled often to San Diego to discuss cross-border investigations of organized crime with U.S. law enforcement officials. He didn't know he was the target of one himself.

The former Mexican law enforcement official faces a possible sentence of life in federal prison Monday when he is sentenced for racketeering conspiracy, more than two years after he and 42 others were charged in a far-reaching indictment that targeted remnants of Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel. Prosecutors have recommended that Quinonez be sentenced to eight years, one month in prison.

Quinonez was the international liaison for Baja California Attorney General Rommel Moreno, serving as his primary contact with U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an area that includes the border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali. He pleaded guilty in May, weeks before he was scheduled for trial.

As part of the plea agreement, Quinonez admitted that he agreed to smuggle help smuggle $13 million into Mexico for a group headed by Fernando Sanchez Arellano, a nephew of the Arellano Felix brothers. The Arellano Felix cartel was once one of the world's most powerful drug cartels but its power began to erode in 2002 when its leaders began getting killed or captured.

Quinonez also admitted sharing information with a reputed Sanchez Arellano lieutenant, Jose Alfredo Najera Gil, about an investigation of a double-homicide in Tijuana in March 2010. According to the plea agreement, the murders were committed by the Sanchez Arellano gang.

The episode has been an embarrassment for Moreno, who took office in late 2007 when Tijuana was in the throes of a fierce battle between Sanchez Arellano and a rival that horrified residents with bodies hung from bridges, daytime shootouts and decapitated bodies found around town. Such gruesome displays of violence have largely disappeared in Tijuana since the Sinaloa cartel expanded its presence in the last few years.

Quinonez has been in custody since his arrest on a San Diego traffic stop in July 2010, less than a month after he attended a U.S. Independence Day party at the home of the U.S. consul general in Tijuana.

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The Merchants of Venice

2012-09-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

Samir Farid reports from the centre of the world
The 69th round of the Venice Film Festival (29 Augest-8 September) ?ê" the most prestigious in the world, and the third to take place annually after Berlin in February and Cannes in May ?ê" is this year celebrating 80 years since its first round.
Among the most memorable rounds in the history of Venice was that of 1983, which saw the first ever history-of-cinema programme in the world, curated by Francesco Bassinini, and that of 1949, when the grand prix was first called the Golden Lion after the lion of Saint Mark, the emblem of the city. Following years of disruption, the festival became established in 1980, competing with Cannes and Berlin.
The 2012 round is the first to be directed by the celebrated film scholar Alberto Barbera, taking over from the brilliant Marco Muller, who directed the festival for the last eight years. Barbera directed the festival in the period 1999-2002, after which he directed the National Film Museum in Turin. Barbera might see the festival differently to Muller, but a quick look at the programme is all it takes to realise he will maintain the success achieved by his predecessor. As is immediately evident, where Muller pays as much attention to quantity as quality and likes all kinds of films, Barbera is rather more interested in quality; and he prefers auteur films to others.
To celebrate 80 years since the first round, besides selections from the institution's archives entitled "80!", Barbera introduced a programme named Venice Classics, which will screen 20 restored films produced in the period 1974-84 in the US, the UK, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Japan and the Philippines as well as nine new feature-length documentaries on cinema from the US, Italy, France and Mexico.
Aside from films by Terrence Malick and Paul-Thomas Anderson, Marco Bellocchio, Brian de Palma and Takishi Kitano, the festival opened with the Qatari-American production The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mira Nair ?ê" an out-of-competition screening. This was the first time in film history that any of the three major festivals opened with an Arab coproduction; it reflects Qatar's ambition to establish itself as a powerful state with international influence despite its small size and population, capitalising on its oil revenues to interact with contemporary world civilisation. The coproduction took place through the Doha Film Institute, headed by Princess Al-Mayyassa bint Hamad Al-Thani who is well-known for her love of the arts, which also organises the annual Doha-Tribeca Film Festival.
In fact, thanks to the Arab Spring, there is a remarkable Arab contribution to Venice this year, from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Palestine and, for the first time, Libya and Saudi Arabia as well: feature-length documentaries by Libyan filmmaker Abdalla Omaish's (Witness: Libya, an American production, the first on the Libyan revolution by a Libyan) and Tunisian filmmaker Hinde Boujemaa (Ya man aach or "It was better tomorrow") outside the competition; the Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim El-Batout's El-Sheita Elli Fat (Winter of Discontent) in the Orizzonte or "Horizons" section; and, also outside the competition, Algerian filmmaker Djamila Sahraoui's Yema and Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour's Wadjda, a French and German production, respectively: the first fiction feature ever to be shot in Saudi territory.
***
El-Batout's El-Sheita Elli Fat is an example of the kind of western interest the Arab Spring has generated in Arab cinema. For even though such momentous events in one of the world's most important sources of energy and the site of fundamentalist-secular conflict can encourage attention to the work of such a young artist on the topic, it is also true that films are selected for screening at the major festivals based on artistic merit alone. If Youssri Nassrallah is among the icons of innovation in Egyptian cinema through the 1980s, then Ibrahim El-Batout is an icon of the independent cinema movement that emerged as the most important development in the 1990s; it may in fact be said that El-Batout is the godfather of independent cinema.
He arrived on the film scene from outside it and in 1996 began to make documentaries in some of the world's hottest spots. He made his first full-length fiction feature, Ithaka, named after CP Cavafy's poem, in 2004. With his second film, Ain Shams (Heliopolis), he managed to cross the Mediterranean and make a name for himself in the world at large ?ê" a reputation he confirmed with Hawi (Conjuror) in 2010. With his present, fourth film, El-Batout arrives at the world's most prestigious film festival.
The independent movements in art, music, theatre and literature as well as film played an essential role in forging the consciousness that led to the 25 January revolution. They were paralleled by political initiatives, notably Kifaya which started in 2004. With actors Amr Waked and Farah Youssef ?ê" the stars of El-Sheita Elli Fat ?ê" El-Batout was among those who took part in the 18-day sit-in that toppled former president Hosny Mubarak in 25 January-11 February, 2011; the closing scene was shot on 10 February in Tahrir Square. Here as elsewhere in El-Batout's work, the film does not follow a pre-written script; it emerges, rather, from place and time through the characters, gradually taking holistic form until it reaches completion. Like any postmodern filmmaker, El-Batout makes no distinction between fiction and documentary.
This is particularly true of El-Sheita Elli Fat, which documents the revolution subjectively and expresses an equally subjective, sharp position against the regime the revolution sought to change ?ê" the artist's absolute support for the revolution. This is achieved through three pivotal characters: Amr (Amr Waked), a computer wiz; his girlfriend Farah (Farah Youssef), a government TV anchor; and Adel (Saleh El-Hanafi), a State Security officer. Instead of a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, here as elsewhere El-Batout presents interpersonal relations whose dynamics determine the destiny of each. The situation is presented without apparent artifice: While Amr lives with his mother in an average middle-class apartment, Adel lives in a luxurious home with his wife, son and daughter and their Filipina maid.
The film opens on 25 January while Amr, on his computer screen, is watching a State Security detainee recount what happened to him in the way of torture by electric shock, among other means. At the same time Farah, on air, is trying to truthfully describe what is happening on the street while her colleague, in the same show, is misleading viewers to please his boss who demands that they should downplay the significance of the demonstrations. In the first half of the film, the action moves between January 2009 and January 2011, when Amr is arrested once again. As he watches the internet video, Amr remembers what happened to him in January 2009, when ?ê" unannounced and without trial ?ê" he was arrested and detained indefinitely for demonstrating against the Israeli war on Gaza that year. In the detention centre he too was subjected to torture, and there he made the acquaintance of Adel ?ê" who will not release him until he is convinced that Amr will cooperate with State Security, planting in him the doubt that Farah too cooperates; otherwise should couldn't have been a successful anchor. Amr leaves the detention centre with a broken spirit to find out that his mother has died of grief after looking for him everywhere and failing to find him.
On 28 January we hear portions of Mubarak's first address, sound only. Farah revolts against her employers' pro-regime policies, leaving her work to join the revolution. On 1 February Mubarak's second speech is heard, once again without pictures; we see the "popular committees" that have cropped up to replace the police throughout Cairo; we also see how State Security begins to deploy thugs against the protesters, with Adel overseeing the storage of knives and canes in an apartment near Tahrir Square. Thus begin the cycles of violence: protesters kill a thug in retaliation. On 10 February comes Mubarak's third ?ê" and last ?ê" address, followed by Omar Soliman's speech on 11 February in which he announces Mubarak's stepping down. Once again, the picture does not accompany the sound. Throughout the film the viewer sees the events of the revolution on non-Egyptian satellite channels through television sets in houses and in Adel's office. El-Batout uses subtitles to specify dates. Documentary footage of demonstrations in Tahrir Square accompany Soliman's speech.
Adel goes to see his family in the Red Sea resort of Ain Sokhna, where he has asked them to stay. We see the doctor Rafik William, who was arrested with Amr Waked on 28 January and testified that he did join the revolution because he wanted a better life for his as yet unborn son; subtitles tell us that Rafik was killed in the wake of the revolution, a month after the birth of his son. On Qaserelnil Bridge, near Tahrir Square, the actors-characters gather after they have finished making their film; the final shot shows Amr and Farah together again. Subtitles give figures for the dead, the injured, the lost and those in custody with the phrase "Still counting".

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Man with scissors arrested at Miley Cyrus' house

2012-09-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man allegedly clutching a pair of scissors was arrested after police say he tried to force himself inside the Los Angeles home of Miley Cyrus.

Los Angeles police Lt. Brian Wendling says that employees inside the house in the Studio City area called police around 4 a.m. Saturday after the man came to the door and claimed to be a friend of the 19-year-old singer-actress.

Wendling says the suspect then repeatedly threw himself against an outside wall as if he was trying to break into the house. Cyrus was not home at the time.

The man, who was not identified, was arrested after officers saw him jump behind some bushes. He was carrying a pair of scissors.

Wendling says charges have not yet been filed.

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Mayor of New Jersey's capital arrested on corruption charge

2012-09-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

TRENTON, New Jersey (Reuters) - The mayor of Trenton, New Jersey's state capital, was arrested at his home early on Monday and charged with public corruption in connection with a proposed parking garage on city-owned property, the FBI said.

Mayor Tony Mack, along with his brother Ralphiel Mack and longtime associate Joseph Giorgianni, are accused of plotting to accept $119,000 from a man posing as a developer, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by the Star-Ledger newspaper and posted on its website.

The mayor's brother and Giorgianni acted as intermediaries to the purported parking garage developer and to his consultant, who were both cooperating with authorities, the complaint said.

Tony Mack, Ralphiel Mack and Giorgianni took $54,000 in cash bribes and anticipated getting the balance of $65,000, the complaint said.

Tony Mack was arrested at about 6:30 a.m. on Monday at his home in Trenton, said Barbara Woodruff, FBI spokeswoman in Newark, New Jersey. Giorgianni also was arrested on Monday, the FBI said. Ralphiel Mack turned himself in to authorities on Monday morning.

Giorgianni, who goes by the nicknames "JoJo" and "the Fat Man," told the purported consultant that the men were "'all looking to, uh, get healthy,' meaning make money, and that 'we been sick too long here,'" the complaint said.

The mayor has been under investigation since September 2010 by federal agents who used wiretaps to record meetings at JoJo's Steakhouse in Trenton, run by Giorgianni, and wiretaps on their telephones, the complaint said.

In July, FBI agents staged an early morning raid on Tony Mack's home and searched offices in City Hall.

Tony Mack, who the complaint said goes by the nicknames "the Little Guy" and "Napoleon," has been accused by critics of nepotism and mismanagement since taking office in 2010 in the crime-plagued, economically depressed city of 85,000.

After the FBI raid on his home in July, Tony Mack said he had done nothing wrong.

"We have not violated the public trust in any way," he said at the time. The mayor in July also denied to federal agents that he accepted any illegal cash, the complaint said.

In a search of Ralphiel Mack's home in July, federal agents found $2,500 in $100 bills with the same serial numbers as bills Giorgianni accepted from the purported consultant a month earlier, the complaint said.

In April, according to the complaint, Giorgianni told the purported consultant that the mayor was pleased with a bribe that had been paid.

"Yeah, oh yeah ... listen, you know money makes a blind man see," Giorgianni is quoted as saying.

Giorgianni also said the mayor could not be directly involved in the plot because he was "'under a microscope' due to public scrutiny," the complaint said.

An effort to recall Mack, a Democrat, failed last year when organizers did not get enough support to force a special election.

Mack was slated to appear before a federal magistrate in Trenton later on Monday, the FBI said.

(Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Eric Beech)

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Intruder arrested at home of Miley Cyrus

2012-09-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A man suspected of kidnapping his two young children and fleeing with them aboard a stolen yacht along the Northern California coast has been arrested, and the youngsters safely returned to their mother, police and the U.S. Coast Guard said on Saturday. Christopher Maffei, 43, who was taken into custody on Friday evening off Monterey, California, is accused of abducting his son and daughter on Tuesday from their mother's home in South San Francisco, according to police. ...

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Odd bedfellows

2012-09-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

The United States and the Muslim Brotherhood are not as far apart as they can sometimes seem, writes Bassem Hassan
The Egyptian presidential race kept many people on their toes in anticipation of the changes it would bring, among others things to Egyptian-American relations. But two months after President Mohamed Mursi was sworn in, it is more or less business as usual. American officials are still welcome in Cairo, where they exchange compliments with their Egyptian counterparts and now also with the Muslim Brotherhood's leaders. For his part, Mursi is packing for his first trip to Washington. Both anxieties about, and hopes for, a major change in Egyptian-American relations have been misplaced, based on the rhetoric of the Brotherhood and of American officials.
Less attention has been paid to the long history of cooperation between the United States and Sunni Muslim conservative regimes and groups. Statements meant for the appeasement of domestic constituencies aside, the American-Sunni conservative alliance has been one of the most enduring features of politics in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In fact, America's entry to the Arab world in 1945 was through Saudi Arabia, the chief patron of Sunni-conservatism in the Arab world. In the post-World War II world, both America and Sunni conservatives found common enemies in nationalist leaders such as former presidents Gamal Abdel-Nasser in Egypt and Sukarno in Indonesia.
Then came the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The United States, the Saudis, the Pakistanis and Sunni Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, generously chipped in to this inter-faith project against the infidel communists that had taken over Afghanistan. Many believed that the events of 9/11 were some type of closure to this not-so-secret love affair. However, they were wrong, as America quickly re-established it: as US journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in The New Yorker magazine a few years ago, the two reunited to confront the Syria-Hizbullah-Iran alliance, and after Israel's failure to destroy Hizbullah in Lebanon, Washington decided to put its money on Sunni-conservatism instead.
The cooperation between America and its allies in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and various jihadist groups to topple the Syrian regime, now denoted as Alawi rather than pan-Arab or socialist as part of the manufacturing of a new terminology that fits the current confrontation better, is just the latest manifestation of this renewed partnership. Even Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has felt it was time to reconnect with his roots and to abandon his previous partnership plans with Syria and Iran.
During the brief breakup following the events of 9/11, cooperation between America and Sunni-conservatism did not come to a complete halt, as evinced by the collaboration between Iraqi politician Tareq Al-Hashimi's Islamic Party and the American occupation authorities in Iraq. Hence, when it comes to exploring the prospects of Egyptian-American relations a good place to start is by examining the interests of the Brotherhood and the United States, rather than looking at their public statements. After all, politicians, including pious brethren, tend to lie whenever it is expedient for them to do so.
For some time to come the Brotherhood in Egypt will have only one goal: to stay in power. Other political groups, with the possible exception of the Salafis, lack the means to challenge them in any upcoming elections. Using the state machinery, now under their control, the Brotherhood will try to ensure that this situation does not change anytime soon. This leaves them with two hurdles to climb over: Egypt's collapsed economy and the military.
The latter still has the capacity to significantly influence the outcome of the political process in this country, the brethren's jubilation following the recent changes in its leadership notwithstanding. America's support is also crucial to overcoming these challenges. Fortunately for the Brotherhood, America is more than willing to help since its main interests in Egypt -- the Suez Canal, the treaty with Israel, the establishment of a pluralist political system, the deeper integration of Egypt in the globalised capitalist system and the maintenance of close relations with the army -- are not threatened by the Brotherhood's ascendancy. Quite the contrary: the brethren could serve these interests.
The Brotherhood could bestow on US-favoured neo-liberal policies and the American-Egyptian alliance two types of legitimacy, one electoral and one religious. The Sadat-Mubarak regime failed to accomplish this, and the liberal parties supported by the business community are not up to the job. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, seems more than willing to play ball. It long ago abandoned the anti-capitalist spirit espoused by some of its ideologues in the mid-20th century. Its current leadership includes ardent free-market supporters like Khairat El-Shater and Hassan Malik. The latter, as the US magazine Businessweek aptly put it, can "easily blend in with the Wall Street crowd".
The current debate about a future IMF loan to Egypt is also quite revealing in this respect. A few years ago Mursi, then an MP, slammed such loans as un-Islamic. Ironically, today he is touting an IMF loan as his first economic achievement. American visitors who frequented the Brotherhood's headquarters after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak must have realised that they see eye-to-eye with the brethren when it comes to the economy. In contrast, Ahmed Shafik, Mursi's competitor in the elections, expressed a commitment to the role of the state in the economy. In so doing, he was in line with the traditional view of the military, which averted the privatisation of the main state-owned banks in Egypt in the past. The military itself also runs what could be considered to be an "informal public sector" that has so far evaded the IMF. These assets are a coveted prize for the Brotherhood, which did not share in the spoils of the privatisations carried out under Mubarak.
The Brotherhood and the United States also share an interest in curtailing the political influence of the army. The former's reasons are quite obvious; the latter's require some elaboration. The United States has what is best described as a love-hate relationship with the Egyptian military. On the one hand, it is its main weapons supplier and training provider, a position that it is planning to maintain. On the other hand, it is not in favour of the army's economic role in Egypt and is concerned about its political intentions.
It suffices, in this respect, to highlight the fact that the military made a series of decisions that alarmed Washington more than the Brotherhood's rhetoric, for instance by allowing Iranian warships to pass through the Suez Canal, closing down major American NGOs in Cairo, terminating gas sales to Israel and ending the Gaza blockade. Establishing a pluralist political system consisting of pro-capitalism parties, a Western-funded civil society and a corporate media would be the most efficient means to contain the army's influence in Egypt. Needless to say, the Brotherhood would also benefit from any such arrangement.
Only one thorny issue remains: relations with Israel. Yet, even here the difference is about appearance rather than substance. Mursi has repeatedly declared his intention to respect Egypt's international agreements, including the treaty with Israel. During the presidential campaign, some of his supporters went as far as to consider abiding by the treaty to be a religious obligation as long as Israel also respected it. Moreover, Mursi has been keen to avoid any discussion of the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs), the most outstanding manifestation of economic normalisation with Israel. The Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv has not been recalled, and the Israeli flag is still flying in Cairo's skies. Most importantly, the Egyptian army, which according to the brethren is now under Mursi's full control, is coordinating its current campaign in Sinai with Israel.
The fact that Mursi wants to keep these positions off the radar to appease his domestic and regional constituencies is quite understandable; hence, his aides' frantic denial that he exchanged letters with his Israeli counterpart. But the Obama administration, for its own equally understandable reasons, also needs him to come out of the closet. Unfortunately for Mursi, his first visit to Washington will come shortly before the American presidential elections, meaning that the American-Egyptian-Israeli triangle will be a news item in the American media, at least for a few days.
Obama will probably encourage Mursi to be more open about his orientation, maybe by visiting a staunch pro-Israel institute as the Tunisian Al-Nahda Party leader Rachid Al-Ghannouchi did on his first visit to Washington after the Islamists' victory in Tunisia. Obama would appreciate such a gesture if for no other reason than to thwart Republican Party attacks that accuse him of letting down an erstwhile ally and of himself being a Muslim. This sounds like a fair price for the Obama administration's recognition of Mursi, despite the irregularities that marred the Egyptian elections, such as the repeated threats of violence if Mursi lost, his supporters' sectarian propaganda, and the prevention of Christians in some areas from voting. Furthermore, the administration did not protest against Mursi's assuming both the executive and legislative powers in Egypt, which flies in the face of the principle of checks and balances. So, will Mursi acquiesce, or will he hide behind a beard?
The United States courted the Brotherhood even before Mubarak's fall. But it takes two to tango. So far the Brotherhood has been happy to let America lead, while trying to create the impression, especially at home, that it is seeking new dance partners during four and 36-hour visits to Tehran and Beijing, respectively. Will it manage to keep up this image for long? It seems doubtful. Mursi's aides should make sure they pack his favourite dancing shoes, as all eyes will be turned on him when he makes his first appearance in Washington later this month.
The writer is a political analyst.

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Press review

2012-09-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Stepping up the money hunt

2012-09-29T04:58:00.000-07:00

Hopes are high that a newly-formed national commission will be able to recover money smuggled abroad by members of the former Mubarak regime, writes Gamal Essam El-Din
Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Mursi is about to issue a presidential decree to set up a national commission entrusted with recovering money smuggled outside Egypt by the family and cronies of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak.
The six-article decree states that the new commission will open an inquiry into all reports and lawsuits regarding money smuggled out of Egypt since 1992. A technical secretariat will be formed to take the measures necessary to trace the wealth of Mubarak, his family and henchmen.
"The secretariat will conduct negotiations with all international and regional organisations and foreign countries to gather as much information about Mubarak's wealth as possible," Article 2 of the decree says.
Article 5 states that the Ministry of Finance will open a special bank account at the Central Bank of Egypt for money recovered from abroad. Article 6 will make it obligatory for all state institutions to surrender the documents necessary for the commission to move forward.
Some sources put Mubarak's wealth at more than $70 billion, most of it in the UK and Switzerland. The fact that Mubarak's wife Suzanne is Anglo-Egyptian caused the family to invest most of its wealth in England, sources say. Legal experts in Egypt have lamented the fact that the British authorities are not helping in recovering money possessed by the Mubarak family in the UK.
The UK government announced this week that it was planning to send an expert to Egypt to help recover Mubarak's money. While UK Foreign Secretary William Hague once said that the UK was ready to offer all the help necessary to Egypt to recover the stolen money, his statement has never given rise to any concrete steps.
Hossam Eissa, a legal expert and member of the new commission, said "there should be adequate documented information about the money stolen and smuggled out of Egypt, so that European countries will assist in recovering this money."
Eissa criticised the UK for not doing enough to help Egypt in tracing the Mubarak family's illegal wealth in the UK. A report by the BBC this week indicated that the wealth of Mubarak's family in the UK was estimated at some 85 billion pounds sterling (about $135 billion) and that regime cronies also possess more than 15 billion pounds sterling in assets and personal accounts in the UK.
The report said a house owned by Gamal Mubarak in London's Knightsbridge district is estimated to be worth 10 million pounds sterling.
The wealth of the cronies of the former Mubarak regime has been the focus of public attention lately, when an investigative judge decided to place former presidential candidate and Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafik on a watch list on 29 August.
Shafik will be questioned over alleged corruption, notably by helping Mubarak's two sons Alaa and Gamal to obtain 40,000 metres of land near Ismailia at the low price of 70 piastres per metre. A complaint filed by Essam Sultan, a former parliamentary deputy and lawyer, alleged that Shafik had used his position as chair of the Association of Air Pilots in 1993 to sell Gamal and Alaa the land.
On Monday, the investigative judge, Osama El-Saidi, ordered that Nabil Shukri, former chair of the association, be placed in custody after he admitted being forced by Shafik to help Gamal and Alaa obtain the land.
Shafik's lawyer strongly denied that his client had been involved in corruption. Shafik, currently in Abu Dhabi, said "the charges levelled against me are politically motivated."
"An avalanche of accusations was directed at me after the end of the presidential elections, but this was no surprise due to the power of one party going after me," he said, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Shafik's opponent Mohamed Mursi, now Egypt's president, belongs.
Shafik's lawyer, Shawqi El-Sayed, said the complaints filed against Shafik were malicious and aimed at tarnishing his image. El-Sayed said Shafik had never been summoned for questioning and that his defence team should be informed of any charges against him.
Yehia Qadri, another of Shafik's lawyers, said that "Mubarak's two sons Gamal and Alaa bought the land from the board of the Association of the Air Pilots in 1990 and before Shafik was appointed its chairman in 1992." He said that "Shafik had just signed the purchase contract when Alaa and Gamal wanted to document it with the public notary."
Joining forces with Shafik, prominent sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim said that "Islamist facism is out to get Shafik and all those who attacked the Muslim Brotherhood."
Closely related to the charges against Shafik are two complaints filed against Sami Anan, former military chief of staff and deputy chairman of the former ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and Mohamed El-Tohami, former chair of the Administrative Control Authority (ACA).
Lawyer Samir Sabri has charged that Anan made a huge amount of money from houses and plots of land in the upscale Golf district east of Cairo. "Anan violated the law by obtaining two plots of land in the same district, the first estimated at 600 metres and the second at around 1,000 metres," Sabri said.
President Mursi awarded Anan the Medal of the Republic when he was sent into retirement on 12 August, leading some to think that Anan would be immune to subsequent investigation.
El-Tohami is accused of using his position between 2008 and 2012 to help businessmen and cronies of the former regime to avoid investigation or trial.
In his complaint, Moetasem Fathi, a former ACA officer, said "El-Tohami declined to give the prosecution authorities documents about the corruption of former Mubarak regime officials and helped fake documents so they could avoid persecution."
Eissa said "it is natural that the wealth of Mubarak and his cronies will remain a major public issue for some time. We have a lot of statements and documents about the wealth of the former regime to look into, but it will take a while to make sure these are soundly based."
"Some of the complaints filed against former regime officials could be motivated by revenge and a desire to settle accounts. For this reason, we have high hopes that the new commission will put the inquiries on the right track," he said.
On 29 August after a year-and-a-half of inquiries, the state-affiliated Illicit Gains Authority (IGA) decided to refer Safwat El-Sherif, Mubarak's long-time minister of information and secretary-general of the former ruling National Democratic Party, for trial on charges of profiteering and securing wealth estimated at LE300 million ($50 million) by illegal means.
The IGA said El-Sherif, also former chairman of the Shura Council, the upper house of the Egyptian parliament, and his two sons Ashraf and Ihab had illegally taken possession of 56 villas, chalets and plots of land.
It said that El-Sherif had built a mosque on a plot of land he owned illegally. The report added that El-Sherif's two sons had used their father's job as minister of information to build a media empire that was able to manipulate television satellite channels.
El-Sherif is currently facing trial on charges of masterminding attacks on peaceful protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square during the revolution. He is one of several former Mubarak regime officials to be under investigation, among them Fathi Sorour, former speaker of the People's Assembly, who faces charges of manslaughter and profiteering.

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Mayor of NJ's capital arrested in corruption probe

2012-09-29T01:46:00.000-07:00

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Federal agents arrested the mayor of New Jersey's capital early Monday as part of a corruption investigation, alleging he agreed to accept bribes in connection with a proposed parking garage — actually a fake project created by authorities trying to capture him.

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, his brother Ralphiel and convicted sex offender Joseph Giorgianni, a Mack supporter who owns a Trenton sandwich shop, were accused of conspiring to obstruct, delay and affect interstate commerce by extortion under color of official right.

Federal prosecutors alleged Mack agreed to use his influence in connection with a proposed parking garage in the city. The garage was made up — a fake project created by investigators to try to capture Mack, who has financial problems and attracted legal scrutiny since he took office.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said at a news conference Monday that the city-owned land for the garage was assessed at $271,000. He said Mack and Giorgianni agreed to accept $100,000 for the land for the city coffers — as long as the purported developers paid a bribe of $100,000 to be split between the two alleged conspirators.

A federal magistrate Monday ordered Mack released on $150,000 bond but ruled that he cannot leave the state while free on bail. Mack's attorney would not comment on the case.

Federal agents began working with an informant to gather information on Mack and the others in September 2010, just two months after Mack took office. Fishman would not say when the investigation began or why.

Fishman said investigators quickly understood the relationship between the mayor and the sandwich shop owner: "It became clear he was a bagman for the mayor."

The defendants received $54,000 and anticipated accepting an additional $65,000 from a cooperating witness who purported to be a developer, according to court documents that laid out the sting.

The criminal complaint portrays Giorgianni as a boastful man who did most of the talking with two FBI informants — one who was cooperating to get a better deal in his own criminal case, another who was paid.

The sting was similar to the massive "Bid Rig" sting that resulted in criminal charges against 46 people — many of them local officials — in 2009. Then, bribes were attached to fictitious development projects. Prosecutors have had mixed success in winning convictions.

Giorgianni complained at one point that Mack, 46, could not take bribes because he was being watched so closely, the documents said. "It's sickening," he told one of the informants, according to the court papers.

"I like to make money for my friends," he said, according to the papers, and went on to reference infamously corrupt political boss William M. Tweed. "I like to do it like the Boss Tweed way. You know Boss Tweed ran Tammany Hall?"

He was also caught on tape telling one of the informants: "One thing about the Mack administration — when I say that, it's me and Mack — we're not greedy. We're corruptible. We want anybody to make a buck," and "I'm there to buffer the thing where, you know, take the weight ... going to jail's my business. It ain't his."

By contrast, when Mack was recorded, it was mostly just to say he'd meet someone or exchanging pleasantries. But in April, he was recorded at a meeting with Giorgianni and one of the informants saying: "I really appreciate what you guys have done for us. I appreciate your support and, like before, I support you and I'll keep on supporting you."

Authorities say, though, that the short-in-stature Mack, whom Giorgianni referred to as "Napoleon," was involved in the scheme. One piece of evidence they offer is that Giorgianni referred to money by code — calling it "Uncle Remus" — when he spoke with Mack, and that Mack seemed to know what he was saying.

The complaint also said that $2,500 in $100 bills with the serial numbers of those given to Giorgianni were found in a search of Ralphiel Mack's home in July.

Tony Mack was taken to an FBI office in Hamilton for processing and was driven into a secure area of the federal courthouse in Trenton at around 11 a.m. He was due in court later in the afternoon.

His administration has been in turmoil from Day 1, staggering from one crisis to another. A housecleaning of staff at City Hall opened the door for Mack's own appointees, who quickly turned it into a revolving door.

Under an agreement reached last year, the Democrat may hire department heads only from a pool of applicants the state offers or he risks losing $6 million in state aid.

Under state law, he would be forced out of office if he is convicted. But activists in Trenton would like to see him step down immediately. "If he were smart, he'd resign," said Jerell Blakely, a former campaign manager for Mack who is now a critic. Blakely predicted Mack would not step down on his own.

The mayor and his brother could each face 20 years in prison if convicted.

Giorgianni and eight others were charged separately Monday with a scheme to distribute oxycodone from the sandwich shop, and he was also charged with weapon possession by a convicted felon. He went to prison in the 1980s on charges of carnally abusing and debauching the morals of a 14-year-old girl in the back of his shop.

The case gained notoriety because of weight-related health problems that got Giorgianni, a steakhouse owner who once claimed to tip the scale at over 500 pounds, released and led a prosecutor to charge he "ate his way out of jail."

He faces up to 50 years in prison if he's convicted on all charges.

___

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Mursi beyond Tehran

2012-09-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

In the Iranian capital and in Cairo, Dina Ezzat deciphers President Mursi's Iran visit, its intentions and possible outcomes Mursi (r)attended the NAM summit with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Iranian chief of Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Tehran
"It is still early to talk about specifics regarding Egyptian-Iranian relations," said Yasser Ali, the Egyptian presidential spokesman.
Ali was speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly as President Mohamed Mursi was exiting the meeting room at the Tehran Conference Hall where he had conferred with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for around 40 minutes, following the participation of both in the opening session of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran Thursday, whereby Mursi transferred the rotated presidency of the summit from Egypt to Iran.
According to Ali's statement to the Weekly and that of Ambassador Alaa Youssef, the head of Egypt's Interest Section in Iran, and of Ambassador Moatez Ahmadine, Egypt's permanent representative to the UN headquarters in New York, the venue of the NAM Secretariat, Mursi's brief visit to Tehran on his way back from Beijing was by and large multilateral with not much bilateral input.
"Of course, there were good exchanges of courteous statements and an emphasis by President Ahmadinejad on the respect that Iran has for Egypt and its great people, and its great [25 January] revolution. Of course Egyptian President Mursi, in turn, expressed respect for Iran and its history and its role, but we cannot say that bilateral relations were really discussed," commented an Iranian official who took part in the Mursi-Ahmadinejad encounter.
He added that eventually the time would come for that, because ultimately "what the two nations, these two great nations, have in common is much bigger than their differences."
The visit of Mursi to Tehran, which started late morning and ended early afternoon, is the first such high-level visit by an Egyptian official to Tehran after it severed its relations with Egypt in 1979 at a time of the establishment of the Islamic Republic, when refuge was offered by then Egyptian president Anwar El-Sadat to Iran's ousted Shah, and against the backdrop of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
Since that time, relations between Cairo and Tehran went from cold to hostile. Differences between the two countries grew with the time from mere political differences over the management of the Arab-Israeli struggle to differences over the Islamist rule of Iran versus relatively secular rule in Egypt, and of Sunni versus Shia leadership in the Middle East, especially during the years of war between Iran and Iraq, then under the leadership of president Saddam Hussein, in the late 1980s.
The visit of Mursi to Tehran this week, as head of the Egyptian delegation to the NAM summit, was hoped by many to signal the end of these differences and to initiate a new rapprochement that could eventually lead to the normalisation of relations -- something that was attempted by former foreign minister Amr Moussa under the rule of Hosni Mubarak in the late 1990s, but that he did not successfully pull off, according to Egyptian diplomats, due to Mubarak's hesitation and US influence over his foreign policy choices.
None of the aspired to change happened, according to almost identical accounts offered by Egyptian and Iranian officials, during Mursi's brief visit to Tehran. Rather the contrary could well be true, some officials say.
Mursi received huge media attention upon his arrival to Imam Khomeini International Airport and upon his departure from the Tehran Conference Hall. It is also true that Mursi referred to his Iranian counterpart as "my dear brother" during the opening of the summit. Following the visit of Mursi, the Iranian president also told the Iranian official press that, "Egyptians and Iranians have so much in common."
However, beyond this symbolism there is very little to be said in terms of substance on a positive outcome of Mursi's visit to Tehran from a bilateral perspective.
Mursi was not at all sensitive, in the assessment of Iranian individuals who spoke to the Weekly in Tehran, over Shia reluctance to the mention of some of the Prophet Mohamed's associates in his ultra-Islamic greeting at the beginning of what was otherwise a political speech in the opening of the NAM summit.
"May God's peace and prayers be upon the Prophet Mohamed and his sahabah (close associates) Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali and that of the Holy Family of the Prophet," Mursi said at the onset of his speech.
While the mention of the last, Ali and the Holy Family of the Prophet, falls squarely within the bounds of predominantly Shia Iran appreciation, the reference to the first three is all but a taboo according to the Shia sect.
According to one of Mursi's aides, the reference in its totality was designed to indicate the need to go beyond the barriers of division in Muslim history between those that Shias appreciate and those appreciated by Sunnis, the predominant Muslim sect in Egypt.
This might have been the intention, but Mursi's interlocutors were certainly offended. According to one Iranian official who asked not to be named, this introductory paragraph in the speech of Mursi acted as a reminder of statements that the Egyptian president had earlier made in Saudi Arabia where he spoke in an untypical fashion for an Egyptian head of state on Egyptian-Saudi determination to defend the Sunni sect.
According to an Egyptian diplomat who accompanied Mursi during the visit to Saudi Arabia in early July, that Sunni emphasis "came out of nowhere" and it was not introduced or advised by diplomatic aides to the president, nor had it ever been part of Egyptian political jargon.
"I remember back in 2004 when [ousted president] Mubarak made a reference in a TV interview to the attempt of Iranian Shias to get in alliance with the Shia majority in Iraq, the [Egyptian] Foreign Ministry strongly advised against this line. Egypt does not identify itself as a Sunni state but as a leading Arab Muslim state," the diplomat said.
The ultra-Muslim stance and specific Sunni identification that Mursi seemed to be proposing in his speech before NAM was not just offending to the Iranians. It was also perceived as unfortunate back home in Egypt.
"This is a really disturbing remark," suggested Amin Iskandar, a Nasserist politician and member of the Arab Affairs Committee in the dissolved People's Assembly.
"The introduction of Mursi's speech is not becoming of that of the president of Egypt. Why talk about Sunni versus Shia matters in the onset of a political speech before an international organisation? What was the purpose? Was Mursi trying to reposition Egypt as an Islamist state now?" asked Iskandar.
He added: "Egypt had never been trapped in the Sunni-Shia polarisation game and it should not be doing so today, and not ever, because that goes against its regional leadership interests and consequently against its national security interests."
For his part, prominent political scientist and commentator Amr El-Shobaki, who generally held a positive view of Mursi's trip to Iran, argued that the Sunni versus Shia component in the speech before NAM was uncalled for and unfortunate.
"Egypt is not a radical Sunni state; Egypt is a state of a very moderate Sunni majority that has an affinity to the Holy Family and has as such a very unique nature to its Sunni Islam. Egypt through Al-Azhar University has always played a leading role in bridging the gap between Sunnis and Shias and it should not be abandoning this crucial mission, which is not only religious but indeed cultural and strategic," El-Shobaki added.
If some were offended by the Sunni aspect in Mursi's speech, others were perturbed by what they qualified as the "Muslim Brotherhood policy line" they said Mursi put across in the speech.
"When the Egyptian president spoke against Damascus he was, I am afraid, reflecting his perspective as a leading Muslim Brotherhood figure and not as that of the president of what is supposed to be a leading Arab state," commented Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim, who headed the delegation of his country to the NAM summit.
In his speech, Mursi crossed borders he had personally embraced with regards to the Egyptian position on the Syrian file. Mursi used to speak of the need for the legitimate demands of the Syrian people for democratisation to be observed and for bloodshed to come to an end. In Tehran, the Egyptian president surprised his hosts, the closest regional allies to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, with an unprecedented attack on the Syrian regime for its actions during 18-month plus protests-turned-armed confrontations.
Mursi qualified the Al-Assad regime as an "oppressive regime" and insisted that it had "lost legitimacy". Indeed, the president equated the Syrian people under Al-Assad with the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.
"This was the talk of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood," restated Al-Muallim.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria are particularly active within the ranks of an otherwise diversified Syrian opposition that emerged in March 2011 demonstrations to end the rule of the Alawite minority, a Shia offshoot, that has headed Syria from the 1970s until today.
Iskandar too was critical of what he qualified as Muslim Brotherhood influence over the position that Mursi expressed with regards to Syria. "We are all appreciative of the legitimate and overdue demand of the Syrians for democracy. There are no two ways about it. However, it is impossible for anyone to equate the regime of Al-Assad, despite the horrid bloodshed in Syria, with the Israeli occupation of Palestine," Iskandar said.
According to Iskandar, "had Mursi been really concerned about the call for freedom and democracy he should have also made a reference to the call for democracy in Bahrain," where the Shia majority has for over a year been protesting against persecution at the hands of Sunni minority rule.
"For Mursi, it is not a matter of defending freedom but rather a matter of defending the Muslim Brotherhood perspective and associations," Iskandar suggested. He added that this line is compatible with the foreign policy agenda of Qatar, "that has an increasing influence over Egyptian foreign policy," adding that "Qatar is a regional proxy for the US."
During his visit to Tehran, President Mursi had a brief encounter with the emir of Qatar who had just visited Egypt mid-August. "The Qataris are opposed to the regime of Al-Assad, but not to the persecution of Shia in Bahrain, and Mursi spoke about Syria under the pretext of defending freedoms but completely dropped Bahrain," Iskandar criticised.
Indeed, the Iranian interpreter who was translating Mursi's speech into Persian was said, according to Iranian journalists, to have played around with his translation. In converting Mursi's speech into Persian, the Iranian interpreter pinned the attack made by the Egyptian president on the Bahraini rather than the Syrian regime.
Nonetheless, many Egyptian politicians and commentators had a positive reaction to Mursi's statements on Syria. "It was an overdue support," El-Shobaki said.
According to El-Shobaki, it is reductionist to suggest that the Egyptian position expressed by Mursi in Tehran is an outcome of Qatari influence over Egyptian foreign policy. "This is absolutely exaggerated," he said. El-Shobaki made reference to the criticism that the majority of Egyptian political quarters expressed against what they qualified as Mursi's "hesitant and flat positions on Syria".
"In Tehran, the president should have acknowledged the Bahraini call for democracy, but his failure to do so does not mean that he should have also overlooked a very bloody situation in Syria, especially that the support for the Syrian revolution is widely sensed not just in Egyptian political circles but indeed in the Egyptian street," El-Shobaki suggested.
According to Amr Ramadan, deputy assistant foreign minister, Mursi had already called for a political end to the crisis in Syria. During his participation in the extraordinary summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) held two weeks ago in Mecca, at the invitation of the Saudi monarch, Mursi called for the launch of a working group of the OIC to help find resolution to the situation in Syria.
In Tehran, on Thursday, and Friday when the summit closed, Ramadan added, Egypt was supportive of a resolution that the NAM meeting adopted to welcome the mission of the new UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.
"What we opposed was an Iranian proposal to start a NAM working group on Syria, and our rationale there was simple: there are already several mechanisms and what is needed now is the coordination of efforts rather than the launch of a parallel mediation process," Ramadan suggested.
At the end of the day, both Ramadan and El-Shobaki agree that what Mursi did in essence with his remarks in Syria during the NAM summit was to substantiate Egypt's commitment to take a clear stance on the matter.
Indeed, in the analysis of El-Shobaki, the clear outcome of the Mursi visit to Tehran is the re-launching of Egyptian foreign policy.
Mursi in his speech also departed from the traditional reconciliatory line that Egypt had for the past 10 years embraced on the Palestinian cause. The president voiced direct and untypical criticism of Israel and highlighted previously overlooked matters, like the fate of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
"This file is a crucial matter on the agenda of NAM. It had received much attention during the Egyptian presidency of the NAM summit and it is recommended as a priority issue in the transfer report that Egypt made during the handover of the presidency of the summit," Ramadan argued.
Moreover, the NAM summit made a commitment to support the diplomatic and political attempts to get Palestine permanent and full membership in the UN, in view of the failure of the so-called "peace process" to lead to a Palestinian state.
"Of course this mobilisation, in which Egypt is playing a key role, is not at all to the liking of the Israelis and they are endlessly complaining about it," the same diplomat suggested.
Egyptian diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the mere participation of Mursi in a Tehran-hosted summit is in itself a clear message to Israel that Egypt is no longer hostage to what makes Israel comfortable or not.
"We were told clearly that the Israelis are feeling very apprehensive about this visit, even when they knew that it was not designed to re-launch diplomatic relations immediately," said one diplomat.
Alarm against Mursi's visit to Tehran was sounded also in Washington. "There was much pressure, but it was declined," the same diplomat added.
According to Ramadan, the decision of Egypt to participate at this high level was made in view of the reclaimed attention that Egypt is giving to its role in the Third World.
"In a sense, the decision was made irrespective of the venue of the summit. NAM might not be making as much commotion as it used to during the heydays when it was first launched with the support, and indeed initiative, of [late president Gamal] Abdel-Nasser in the 1950s, but ultimately it is a grouping that brings together about two thirds of UN member states," Ramadan said.
He added that the issues on the agenda of NAM, which range from international conflicts to disarmament and economic and environmental cooperation, fall squarely within the list of priorities of Egyptian foreign policy.
And the fact that Mursi went to Tehran, El-Shobaki argued, opens a new phase of Egyptian foreign policy by which Egypt would not restrict itself to communication with the countries it sees eye-to-eye with.
"The president went to Tehran in a positive sign of goodwill. But while there he did not shy away from expressing disagreements between Cairo and Tehran. This is the way things should be," El-Shobaki said.
The shaking and remaking of Egyptian foreign policy seems to be a priority for Mursi. The president, who repeatedly committed to observe the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and who is as yet acting in line with the close alliance between Cairo and Washington, is venturing into a wider spectrum and a more diversified sphere of communication.
Ahead of his short and controversial visit to Tehran, Mursi had been in Beijing. For October, he is planning visits to Malaysia and Indonesia, whose vice president he met while in Tehran. He is also considering a trip to Brazil and Chile, which will possibly come in the wake of his visit to New York during the last week of this month to head the Egyptian delegation to the UN General Assembly.
The South America and Asian trips are in parallel with plans to visit European capitals that Egypt keeps in close relation with.
"If Egypt is aiming to reassume its leadership it needs to take clear positions on key matters and to widen its scope of foreign policy engagement. I think Mursi is attempting to do both," El-Shobaki concluded.

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Dangerous to freedom

2012-09-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

A ministerial decree to amend the current emergency law has been rejected outright, Mona El-Nahhas reports
Nakhnoukh is a name that may be on everyone's lips these days, but it was a familiar name to many even before his arrest. He was known as "The Muallim" (master) to those in his employ and as "The General" in hooligan circles, he introduced himself to the prosecutor-general's office as the owner of a private security firm and chairman of the board of directors of the Sawt Al-Dawla (Voice of the Nation) newspaper. In fact, the newspaper was more in the nature of his own mouthpiece, for he was the hidden voice of the former regime who, according to leaks from persons close to him, was the man who took charge of those difficult tasks that the regime needed done when it came to parliamentary elections and shady land deals. He was the stick that was brought down on those who refused to cooperate.
He had built up a small empire and wielded his sceptre from a villa in King Mariout gated community on the outskirts of Alexandria. He displayed his power and status in the types of animals he purchased, his evening revelries, and his personal discotheque in his villa compound. The shadier side of his life has begun to emerge during the investigations in the prosecutor-general's office in Alexandria. A general picture is taking shape and we can expect further details from the hearings of his trial, now that prosecutor-general Ibrahim El-Halbawi has arraigned him on charges of thuggery, possession of drugs and unlicensed arms, possession of devices enabling him to make international phone calls, possession of beasts of prey without a licence and facilitating prostitution. At the same time, the Alexandria Court of Appeals prosecutors office and the office of the deputy prosecutor-general in Cairo are coordinating in investigations into Nakhnoukh's relationship with the former regime and, specifically, his involvement in the violence that erupted shortly after the January Revolution began. On this aspect of "The General's" darker side, Mohamed El-Beltagui of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership described Nakhnoukh, in a television talk show, as the commander of the National Democratic Party's secret organisation which engineered parliamentary elections and organised violence.
In his deposition before the prosecution-general, Nakhnoukh was cool and systematic in his denial of the allegations. He said that he had licences for the weapons that were confiscated from his home, as well as for the lions and dogs he possessed. He stated that he had purchased the lions 13 years ago, and that he has no knowledge of the automated weapons that were mentioned in the charges. He also made it clear that he had not been present at the villa for 10 consecutive months because he had been in Lebanon on what he described as a combination of business trip and holiday from 20 December to 18 August. His lawyers explained that MB leader El-Beltagui instigated Nakhnoukh's arrest through inflammatory remarks in a television talk show. They submitted a recording of that programme on Nakhnoukh's mobile phone as proof that Muslim Brotherhood "incitement" was the sole reason for his arrest, adding that Nakhnoukh travels regularly outside the country and that when he last returned to Egypt through Cairo International Airport there were no pending cases that would have caused him to be detained at the airport.
The lawyers argued that the case being brought against Nakhnoukh was no more than a vendetta being waged by the Muslim Brotherhood in revenge for his having been a supporter of the former regime. They maintain that no specific names were mentioned in connection with the allegations in this regard and that the same applied with regard to the charge of "facilitating prostitution" in artistic circles.
Although hashish was found and served as the basis of the allegation of drug dealing, Nakhnoukh claims that they were solely for his personal consumption. "There is no evidence whatsoever that I ever was involved in drug trafficking," he said. With regard to the other vice charge, he said, "I know only one of the women that were mentioned and she is the wife of my assistant. I do not know any of the other girls. They came to the villa because they know that I have good relations with performers and producers and they hoped I would introduce them to someone who would help them in their acting careers." Although there had been women in his villa on the evening before his arrest, he claims that he had been asleep at the time and that he had never seen them before the morning of the day he was arrested. The 46-year-old Sabri Nakhnoukh is unmarried, but says that he had just become engaged during his last visit to Lebanon. Among the papers the prosecutor-general's office found in his home were a weapon's licence issued in his name from Lebanon and a letter stating that he worked as a media advisor to the embassy of Uzbekistan in Egypt.
During the first hearing in Alexandria, the alleged thug baron claimed that the reason for his arrest was his disputes with the current heads of the Ministry of Interior. When asked about the nature of these disputes, he said that he had cooperated with the former regime which availed itself of his services during parliamentary elections.
During the second hearing, Nakhnoukh was accused of having met with the former minister of interior in 2005, just before the parliamentary elections were held that year. In that meeting, Nakhnoukh was allegedly asked to organise thugs to man the polling stations in order to keep out NDP voters. He was also accused of being involved in vote purchasing and in pro-regime violence following the revolution. Nakhnoukh denied his relationship with the former regime and any of its chief figures, contrary to the purported "leaks" to the press.
CONFISCATED ITEMS: Among the prosecution-general hearings with Nakhnoukh, two sessions were held in the prosecutor-general's department in the Alexandrian area of Al-Amiriya. These sessions focussed on items that were in his possession and persons in his company at the time of his arrest. One item was a Glock handgun licensed to the owner from Dokki police station in Egypt. In his company were 12 persons, listed as dangerous and having a criminal record. Four women were also there.
As for the items the officers seized from inside the villa, they included a 39 calibre rifle, seven safes, bullets, three holsters, a rifle "suspected to be an antique", four electric shock batons, a bulletproof vest, four large knives and three Motorola walkie-talkies. In addition, there was hashish; LE56,995, $3,060, and 4,000 Lebanese lira; 16 mobile phones, six wrist watches of various makes and a pair of night-vision goggles; and finally three bottles of alcohol and some gold jewellery.
Outside the villa, the prosecution noted five cars, five lions in locked iron cages, six predatory dogs, four horses, an ostrich and various domesticated animals.
More details should be forthcoming in the coming days, as the investigation continues in this case which has riveted public attention in Egypt due to the accused's shady connections with the former regime and his alleged involvement in electoral rigging and organised violence against demonstrators.

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MPLA preponderates

2012-09-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Buttressed by its landslide victory, Angola's ruling party must act now with a new mandate to bolster confidence among the country's youth, contends Gamal Nkrumah A man looks at a copy of the ballot poster at the entrance of a polling station in the Angolan capital Luanda during national elections
Wherever he goes Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, Africa's leading Communist capitalist cannot escape the question. When will the trickle-down effect impact the poorest of the poor in the third largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa and Nigeria -- except that South Africa has a population of 50 million and Nigeria a population of 170 million while Angola only has 20 million. With two-digit economic growth rates over the past decade half of the Angolan population lives below the poverty line.
The United Nations Human Development Index ranks Angola 148th out of 187 countries -- a paradoxically poor performance for one of Africa's wealthiest countries, one blessed with minerals galore, oil and natural gas, and tremendous agricultural potential.
Dos Santos understands that Angola is on course to become an African energy superpower, and the rejuvenation of Angola's capital city and other urban centres is a hopeful sign that the scars of the three decades long civil war are fast healing. Moreover, Angola long involved militarily in its northern neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war, has long pulled out of the Congolese imbroglio.
Angola's National Electoral Commission declared the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (better known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA) as having won a landslide victory of 72 per cent. Its onetime arch rival the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) scooped barely 19 per cent, almost doubling its 2008 tally. UNITA never survived the crushing blow of the assassination of its charismatic leader Jonas Savimbi, an ethnic Ovimbundu, in 2002.
The newly formed political party, the Salvation Electoral Commission CASA-CE trailed behind as a poor third with no more than six per cent. Predictably enough, what the Angolan media played down was that the turnout was down from 80 per cent during the last general elections in 2008 to 60 per cent last week.
"We will not allow a fraud to take place and we will not recognise the legitimacy of any government resulting from elections held outside the law," UNITA's leader Isaias Samakura ominously cautioned before the elections. The turnout in the Angolan capital Luanda, traditionally an MPLA stronghold, was less than 50 per cent. Meanwhile, the MPLA's campaign cost $70 million -- a substantial sum by African standards. UNITA, CASA-CE and civil society groups filed complaints and threatened a legal challenge.
Even now with Savimbi long dead, the doubters are asking many questions, a number of them reasonable enough, about the pace and process of multi-party democracy in Angola.
With its fabulous wealth the country, and the ruling party, do not want to be remembered as one of the wretchedly brief experiments in half-baked African democracies. The restless youth seem determined to run their own affairs, whatever the MPLA government may say. Dos Santos insists that Angola at least is heading in the right direction.
Angolans must be given the chance to disprove these prejudices against African democracy. The MPLA's role model appears to be South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) -- a party that has monopolised power since the end of apartheid on 1994. Both South Africa's ANC and Angola's MPLA claim to be parties of the left -- in the MPLA's case it is avowedly a party with Marxist roots.
What was once Angola's Achilles heel is becoming a competitive advantage. The country was depopulated in the course of five centuries by Portuguese slave traders shipping hapless Angolans to Brazil primarily and South America more generally.
Next, the Portuguese instituted one of the most brutish colonial regimes on the African continent with ruthless exploitation of the peasantry and indentured labour. The Portuguese colonialists deliberately foisted tribal divisions and encouraged ethnic and tribal identities in a most ruinous divide and rule policy.
Angola's low population density has now become a decisive advantage. Still, Angola's ramshackle public services desperately need upgrading. The country has one of the highest rates of disabled people as direct result of the calamitous civil war that claimed the lives of countless Angolans. Dilapidated roads hamper rural development. It is against this grim backdrop that social tensions are brewing.
The Angolan capital Luanda has been home to the largest population of mixed race, or Mestizos residents in Africa, and they formed the basis of the MPLA to begin with. The Mestizos provided the bulk of the early nationalist, anti-colonial leaders and rank and file of the MPLA. Angola's late first president Augustino Neto and the current leader Eduardo dos Santos hail from the Mestizo community.
The MPLA has not yet quite shaken off that particular legacy yet, much to the chagrin of the Bantu groups, numerically far superior, such as the Ovimbundu, the country's most populous ethnic group, the closely related Mbundu and the Bakongo. Tribalism inevitably aggravates inequality, and political tribalism has played a dangerous, destructive and disgraceful role in Angolan politics.
The butchery was unsparing. The Angolan civil war ended exactly a decade ago in 2002. And, even as the MPLA attempts to attract a bigger following by staging musical festivals and carnivals where music blares and beer flows, anti-MPLA hip-hop blasting from the speakers of Luanda's candongeiros -- local dance halls. And, not to be outdone, the gangsters, or gatunos (criminals), and jobless youths wreaking havoc in the sprawling shantytowns surrounding Luanda deface the natural beauty and exuberance of the Angolan environment and its people.
None of this is an excuse for failing to act or stifling criticism. In Angola, like in South Africa, there is no time for tribalism. But there are serious differences between the ANC and the MPLA.
Angola urgently needs a more diversified economy. Strong energy revenues have not benefited the most disadvantaged groups of Angolans. South Africa's domestic market could form a solid foundation for its manufacturers to become exporters, reducing its dependence on minerals and agricultural produce. There is a fair amount of industry left in post-apartheid South Africa and that has prospects of competing in the regional, continental and international markets. Angola is bound to rely on energy and minerals for its economic growth and prosperity.
This is the root of it all -- slavery, colonialism and civil war. One of the under-appreciated trends is the rich musical tradition that gives the country its special character. The country is famous for its Kizomba dance and musical style with soft melodies to match the fast-paced Kuduru Techno-House music unique to Angola. Kizomba, Angola's answer to Argentina's Tango is a derivative of Semba, the traditional seductive Bantu "touch of the bellies" dance.
Kazutuka, Kabetula are Congolese, or Bakongo-style dances from northern Angola and the Rebita dance, like Kizomba is danced to songs with Portuguese lyrics. Kilapanda and Angolan Merengue stir the spirit of the nation. Angola's rich cultural heritage lends it a unique place in Africa and the Lusophone world.
If only. There is also the current trend of corruption in high places. And, the spectre of tribalism and ethnic strife haunts the sprawling country. The Ambundu, or northern Mbundu, who constitute around a quarter of the population of the country rival the southern Mbundu, or Ovimbundu, Angola's largest ethnic group constituting around 40 per cent of the total population of the country. The Bakongo in the far north are the third largest ethnic group with slightly less than 15 per cent of the Angolan population.
From its Marxist beginnings, the MPLA today appears as a plutocratic party of the prosperous top echelons of government and the inner circle of Dos Santos and well-to-do family members and high-ranking officials. Cranes and cement-mixers toil relentlessly in the fast-expanding Angolan capital. And Angolans have largely put down their guns to dance and enjoy their spectacular beaches.

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Iraq's fugitive VP convicted as attacks kill 92

2012-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president was sentenced Sunday to death by hanging on charges he masterminded death squads against rivals in a terror trial that has fueled sectarian tensions in the country. Underscoring the instability, insurgents unleashed an onslaught of bombings and shootings across Iraq, killing at least 92 people in one of the deadliest days this year.

It's unlikely that the attacks in 13 cities were all timed to coincide with the afternoon verdict that capped a monthslong case against Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a longtime foe of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Still, taken together, the violence and verdict could energize Sunni insurgents bent on returning Iraq to the brink of civil war by targeting Shiites and undermining the government.

Al-Hashemi fled to Turkey in the months after the Shiite-led government accused him of playing a role in 150 bombings, assassinations and other attacks from 2005 to 2011 — years in which the country was mired in retaliatory sectarian violence that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime. Most of the attacks were allegedly carried out by al-Hashemi's bodyguards and other employees, and largely targeted government officials, security forces and Shiite pilgrims.

The vice president declined to immediately comment on the verdict after meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara. He said he would "tackle this issue in a statement" in coming hours.

The politically charged case — which was announced the day after U.S. troops withdrew from the country last December — sparked a government crisis and fueled Sunni Muslim and Kurdish resentment against al-Maliki, whom critics say is monopolizing power.

Violence has ebbed significantly, but insurgents continue to stage high-profile bombings and shooting rampages. Al-Qaida's Iraq branch has promised a comeback in predominantly Sunni areas from which it was routed by the U.S. and its local allies after sectarian fighting peaked in 2007.

"These attacks show al-Qaida's ability to hit any place in Iraq and at any time," said Ali Salem, 40, an elementary school teacher in Baghdad. "The lack of security could take us back to zero."

The worst violence on Sunday struck the capital, where bombs pounded a half-dozen neighborhoods — both Sunni and Shiite — thoughout the day. But the deadliest attacks in Baghdad hit Shiite areas Sunday evening, hours after the al-Hashemi verdict was announced. In all, 42 people were killed in the capital and 120 wounded, according to police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The countrywide attacks began before dawn, with gunmen killing soldiers at an army post in the central Iraqi city of Dujail. A few hours later, a car exploded in a lot where police recruits waiting in line to apply for jobs outside Kirkuk in the country's north. Both Dujail and Kirkuk are former insurgent strongholds.

Over the day, at least 92 people were killed and more than 360 wounded in at least 21 separate bombings and shootings, according to reports from police and hospital officials. No group immediately claimed responsibility, but Iraq's Interior Ministry blamed al-Qaida in Iraq.

"The attacks today on the markets and mosques are aimed at provoking sectarian and political tensions," the ministry said in a statement. "Our war against terrorism is continuing, and we are ready."

The courtroom at Baghdad's criminal court was silent Sunday as the presiding judge read out the verdict. It convicted al-Hashemi and his son-in-law, Ahmed Qahtan, of organizing the murders of a Shiite security official and a lawyer who had refused to help the vice president's allies in terror cases. The two defendants were acquitted in a third case of the killing of a security officer due to a lack of evidence.

The court sentenced both men in absentia to death by hanging. They have 30 days to appeal the verdict and could win a retrial if they return to Iraq to face the charges. Al-Hashemi — who has been in office since 2006 — is on Interpol's most-wanted list, but Turkey has shown no interest in sending the vice president back to Baghdad.

The defense team began its closing statement with a searing indictment of Iraq's justice system, accusing it of showing no independence and siding with the Shiite-led government.

"From the beginning and through all procedures it has become obvious that the Iraqi judicial system has been under political pressure," attorney Muayad Obeid al-Ezzi, the head of the defense team, told the court.

The presiding judge immediately interjected, warning that that the court would open legal proceedings against the defense team if it continued to heap accusations on the court or the legal system.

Reaction to the verdict was largely along sectarian lines on the streets of Baghdad.

Sunni lawyer Abdullah al-Azami called the trial "another farce to be added to the Iraqi judicial system."

Shiite pharmacist Khalid Saied, meanwhile, said he supported the verdict and hoped the government would broadcast all the evidence against al-Hashemi "so that the entire world knows him."

Sunday's violence came amid fears that the insurgency has gained new strength after suffering heavy setbacks in U.S. and Iraqi offensives. Four of the attacks targeted Kirkuk, where city police commander Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir blamed the violence on al-Qaida.

The carnage stretched into the country's south, where bombs stuck to two parked cars exploded in the Shiite-dominated city of Nasiriyah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Baghdad. The blasts were near the French consulate and a local hotel in the city, although the consulate did not appear to be a target of the attack.

Local deputy health director Dr. Adnan al-Musharifawi said two people were killed and three were wounded at the hotel, and one Iraqi policeman was wounded at the consulate. Al-Musharifawi said no French diplomats were among the casualties. In Paris, France's Foreign Ministry said it "condemns with the greatest severity" the wave of attacks.

A string of smaller attacks Sunday also struck nine other cities. It was one of the worst outbreaks of violence in Iraq in 2012, although the single deadliest day was July 23, which saw at least 115 people killed — the most in more than two years.

___

Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, contributed to this report. Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at www.twitter.com/larajakesAP

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Religion and foreign policy

2012-09-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

When religion defines foreign policy it will inevitably clash with national interests, creating the grounds for wars that only elites who rule in the name of religion win, writes Gamil Matar
That Egypt's president cites Quranic verses and uses religious phrases in his public addresses does not surprise me. If we are accustomed from an early age to using them in our school compositions, there is nothing inherently odd in the president peppering his speeches with them, especially given that he is a religious man and a prominent member of an Islamist organisation that elevated him to his current office. Nevertheless, I must confess that I was taken aback by the prologue to the speech he delivered at a recent conference in Iran and in which he made mention of the companions of the Prophet and cited a verse from the Quran. Something about that prologue did not ring true. It's intent was consummately political and it conveyed the sense of a future policy orientation, which may well have been the intent of the speechwriters.
The conference in which this speech was delivered was the last summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). This movement is made up of numerous member states whose peoples have diverse religious affiliations. What bound these states together from the outset and protects them to this day as a non-aligned grouping is a set of political principles and interests that have no direct bearing on religion.
Clearly, the political point of employing religious references in a speech at a conference in which religion was not on the agenda was to deliver a "religious" message or, more accurately, a sectarian message to the host people, which in this case were the Iranians. I doubt that such a message could ever have been delivered in the era of NAM's founding fathers or in any of the subsequent conferences. Nothing in the substance of this message addressed a single one of that set of principles established by the conferences of Bandung and Belgrade and that set the course for generation after generation of Third World leaders and diplomats for the next 60 years.
Of course, our president was hardly the first political leader to use religious language for political ends. History is filled with accounts of the practice of mixing religion with politics in order to promote narrow interests or ambitious policies. Perhaps the architects of Western colonial policies set world records in the use of religion to accomplish imperial ends. History is similarly full of stories in which religion and politics are blended in order to evangelise or spread a religious calling, or to instil noble morals and ethics in international political practices. As we know, there are long-established schools in international relations that specialise in the connection between politics and ethics, and also power.
The stories abound and their conclusions and consequences are varied. Certainly no Arab or Muslim will forget the story of President George W Bush when he deliberately inserted the word "crusade" in his televised speech on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. I recall that at the time many international affairs specialists anticipated the onset of an age in which religion would interweave with international relations to a degree unprecedented in modern history. Their prediction came true. To read the political studies and minutes of Congressional hearing sessions of this period one would think that American scholars, politicians and diplomats had begun to regard religion as a state enterprise.
What this means is that US diplomacy can use religion to further US national interests. It does this through the application of the "religion by proxy" theory, which holds that people place their faith in the hands of a religious ruling minority that represents or claims to represent the pious majority. There are many testimonies to this transformation in US foreign policy design. Take, for example, how the US has changed its approach to religious movements in various parts of the world. The rule in US diplomacy used to be that since the US constitution insists on the separation of church from state, US diplomats should avoid dealing with religious parties and leaderships even if the aim is to further US interests. This rule vanished with the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001. From then onward, US statesmen and diplomats made it their business to deal with foreign religious parties and political forces, as well as to furnish all possible support to Christian evangelistic groups and organisations which became more energetic than ever in their campaigns to spread their ideas in South America, Africa and China.
In short, the US now began to follow in the heels of the erstwhile European colonial powers, when the imperialistic drive donned a religious mantle and blazoned the fiction of the Christian civilising mission in order to justify the occupation of the continents of the South and the East for the purpose of plundering their national resources and reducing their peoples to subjugation. Some people claim that the US added other pretexts to that flagrantly religious mission, namely the missions to spread democracy and human rights and liberties, and that sometimes it jumbled the lot of them together.
Others make a distinction between how the Europeans and how the Americans use religion in foreign policy. For example, Javier Solana, the former EU foreign affairs commissioner, warned against the danger of the American use of religion in foreign policy. The Americans are "absolutists," he said. Everything to them is either black or white, good or evil, with us or against us. Therefore, he argued, it is hard for them to be tolerant with other peoples or other religions, unlike the Europeans who had learned over centuries the true meaning of religious hatreds. Because the Europeans had had to pay a horrific toll for their religious wars, they eventually became among the most tolerant people on earth and the most accepting of the "other," which today is reflected in their foreign policies, or so argue the defenders of the properties of European culture and policy.
A foreign policy academy in the US has cautioned that the mixing religion with politics can frequently give rise to the "hijacking of religion". Unethical political leaders may take advantage of -- or feel compelled by -- certain circumstances to use religion as a cover for the pursuit of personal ends or for promoting narrow partisan interests. There are also many instances of political leaders who drew on religious passions to turn their people against other peoples, which only serves to make conflicts much more complex and intractable.
Others have been prompted by developments in their own countries or societies to warn against excessive blending of religion and politics. It is natural for different communities living side-by-side to fall into dispute and for disputes to erupt into violence. It is equally natural for local authorities to seize the opportunity to diffuse the situation before it spirals out of control, even before central authorities become aware of the situation. But in this day and age of ours, local disputes are increasingly becoming a cause of general concern because they offer an opening for foreign powers to meddle on the pretext of protecting a minority sect or ethnic group, and because the foreign meddling often causes the disputes to escalate into civil strife or even civil war. I am not sure of the scale of injustice being inflicted on the Muslims of Burma. Perhaps it is of a degree that merits such worldwide attention and international intervention. However, I am certain that other Muslims in northeastern India and in Bangladesh, itself, which is a Muslim nation, are the victims of grave injustices, while the "international community" remains unconcerned.
In all events, with Burma, as in many other cases, religion is being used to serve the "national" interests of other countries, in spite of the well-known "cost" of this practice, which is exorbitant and usually very bloody. This is not to say that the international community should stop supporting oppressed groups in Sankyang, Tibet, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and in many Arab and Islamic countries. Rather, the point is that the intervention should avoid inflaming the religious sensitivities of the peoples concerned. As history has shown, this practice has often created the soil upon which groups that originally existed on the fringes of society could develop into mass religious or sectarian movements with transnational dimensions. Or, more dangerously, it sparked the rise of terrorist groups that wrought fear, destruction and chaos and some of which were enlisted into the intelligence agencies of some governments in order to perform these governments' dirty work in other countries.
In certain quarters there is this assumption that communities or peoples that share the same religious affiliation rarely fight or engage in war. In my opinion, this theory is just as fallacious as the famous one that holds that democratic countries never make war on one another. As many international politics experts will tell you, the prime engine of the foreign policy of any state is national interest. The idea was first formulated by the father of the science of international relations, Hans Morgenthau, and the overwhelming majority of political scientists and statesmen still subscribe to it. Some of these go on to assert that the goal of realising national interests sometimes gives politicians the incentive to pursue actions that defy ethical principles. The eminent political scientist Arthur Schlesinger coined a now famous term for this phenomenon. He called it the "necessary immorality" in the manufacture of foreign policy.
This concept brings us to an inescapable reality. "Religious states" go to war just as "secular states" do and "religious states" can become embroiled in gruelling wars with other "religious states", including those that share the same religion and even the same religious denomination. The history of the Middle East, since the dawn of religion, is filled with religious wars, some of which lasted decades and left disastrous and long-lasting effects. Otherwise put, when religion enters into the equation as a shaper of foreign policy, it will inevitably clash with the chief engine of foreign policy, which is national interest. The winners in this game are never the people and the advancement of their societies, but only the elites who claim to rule in the name of religion and who will have no compunction about going on the warpath against other ruling elites who are their coreligionists in another country. There is an endless train of such wars, from the eras of the Islamic caliphates in Damascus, Baghdad and Istanbul, to the clash in Europe between the eastern and western Christian empires. In the Arab and Islamic world, alone, we have had the wars between Egypt and Yemen, Libya and Chad, Iraq and Kuwait, Iraq and Iran, the Turks and the Persians, and western Pakistan and eastern Pakistan or the "land of the Bengals."
The forced or artificial mixture of religion and foreign policies is fraught with risks, especially when the political elites who forge the policy decisions or orientations are "religious" in their political orientation or definition of their identity.
The writer is a political analyst and director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.

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Culture: Justifying intervention

2012-09-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

In a recent diary and film, French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy has recalled the role he played in last year's NATO-led intervention in Libya, writes David Tresilian
The French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, well-known in France for his popular books on philosophy and his journalism, came to international attention early last year when he went to the Libyan city of Benghazi to meet the leaders of the uprising against former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, subsequently promoting their cause with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and helping to bring about their international recognition.
For some days in March last year it might have even seemed that Lévy had taken over the running of French diplomacy, sidelining the country's then foreign minister Alain Juppé and persuading Sarkozy to place himself at the head of western efforts to intervene in Libya on the side of anti-Gaddafi forces.
According to the diary that Lévy has now published recalling these events, entitled La Guerre sans l'aimer (War without Liking It), he says that he originally went to Libya on a whim, having watched the Benghazi uprising on television, and it was only later that he decided to press Sarkozy into recognising the rebels as the legitimate Libyan government and into intervening militarily in their support against the Gaddafi regime.
He telephoned Sarkozy from Benghazi on 5 March last year, proposing to bring the Libyan rebels to Paris as a step towards their recognition as an alternative to the Gaddafi regime. This is shown in real time in Lévy's filmed version of events, entitled Le Serment de Tobrouk (The Tobrouk Oath), which was released in France earlier this year.
"Would you agree to meet this delegation personally," he asked Sarkozy, knowing that if so this would be "a major act with international ramifications." "Of course," Sarkozy apparently said in reply. "I will meet your friends with pleasure. Let's talk about it when you get to Paris."
Following a second telephone call, France recognised the Libyan National Transitional Council, composed of leaders of the uprising in Benghazi. Some days later, members of the Council were "stupefied" to be told, during a meeting in Paris organised by Lévy, that France also intended to recognise them "as the sole legitimate representatives of Libya" and that it would take the lead in organising an international coalition against the Gaddafi regime.
At this point in Levy's record of events, non-French readers may well have decided that he must be exaggerating the role he played in persuading Sarkozy to initiate the intervention that eventually brought in NATO and led to the collapse of the regime in Tripoli. Even in France foreign policy cannot be decided quite like that.
However, if Lévy did not in fact play the role he thinks he did, perhaps acting more as a front man for policies already decided elsewhere, this possibility does not seem to have struck him. In any event, readers of Lévy's diary or viewers of his film may want to put their scepticism on hold and attend instead to the reasons he gives for his decision to promote the western intervention in Libya, particularly since Lévy has recently been arguing in the French press for similar intervention in Syria.
In order for an uprising to be considered justified, a rebel group must be credible in its organisation and demands, and in order for a government to lose its legitimacy it must act in such a way as to forfeit its claim to be acting in the interests of its citizens. Yet, in practice such tests can be hard to meet, since rebel groups may not represent a majority, or even a large minority, of a country's population, and they may act to promote their own interests rather than those of the country as a whole.
It can also be hard to decide at what point a government has lost its legitimacy and has started acting in ways contrary to the interests of its citizens, since all governments have a duty to ensure security, meaning that they may decide to act militarily against groups that threaten it. There is also the question of double standards, since historically interventions, whatever the reasons given for them, have tended to take place unequally, some countries being considered ripe for foreign intervention and others being left well alone, whatever the nature of the events taking place within them.
In the Libyan case, Lévy seems to be in no doubt about the justification for the Benghazi uprising or the illegitimacy of the Gaddafi regime, though his use of a diary form can make it difficult to track down a definitive statement of the reasons behind his views. The waters are muddied further by Lévy's habit, linked to his use of a diary form, of writing down whatever enters his head, such that there is much material about his family, his personal and professional feuds, and his own career.
In the entry for 2 March, Lévy asks himself whether "I haven't put my finger on what is, in the end, the crime of Gaddafi ?ê" the imprisonment, the confinement, the placing in quarantine, and, at root, the attempt to bring about the spiritual deaths of the descendants of the kingdom of Cyrenaica?"
But it can't have been for this crime that the rebellion was initiated or the NATO-led intervention in its support carried out, since a desire to "bring Libya back to life" is not a credible political demand. There is much material about allegedly parallel cases, mostly to do with Lévy's earlier support of western intervention in the former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan, as well as about Sarkozy's own sabre-rattling. But on the question of how to deal with those states, Germany among them, that did not share Lévy's views about the necessity of foreign military intervention he has little to say apart from fulminate against them for not agreeing with his views.
Among the requirements before any intervention is carried out are that it should not make the situation worse and that the rebellion it is designed to support should have a reasonable chance of succeeding in bringing down the existing government and establishing an improved replacement regime. In the run-up to the NATO-led intervention in Libya, there must have been doubts about these requirements since the rebel groups in Benghazi did not seem to speak for the entire Libyan population and little was known about their aims and objectives for a replacement government.
Lévy brushes aside these doubts in the entry for 20 March entitled "where it is explained that Libya will not be like Iraq," in which he finally explains his views on what makes a war, or foreign military intervention, right. He runs through the standard arguments, including the intrinsic justice of the cause, the idea of intervention as an act of last resort, and the principle of proportionality, and claims that these fit the NATO-led intervention in Libya and the bringing down of the Gaddafi government.
According to Lévy, there were "five objective, clear, undeniable reasons for why this is a different set of circumstances and why this war is the 'anti-war' of Iraq: (1) a mandate from the UN, the source of undeniable international legitimacy; (2) a strong moral mandate, given by the Arab League, which, it must not be forgotten, was immediately ready to condemn, with the West, the aggression carried out by Gaddafi against his own people; (3) the presence of a national transitional council that has the merit of actually existing, of having genuine popular support and of being much more attractive than the wretched Iraqi National Congress that [Iraqi opposition figure Ahmed] Chalabi used to preside over."
"(4) A democratic uprising, a popular and democratic uprising that came before the foreign intervention and which the latter is taking place not to bring about, but to support ?ê" and that changes everything; and (5) no ground troops and no army of occupation. Should it be possible to go ahead without a ground army and protect the civilians in Benghazi or even bring down Gaddafi without having to send in an expeditionary force, this would mark this war out from those prosecuted by the West up to now."
Yet, not everyone shared Lévy's certainty on points (1), (3) and (4). The UN mandate, contained in UN Security Council Resolution 1973 of March last year, authorised member states "to take all necessary measures?ê? to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory." It also established a no-fly zone over Libyan territory and tightened up the arms embargo. This text was interpreted to justify the commencement of a NATO-led bombing campaign of Libya and the bringing down of the Gaddafi regime ?ê" actions that some considered went beyond what the original mandate had authorised.
Moreover, just as Ahmed Shalabi, an exiled Iraqi politician and opponent of the Saddam Hussein regime, turned out not to have had the kind of popular support in Iraq that he had apparently claimed he had once the US had invaded and occupied that country in 2003, there were also doubts at the time of the NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya regarding the extent of support for the Benghazi-based Libyan National Transitional Council, given its regional character, though these were apparently not shared by Lévy.
Finally, it is possible to agree or disagree with the reasons Lévy gives for supporting the NATO-led intervention in Libya, but the particular tone of his book owes less to its arguments, which are those that circulated at the time, than to its author's staging of himself as playing a special role in the victory of the Libyan rebels and the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. Readers might even gain the impression that this is not really a book about Libya at all, given Lévy's obsession with the history of French foreign policy and his desire to make up for earlier failures to persuade former French presidents Francois Mitterand and Jacques Chirac to intervene militarily in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, respectively, before the United States did so.
"I have been pleading for the right to intervene for more than 30 years," Lévy writes, giving the examples of campaigns he has engaged in in Bangladesh, Darfour in Sudan, Angola, Burundi, Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia, and in support of the former Afghan Tajik leader Ahmed Shah Masoud.
The abiding tone of the book can perhaps be illustrated by the following passage, where Lévy not only deploys his address book and his apparently indefatigible self-regard, but also manages to insert himself into the history of French literature and diplomacy.
"Dinner with [US chat show host] Charlie Rose and [media tycoon] Arianna Huffington. Let's admit, I told them, that I played the role?ê? of helping to bring about this war. But there is a single precedent of a French writer launching a war, though this is a hugely important predecent, obviously?ê? It is that of [Francois-Rene de] Chateaubriand becoming foreign minister in order to launch the Spanish war in 1823 and put Ferdinand VII back on the throne."
Bernard-Henri Lévy, La Guerre sans l'aimer, journal d'un écrivain au coeur du printemps libyen, Paris: Grasset, 201, pp.640.

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Jewish refugees?

2012-09-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

With astounding gall, Israel is now claiming that more Jews "fled" Arab countries than Palestinians fled Palestine, writes Saleh Al-Naami The mother of Ehab Abu Nada holds a photograph of her son as she reads the Quran at her house in Gaza; a pro-Palestinian activist flashes the victory sign after being detained by Jordanian police during a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman
Jawla Levy, 78, who lives in Arad settlement in southern Israel, still remembers the four Jewish Europeans who visited her family that lived in Baghdad in the summer of 1949. Levy told Israel Radio Sunday this group of Jewish men who spoke fluent Arabic did their best to convince her father -- a leading figure in Iraq's Jewish community at the time -- to help convince Iraqi Jews to emigrate to Israel. Israel was still a nascent state, barely one year old, established in Palestine after the original inhabitants were chased out by Zionist guerrillas.
Levy said her father found it very hard to persuade many Jews to leave Iraq to go to Palestine, and she accused Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, of executing a careful plan to force Jews to leave Iraq by firebombing Jewish synagogues and businesses. This resulted in a mass exodus by Jews from Iraq to the erstwhile Palestine. She added that Mossad recruited Iraqi groups to carry out the attacks to convince Jews that Iraq was not a place they want to be.
Levy's account corresponds with what is stated in books examining Jewish presence in Iraq that documented bombings by Mossad that convinced the Jews to leave. Her testimonial is especially relevant because it comes at a time when the Israeli government launched a broad campaign to rally international support to demand recognition of Jews who emigrated from Arab countries to Israel as refugees -- just as Palestinian refugees. The testimonials of Levy and others confirm that Israel initiated plans to bring Jews into Israel and did not hesitate in using terrorism to achieve this goal.
It is evident that the campaign proposed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman fundamentally aims to strip Palestinian refugees of their right to return to the lands they were expelled from. Also, according to Security Council Resolution 194, demanding reparations for losses incurred as a result of the expulsion schemes by Zionist guerrillas before and after the declaration of the Israeli state.
Israel's move is based on painting Eastern Jews who left Arab states after the creation of Israel as "refugees" who were "expelled and dispossessed", which requires the world community to support Israel's position demanding compensation for these "refugees". Israel's former foreign minister and ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon was appointed to lead the campaign, who suggested it should be called "I am a Jewish refugee." Three Israeli institutions -- the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Pensioner Affairs and the World Jewish Congress -- will cooperate in documenting and gathering data on the properties of those who lived in the Arab world and then immigrated to Israel.
So far, 20,000 cases of migrant Jews have been documented as the three institutions prepare to hold news conferences and international seminars beginning this month to coincide with the UN General Assembly gathering. To make it more believable, the Knesset will also issue laws and regulations obligating Israeli negotiators to include the issue of Jewish "refugees" from Arab states in final negotiations, as a precondition to finalise any peace plan or signing any agreements. This augments a law issued by the Knesset in 2010 stipulating that any final agreement should be linked to resolving the issue of possessions of refugee Jews and their rights as refugees.
Further still, the move also aims to embarrass the "moderate" camp in the Arab world since it demands linking the issue of Jewish "refugees" with the Arab Peace Initiative sponsored by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in 2002. That plan proposes the creation of a Palestinian state inside 1967 borders and a return of refugees as prerequisites for normalising relations with Israel. The campaign would mean settling the rights of Jewish immigrants as part of normalising relations, along with targeted moves to integrate the issue of Jewish refugees in talks with all countries as well as the UN, and demanding that countries around the world adopt this issue in new laws and stipulations.
More worrying is that the campaign links the issue of immigrant Jews from Arab countries with the Holocaust and considers their deportation from Arab countries as "genocide," and thus they should be commemorated as victims at Israel's Holocaust and Heroism Memorial. The campaign further claims that the number of Jewish "refugees" exceeds the number of Palestinian refugees, and that they suffered losses worth more than $100 billion. Meanwhile, Israel's publicity machine claims that the land owned by Jewish "refugees" was far greater than the size of Palestine itself.
Supervising these fabricated facts is a US Jewish organisation concerned with the affairs of immigrant Jews that recently claimed that it would create "Justice for Jews in Arab Countries (JJAC)". It has recently established a fund to protect graves, rehabilitate synagogues and recover copies of the Torah located in Arab countries, as well as granting academic scholarships for the study of Jewish presence in Arab countries.
Tawfiq Abu Shumar, a Palestinian researcher and writer, describes the comparison of the issue of Palestinian refugees with Jewish refugees from Arab states as "invalid and baseless". Abu Shumar retorts: "Palestinians left their motherland and possessions and continue to live in exile and Diaspora, while the Jews of the Arab world have seized our homes and possessions and returned to their alleged homeland. What possessions they left behind are far less than the possessions and land they stole from us."
He continued: "Linking Jewish emigration with the Holocaust is provocative to the mind of all humanity; historic documents do not report any massacres of Jews in the Arab world. In fact, many of them still live in several Arab states as respectable citizens. Meanwhile, Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel still have fond memories of the Arab world which hosted them for many years, and did not deport them."
He explained that "many Jews in Israel still hang the portrait of Morocco's King Mohamed V; I have seen it with my own eyes. The Jews of Iraq and Egypt are still sentimental about these two countries and listen to Arabic music and speak Arabic, not Hebrew, at home, and promote Arab culture and arts."
Israel's campaign spurred Abu Shumar to criticise Palestinian institutions responsible for documenting the dilemma of Palestinian refugees. "The multitude of Palestinian refugee institutions, organisations and societies are still incapable of forming comprehensive archives with audio and video footage of the rights of refugees and their descendants, and the ramifications on life and education based on these rights," he said, noting that all these institutions and societies are good for is publishing papers on anniversaries, distributing booklets, maps, portfolios and hot meals. Sometimes they would hold a conference without any centralised effort to boost cooperation among refugee bodies to document all the rights of Palestinians with audio, video and document records.
Abu Shumar believes that this a much more worthy endeavour than empty political rhetoric, repetitive party slogans, and disputes over forming governments and ministries on which factions on the Palestinian arena differ.
Israel's fabrications are shamelessly provocative, foolish and superficial because official Zionist records confirm that there was no Jewish "refugee" problem. Zionist records state that the first Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, decided to bring in Jews from Arab states although the Zionist movement had ruled it out. These documents also state that the founders of the Zionist movement planned to establish the Zionist entity by relying on Western Jews only, but after World War II and what happened to Jews before and during the war, the Zionist movement decided it needed to displace Jews in Arab states in order to enhance the demographic presence of Jews in confronting the Palestinian population.
To this end, Ben-Gurion gave the following orders: First, sending Jewish Orientalists to Arab countries where Jews are present to gather information about them and then convince them to emigrate. Second, when it became apparent to Ben-Gurion that these missions were not as successful as he had hoped, he ordered Mossad to carry out terrorist attacks against Jews in the Arab world, such as booby-trapping and firebombing synagogues and assassinating Jewish leaders in order to terrorise Jews living there to persuade them to escape to the Zionist entity.
Israel is trying by all means to invent ways to justify its noncompliance with the demands of reaching a just political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and more importantly recognising the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homeland they were expelled from. "I am a Jewish refugee" campaign is one such attempt.

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Mayor of Trenton Arrested in Federal Corruption Probe

2012-09-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

The Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey was arrested along with seven other people as the FBI prepares to unleash formal charges following a months-long corruption investigation. The suspects were taken into custody early on Monday morning, but the formal indictments will not be revealed until later today.

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Mayor Tony Mack only took office a little over two years ago, but has faced nothing but trouble since assuming office. Allegations of cronyism and corruption began almost from the start of his term in July 2010, and several members of his staff have been arrested on various charges, including his chief of staff who was caught trying to buy heroin. He survived a recall election after his first year in office, but the FBI raided his home in July during the ongoing investigation. Mack's first city business administrator quit after just one month, accusing the mayor of not believing in "good government" while another employee sued, saying she was fired for refusing to give jobs to the mayor's friends.

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While authorities have withheld the actual charges so far, they are likely to focus on his campaign fundraising, which has raised questions given that Mack's home faced foreclosure and one of his biggest donors (who was among those arrested) is a convicted sex offender.

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Tehran timeline

2012-09-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

While the location of Tehran may have added a historic dimension to this year's NAM summit, most everything else appeared as business as usual, writes Abdel-Moneim Said
The world of international diplomacy has a way of preserving international organisations and conventions even when there is no longer any need for them. As a result, these organisations or conventions have an amazing ability to survive long after the historical circumstances that gave rise to them have ended and after the founding nations, themselves, have changed and, worse, when the newcomers are clueless as regards the original motives and ideas that led to their creation. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a prime instance of one of those auto-driven organisations whose members are compelled to meet, not in order to achieve some objective but simply for the sake of meeting. Not that the speechwriters for the NAM president lack for "essential" justifications for convening a summit that brings together the heads of member states and that, in and of itself, is an "accomplishment". After all, who can predict the fruits that will develop when adversaries meet and rub shoulders, or when one president sits next to another at a banquet table? Undoubtedly, this is why it is very rare that anyone bothers to consider what happens between one summit and the next, for nothing will prevent NAM members from repeating the same exercise as predictably as ever.
To my generation, which grew up under the generation of Third World leaders of the 1950s and 1960s, the creation of NAM was a watershed in the history of the national liberation struggle. Newly independent states were taking up UN seats in rapid succession at a time when the Cold War was spiralling and its chief antagonists were exerting enormous pressures on the still tender shoots of the emergent nations. Whether for economic or strategic reasons, some of these nations immediately chose to side with either the socialist or capitalist camp. Regardless of which side they chose, the sense of dependency put them under constant moral and psychological strain. What was the point of all those sacrifices that were made for the sake of independence if these former colonies were only to end up in an orbit in which they would still have no say in their own fate? It was this very dilemma that gave rise to the notion of what was first referred to as "positive neutrality". A product of the Bandung conference of 1955, the concept held that it was not enough for newly independent nations to be passively neutral, like Switzerland. They needed to act constructively in order to alleviate the international tensions generated by the Cold War, especially given that the risks of the nuclear game would not be borne by the opposing camps alone.
The concept was originally championed by Nehru, Nasser and Tito, which is to say India, Egypt and Yugoslavia. Subsequently, many other countries that fell in the orbit of the soviet or capitalist camp came to support it. However, the Non-Aligned Movement represented a third option, a way for many national leaders to "whitewash" dependency. Thus, NAM broadened to include most of the countries of the Third World. They climbed on board and stayed aboard even after the celebrated leaderships that led them to independence had passed away or were overthrown by coups or simply crumbled, and even after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union and its camp collapsed. As for the original founders, Yugoslavia disintegrated into several countries, India's drive to become a great power brought it into the Western camp where markets and technological progress abound, and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and forged a strategic relationship with the US. More significantly, there arose some far more powerful and effective international organisations with some very specific goals, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes most industrialised nations, and the G8 whose members consist of those powers that control the lion's share of the global economy. Meanwhile, NAM continues as ever. It convenes its summits periodically and its member states take their turns in the presidential seat. At the time of the last summit, Egypt held the chair and hosted the convention in Cairo with Hosni Mubarak presiding. This year the summit took place in Tehran against a historic backdrop very different to anything that preceded it. There were heads of state and national representatives of lower rank, although the meeting went ahead regardless of the status of the attendees. The political context was certainly unlike that which characterised all previous summits, which had all the excitement of arriving at a party just as all the guests are leaving. The context this year is an international conflict in which Iran is a chief protagonist. Some may argue that an element of the old Cold War still exists because of the tensions between Russia and the US. However, Russia is not the USSR and there is a world of difference between the mortal animosity that characterised the old Cold War and the sharp differences of opinion and conflicting interests that are often overridden by many types of cooperation between Washington and Moscow today. As for the notion of a global bipolarity between the US and China, that remains in the metaphysical realm. So this leaves Iran as a party to a conflict that has elements of a cold war, in which the other side consists of the US and Israel, backed by the West in general, which is driving to break Tehran through boycotts, sanctions and other means of pressure. These elements are combined with the spectre of a "hot war" that both sides seem to be preparing for as though it were about to erupt tomorrow morning. In other words, Iran can hardly be described as non-aligned or even positively neutral and constructively seeking to promote noble goals. It is caught in a mill that none of the participants in the NAM summit knew how to deal with apart from appealing to Tehran to demonstrate that it intends its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes.
Against this tense backdrop Egypt made its first appearance in a new form. During the past few decades, Egypt generally regarded NAM as one of those heavy but unavoidable obligations it inherited but often felt duty-bound to observe in order to show its gratitude to countries that had stood by it in difficult times while simultaneously realising that the alliance could come in handy when something new cropped up with regard to the Palestinian cause or the application of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to Israel. But all this had little relevance on this occasion. What marked this occasion, for Egypt, was that this was the first NAM summit it attended following the Egyptian revolution and the subsequent democratic elections that brought to power a president who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Egypt is still in the early phases of this change, but we can say that it is no longer the purely pragmatic Egypt that acted in accordance with the dictates of circumstance and the existing balances of power, as was the case under Mubarak, but rather an Egypt in which ideological motives are tempered by the force of the continuity of the Egyptian state and its foreign policy outlooks.
This new mixture has not yet settled, for which reason the force of continuity is what ultimately defined President Mursi's map of action on his way to the conference. There was no question of him not going, because his attendance was required by virtue of the diplomatic obligations that remain incumbent upon the state and its presidency, and because no one has the right to tell this state how to act with respect to a movement of which it was one of the chief founders. Above all, there were also Egyptian interests to pursue.
For Mursi, the summit amounted to a four-hour trip, of which 40 minutes were spent in a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Perhaps the visit was purely symbolic, but it carried some powerful messages. For one, it was impossible to keep Nasser out of the picture. As one of NAM's founding fathers, he remains an asset of the Egyptian state, however bitter the animosity had once been between this state and the Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time, the Syrian question, which loomed heavily over the meeting, served to demarcate some clear lines between the policy outlooks of Egypt and Iran, thereby driving home to people in the West and in the Gulf that the NAM summit was, indeed, a convocation of independent sovereign states, not a platform for Islamic revolutions. Finally, while all due respect was given to Shia Islam, Egypt remains a Sunni country and, therefore, still a member of a camp to which it belonged in the former era. Tehran may have been the setting, but ultimately the Egyptian state was engaged in the routine business of carrying out foreign policy in a conventional summit.

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A grim prophecy in festive robes

2012-09-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

Nehad Selaiha watches the first fruit of a cooperation protocol between the State Theatre and Cultural Palaces organisations
So far, the 25 January revolution has effected no material change in the structure, organization, working methods, or funding policies of the public theatre sector. Nor was such a change to be credibly expected in view of the rapid succession of ministers of culture we have had so far (5 ministers in less than 2 years). Key positions in the ministry remain in the hands of the same old familiar faces, all nearing the age of retirement, and are bandied about amongst them in the semblance of a ridiculous game of musical chairs. No wonder that the upgrading of poet Saad Abdel Rahman to the post of head of the Cultural Palaces organization, where he served for years, or the transference of Naser Abdel Mon'im from the headship of the National Theatre Centre to that of the State Theatre Sector have left things pretty much the same as they found them and both seem happy to let the old, halting machines creak along on the same old rusty rails until such time as they inevitably grind to a stop. No fresh visions or reform plans have come from either. More depressingly still, no word from Abdel Mon'im about the long delayed restoration of the National theatre, destroyed by fire on Saturday, 27 September, 2008 and still in ruins, and no word from Abdel Rahman about rebuilding El-Samer theatre, recklessly pulled down in 1985 to be replaced by an ambitious theatrical complex that never materialized.
With the same endemic bureaucracy still bedeviling the Cultural Palaces and crippling its performance, and with the State Theatre growing more anaemic, presenting fewer plays of poorer quality than before the revolution, it was natural, perhaps, that the two organizations should lean on each other for support. Rather than individually address their basic problems and initiate reform, the 2 organisations have recently signed a 'cooperation protocol' which allows troupes belonging to both establishments to pool their resources and work together in joint productions. The first fruit of this project was Madad Ya Shikanara! (Succor, O Shikanara!), a co-production by the Youth State Theatre and Al-Samer Cultural Palaces Company, written by Mohamed Amin Abdel Samad and directed by Adel Hassan. It opened on 9 July (and is still running at the time of writing this article) in a colourful, roofless marquee, pitched for the occasion on the derelict site of the old demolished El-Samer.
Though the show was good, as I shall soon demonstrate, the choice of venue, if it can be called a choice, was painfully ironical. Here were two major theatre-making state organizations, joining forces in a worthy initiative, and the only space they could come up with to house it was this rugged, rat-infested, walled-in piece of waste land! This alone speaks volumes about the dire shortage of suitable performance spaces in Egypt and the decades-long criminal neglect of the infrastructure of theatre. Not only is the Samer company without a home, but so is also the Youth theatre. It has recently lost its original modest venue, the Yusef Idris small hall at El-Salaam theatre, which is the headquarter of the Modern State Theatre Company, when the whole building, with its two halls, rehearsal spaces and offices, was declared unsafe and put out of action after a minor fire in the basement of the adjacent Academy of Scientific Research, to which the theatre originally belonged before it was rented (or taken over) by the ministry of culture.
As a result, the Modern Theatre Company has temporarily taken refuge in Al-Hanager Centre, thus usurping for a time, and may be forever, the only state-run place in Cairo that is supposed to nurture independent artists and theatre troupes. Moreover, the Youth Theatre's other, modest venue ?ê" the Small hall of the Floating Theatre in Giza (originally the home base of the Children's Theatre Company) ?ê" is currently closed for repairs and maintenance, and so is the big hall of the same theatre which serves as the venue of The Comedy Theatre Company. With so many homeless companies and such few venues to go round, not to mention the bureaucracy, mismanagement meager budgets and outdated technical equipment, theatre-making in Egypt has become a real nightmare. And yet, artists go on making theatre, distilling magic out of the ugly, the painful and the mundane
The primitiveness and technical shortcomings of the venue were uppermost in my mind as I made my way to see Shikanara. I had seen scores of visiting provincial shows in that same spot, shabbily mounted on small, rickety, make-shift stages, with pathetic lighting and sound facilities, drab curtains and no wings, and had unfailingly writhed with embarrassment for the poor actors. This time, however, as soon as I stepped inside the tent, all my fears were dispelled. Stage designer Mohamed Gaber had made a virtue of all the evils of the place, transforming the derelict site of the demolished El-Samer into a brilliantly lit fairground, in an old quarter of Cairo, during preparations for an annual celebration of some holy sheikh. It struck me as an Egyptian version of what I have always imagined the setting of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fayre (a comedy written in 1614) to look like. At the back of the gaily coloured marquee, near the entrance, was a modest, make-shift caf??, selling a variety of hot and cold drinks to the audience, in the middle, a children's roundabout, on one side at the far end, a puppet sideshow, on the other, facing it, a live band of folk musicians and singers in their long, traditional robes and turbans, while two painted clowns in motley, a dervish in rags, with rosaries and strings of beads round his neck and swinging a censer, and a fortuneteller in a gypsy costume moved freely among the seated audience, talking and joking with them. One side of the marquee was built to look like a typical old Cairene alley, with a domed holy shrine, a traditional, popular caf??, a newsstand, some shops, and a high archway, suggesting other alleys beyond, and flanked on both sides with attics, rooftops and lattice windows. It would have been wonderful had that structure extended to enclose the whole space within, spreading the action round the audience and allowing them to walk freely around or move their seats as they liked. This, however, would have required more extras, raw material and work and proved all together too expensive. As it was, when the show proper began, the carnival atmosphere retreated to the built side of the marquee, which remained the only lit place and, except for occasional forays by the clowns among the audience, was the sole acting area.
The curious, intriguing title of the play, Madad Ya Shikanara, is deliberately facetious and pointedly satirical; it blatantly joins the sacred and profane, using the word 'madad' (Succor), a prayer or call for help strictly reserved by tradition for sacred figures, to address an imaginary burlesque of a holy man carrying a funny-sounding, nonsensical name. Judging by his name, this Shikanara was most likely a charlatan, an invention of a conman, a figment of some crazed imagination, or a creation of a mind stuffed with drugs or steeped in alcohol. His shrine, however, or, rather, the lucrative, influential job of 'shrine servant', which carries immense power and authority, is the focus of the play and its primum mobile. When the job falls vacant due to the death of its holder, the conflict erupts over whom to succeed him. The conflict divides the alley dwellers, triggering words and deeds that reveal the socioeconomic structure of this little community (a microcosm of Egypt), its clashing interests and ideological differences. Though the wealthy merchants and the leaders of various religious sects vie for the job among themselves, they, nevertheless, band together against the working poor and join forces with the police to wheedle, cheat, and/or terrorize them. Needy, ignorant, and long intimidated, the working poor are at first reluctant to defy their oppressors and waste time quarrelling among themselves over trifles and nursing petty feuds and grudges, thus becoming more vulnerable and easier to infiltrate and deceive. Eventually, however, they are aroused by the intellectual rebel Ghareeb (Stranger in Arabic) who comes amongst them from no-one-knows-where and earns his living as a waiter in the alley's caf??. He preaches resistance, unity and the sharing of power through democratic elections and eventually succeeds in getting them to choose a candidate from among their own ranks and to go to the polls and cast their votes.
Suddenly, however, Ghareeb disappears as mysteriously as he appeared and is rumoured to have been killed. Subsequently, the elections are rigged by the policeman and his agents in favour of the candidate supported by the regime and all the groups ?ê" the working people, the business men, and the warring religious factions ?ê" are furious and suspicious and hurl accusations of treachery and collusion with the regime at each other. The play ends with a gang of long-bearded, white-robed, fierce-looking and gun-waving Salafis suddenly invading the alley through the archway, as if to quell all fights and impose their laws. Whether they will take over the shrine or not is a question the play leaves open. The final scene is a tableau vivant in which all the parties in the conflict, including the newcomers, stand still, glaring at each other.
But this is not the only question the play leaves open; another and more intriguing one concerns the shrine; that it is a metaphor is obvious; but a metaphor for what? For Egypt? For political power? For political Islam? It is a credit to Mohamed Amin Abdel Samad, the author of the Shikanarqa text, that one can convincingly argue in favour of all three answers and still the meaning remains uncertain, dubious and teasingly elusive. One wonders if this short, serious, and thought-provoking political play will gain in concentration and clarity if presented without the many frills contributed by director Adel Hassan, particularly the many religious chants and folk songs contributed at short intervals by Samir Azmi, accompanied by the South Folk and Popular Music Band, the lively antics of the two delightful clowns, Mohamed El-Nabawi and Nawal El-'Adl, and the qaraqoz puppet show presented by Mohamed Abdel Fattah.
In the absence of those frills, however, some of the play's flaws, like its weak characterization and occasional preachy tone, may become more glaring. It is true that the actors seemed at times irritated and distracted by the constant intrusion of music and song; in the absence of such interruptions, however, parts of their dialogue and some of their speeches might have come across as somewhat pallid, repetitive, unconvincing, or underwritten. Purists may argue that Hassan's amusing frills and the festive ambience contributed by Mohamed Gaber's design may have diluted the drama a bit, and possibly blunted the political edge of the play's warning. But one can also counter argue that thanks to the director's and designer's combined imaginative efforts, Abdel Samad's somewhat dry text gained a vibrant, attractive theatrical dimension and its important message was put across in an entertaining popular form that drew audiences and made the show a definite success.

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New era spawns more parties

2012-09-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

Many new parties have been joining the political scene, but how effective are they likely to be, asks Mohamed Abdel-Baky
Over the last week, two political groups that helped to spark the 25 January Revolution have decided to join the political scene by forming political parties ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Supporters of opposition figure Mohamed El-Baradei are in the process of forming the Constitution Party, after presenting the registration papers last week. At the same time, a dissident camp within the April 6 Youth Movement, the Democratic Front, announced its intention of launching a new political party to represent the country's revolutionary youth.
On 29 August, hundreds of El-Baradei's supporters along with the Constitution Party's founders headed to the Higher Judiciary House to present the Political Parties Commission with the signatures of the party's 10,700 founders and the documents required to register the new party.
The political parties law requires any new political party to have at least 5,000 founders' signatures before it can be officially registered.
Hundreds of party members wore white t-shirts with the word "Constitution" scrawled on them, waving banners proclaiming that "the Constitution Party is for all Egyptians."
Prominent members of the party were also present, including Emad Abu Ghazi, a former minister of culture, Gamila Ismail, a former member of the Ghad Party, George Ishaq, an activist and founder of the Kifaya Movement, and two members of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, Shadi El-Ghazali Harb and Nasser Abdel-Hamid.
In April, El-Baradei announced the imminent formation of the Constitution Party in order for it to compete in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
"The aim of this party is to save the 25 January Revolution, which has been derailed and almost aborted, and to restore unity," El-Baradei said at the time.
"When the revolution started, we never imagined that things could reach this stage, or that we would be living in this tragic transitional period," he said.
The Constitution Party marks a return to public life for El-Baradei, who declared in January that he would not run for the presidency during a "scrambled transition period".
El-Baradei, a former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, returned to Egypt to a hero's welcome in 2010, the year before the 25 January Revolution that led to the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak.
Party leaders said that there were now more than 50,000 members across Egypt, covering different ages, genders and educational levels.
"We have thousands of university and school students who are willing to play a role on campus once the school year begins," said Samir El-Sayed, a journalist and one of the founding members of the party.
He added that party leaders were keen on attracting as many young people as they could, encouraging them to join in the political process.
However, experts raised questions about the ability of the newly formed party to build grassroots support before the parliamentary elections, bearing in mind that it has not yet held internal elections to choose its leadership and those who would run the electoral campaign.
"I think the Constitution Party will face the same problems that the other non-Islamist parties have, namely a lack of organisational structure," said Dina Samak, a political analyst.
Samak cited the Egyptian Social Democratic Party as an example. This was founded in March 2011 with more than 38,000 registered members. However, the party has not been able to make an impact on nationwide events, such as national elections.
Ahmed Darag, a co-founder of the Constitution Party, said that it would focus on establishing a network of supporters across Egypt and finding local leaders to lead the party at the grassroots.
Up until now, according to its official Facebook page, the party has branches in 26 governorates. Most party members are young people from the El-Baradei Presidential Support Campaign, a youth movement formed to support El-Baradei in running for the presidency against Mubarak before the 25 January Revolution.
Darag said that the party had plans to work intensively outside the capital in order to build a network of supporters.
"Our contacts with the people will not be limited to election time. We plan to be in contact all the time in order not to lose public trust," Darag said.
The party has already begun to work in community activities, starting with last week's rallies against sexual harassment and organising charity markets for clothes in poorer areas.
Party members in Upper Egyptian governorates have paid visits to churches to congratulate worshippers on special occasions of the Christian calendar.
The party is viewed by experts as a liberal party, though the party's mission statement avoids mention of any specific ideology.
"We are a centrist party, and we want to build a country with a democratic system that fulfils the goals of the 25 January Revolution, namely bread, freedom and social justice," the mission statement says.
Speaking to the media last week, party spokesperson Emad Abu Ghazi said that the party adopted "reformist ideas in general" and that it did not want to be categorised as liberal or leftist.
"We are a party that wants to see democratic reforms to build the new Egypt. We believe that we have to be in the middle, like most Egyptians," Ghazi said.
One senior member of the party told Al-Ahram Weekly that the party's leaders wanted to avoid talking about ideology at this stage, in order not to alienate any segment of society.
"In the last parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis spread rumours that the liberal parties were supported by the US and the Coptic Church in order to scare voters. This strategy worked to some degree, and we do not want to risk a re-run of the same scenario," he said.
Together with the Constitution Party, the 6 April Movement's Democratic Front announced that it will transform itself into a political party in order to fight the forthcoming elections.
"After a year of discussion, the majority of movement members have decided to create a political party in order to play a stronger role in politics after the transition period," the movement said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Movement leader Tareq El-Kholi said that transforming the movement into a political party would legitimise its status, allowing it to collect funds from donors, hold public rallies and be accountable to government auditing agencies.
"This party is being created in order to represent the youth of this country, who led the revolution," El-Kholi said, pledging to make Egypt into a democratic country.
Political experts expect that the youth movements that sparked the revolution will lose momentum following the transfer of power to a civilian president.
The 6 April Movement failed to attract the numbers the Kifaya Movement mobilised in 2005 during its campaign against the constitutional amendments proposed by the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), for example.
Internal divisions over the movement's future began to surface in May 2011, leading to the formation of a splinter group, the 6 April Movement Democratic Front, led by El-Kholi, while the main group, still named 6 April, was led by founder Ahmed Maher.
The movement has failed to regain its position at the forefront of events since the split.
In a related development, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party held its annual elections last Friday, most members re-electing Mohamed Abul-Ghar as chair of the party.
Abul-Ghar told party members on Friday that the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to control the next parliament along with the presidency. He called upon all non-Islamist parties to work together to create balance in the political system.
He said the party would start a process of internal reform and work intensively on the ground to be more engaged with the public.
The party has a liberal and social democratic outlook and was politically active in the years preceding the revolution. However, since then it has been unable to compete with the Islamist parties like the Salafist Nour Party and the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party at a grassroots level.
In the last parliamentary elections, the party fielded 80 candidates in the Egyptian Bloc Coalition, but managed to secure just 16 seats.
Observers say that the diversity of political and economic orientations in the party has limited its cohesion. Following the last internal elections, a group of members that helped found the party announced their resignation, saying that the party had failed to reach out to the public and had turned into an intellectual talking shop.
"Every day, the organisational and political problems of the party have been increasing," the group said, criticising the party leadership for not communicating with local leaders and closing local party offices.

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Fugitive Iraq VP says death sentence "politically motivated"

2012-09-27T02:56:00.000-07:00

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To the letter

2012-09-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

Contemporary Egyptian artists are exploring the resources of Arabic calligraphy, among them Omar El-Nagdi, writes Mohamed Mursi 'God created perfection and absolute beauty in a world of eternal being before man was created. He created the world of the transcendental, light-giving logos before anyone could read it, as it preceded the creation of man. When God created man, his first command was: read'
Calligraphy was not known to the Arabs when the Quran made their language the dominant tongue of the region. But it wasn't long after the establishment of the first Muslim empires, first in Mecca and later on in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, that cohorts of talented scribes turned the art of writing into one of Islam's main decorative arts.
Arab artists today are still exploring ways of using calligraphy in their work, and sometimes it can fetch very high prices. Not long ago, a calligraphy piece by London-based Egyptian artist Ahmed Mustafa called the Night of the Israa sold for $850,000 at auction in Doha.
The Egyptian artist Omar El-Nagdi, whose work is inspired by the Islamic heritage, is another master of this kind of art. Born in Bab Al-Shaariya not far from the Al-Shaarani Mosque, El-Nagdi developed an eye for calligraphy from an early age. Visitors to the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts in Paris had the chance to admire some of his exceptional work not long ago.
El-Nagdi envisions his art in a wider perspective than the merely physical. This is how he puts it: "God created perfection and absolute beauty in a world of eternal being before man was created. He created the world of the transcendental, light-giving logos before anyone could read it, as it preceded the creation of man. When God created man, his first command was: read."
The Arabic alphabet includes all the elements of geometry in its three-dimensional as well as its two-dimensional forms. Looking at the Arabic alphabet, one can almost imagine the touch of a hand exploring its calligraphic potential, investigating its various paths, moving from the circular to the angular, following the curvatures of its nature and aspiring to the heights of its architecture.
Take the letter (Ì), for example, with its concave structure and elegant capping, or (ã), with its subtle composition and malleability of form. There is a poetry in the way the Arabic letters connect and a subtleness in the way they flow. In the hands of a skilled artist, the scope for innovation is immense, and in the hands of an adventurous one, it is almost unlimited.
Across the Arab world, many artists have pushed the boundaries of calligraphy, taking it from tradition and into the globalised world of contemporary appreciation. People like Jamil Hammoudi, Madiha Omar, Wagih Nahlah, Salwa Shoqeir, Othman Waqiallah and Ibrahim Al-Salhi have all experimented with the classical forms of calligraphy at some time in their careers, some taking the letters down unexpected paths.
To capture the gamut of classical calligraphy is not an easy task, but some artists have sought to go further and to explore horizons that extend beyond tradition. Some have turned the art of calligraphy into a riff on abstraction, for example, while others have infused it with the energy of expressionism. However, the link with the past remains intriguing, and even those who have wanted to explore the outer horizons of calligraphy have never lost their appreciation for the roots of their art.
The Iraqi artist Abdel-Ghani Al-Ani has said that Arabic calligraphy is an endless quest for perfection. It is like music or poetry: there is no end to exploration or boundary to the unknown. According to Al-Ani, "calligraphy is like the sea; it belongs to all. But if you take some water from the sea and place it in a bottle, then this bottle and this part of the sea are yours."

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