Sunday, February 06, 2011
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Al Jazeera according Frank Rich
''The noxious domestic political atmosphere fostering this near-blackout is obvious to all. It was made vivid last week when Bill O’Reilly of Fox News went on a tear about how Al Jazeera English is “anti-American.” This is the same “We report, you decide” Fox News that last week broke away from Cairo just as the confrontations turned violent so that viewers could watch Rupert Murdoch promote his new tablet news product at a publicity event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.''
NYT
NYT
Rashid Khalidi in DN!
''Rashid Khalidi, professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia and a former adviser to Palestinian peace negotiators, rejects this brand of realpolitik. The ostensible benefits the United States has derived from its backing of Mr. Mubarak are illusory, he said: the peace between Egypt and Israel has not yet brought a peace between Israel and the Palestinians; oppression in Egypt has actually fueled terrorism, even if some of its Egyptian practitioners, like Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of Al Qaeda, have fled Egypt proper; and as is self-evident today, stability did not last.''
NYT
BMRIC?
Mexico
Most of the Mexico-related headlines in the U.S. are negative, focusing on violence committed by drug cartels and illegal immigration. But the country’s economy grew by 5% in 2010 after contracting by 6.1% in 2009. It’s the sixth-largest oil producer in the world and a strong manufacturing exporter (autos and electronics) mostly to the U.S.
Is it BRIC-worthy? It is. Free trade agreements have turned Mexico into a player. The country relies heavily on exports and has agreements in place with more than 40 countries, with NAFTA giving it the biggest boost.
Industry that deserves special attention: Automobile. Conventional wisdom says that NAFTA drove auto manufacturers there for the cheap labor in the 1990s, but the Big Three have actually had a presence in Mexico since the 1930s. Try to think of a big auto name that doesn’t have facilities there. Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, Nissan, Volkswagen, and BMW have all moved manufacturing to Mexico, and that brought parts suppliers and research and development departments as well.
Friday, February 04, 2011
Details and the Whole Picture
My grades are in. Some students did not pass, there is always another chance. The world is not perfect.
Egypt changed, Yemen did not.
American fundamentalists took the lower house, jobs are not created in sufficient numbers. More inequality is unavoidable everywhere.
I believe that cause and effect is operating all through the Universe, and definitely in this tiny Blue Planet of ours.
The President of this University in Chilpancingo, could be kidnapped. The previous one has been kidnapped for close to two months now. We have a new schedule, so our students do not risk their life leaving campus after 9 PM.
It is almost midnight, and I am going home.
I hope nobody tries to kidnap me. I do not have any money.
Egypt changed, Yemen did not.
American fundamentalists took the lower house, jobs are not created in sufficient numbers. More inequality is unavoidable everywhere.
I believe that cause and effect is operating all through the Universe, and definitely in this tiny Blue Planet of ours.
The President of this University in Chilpancingo, could be kidnapped. The previous one has been kidnapped for close to two months now. We have a new schedule, so our students do not risk their life leaving campus after 9 PM.
It is almost midnight, and I am going home.
I hope nobody tries to kidnap me. I do not have any money.
Fisk: Protesters' Plan for the Future
On a day of drama and confusion in Cairo, opponents of the Mubarak regime propose a new kind of politics.
Caged yesterday inside a new army cordon of riot-visored troops and coils of barbed wire – the very protection which Washington had demanded for the protesters of Tahrir Square – the tens of thousands of young Egyptians demanding Hosni Mubarak's overthrow have taken the first concrete political steps to create a new nation to replace the corrupt government which has ruled them for 30 years.
Sitting on filthy pavements, amid the garbage and broken stones of a week of
street fighting, they have drawn up a list of 25 political personalities to
negotiate for a new political leadership and a new constitution to replace
Mubarak's crumbling regime.
They include Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League – himself a
trusted Egyptian; the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zuwail, an Egyptian-American
who has advised President Barack Obama; Mohamed Selim Al-Awa, a professor
and author of Islamic studies who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood; and
the president of the Wafd party, Said al-Badawi.
Other nominees for the committee, which was supposed to meet the Egyptian
Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, within 24 hours, are Nagib Suez, a prominent
Cairo businessman (involved in the very mobile phone systems shut down by
Mubarak last week); Nabil al-Arabi, an Egyptian UN delegate; and even the
heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who now lives in Cairo.
The selection – and the makeshift committee of Tahrir Square demonstrators and
Facebook and Twitter "electors" – has not been confirmed, but it
marks the first serious attempt to turn the massive street protests of the
past seven days into a political machine that provides for a future beyond
the overthrow of the much-hated President. The committee's first tasks would
be to draw up a new Egyptian constitution and an electoral system that would
prevent the president-for-life swindle which Mubarak's fraudulent elections
have created. Instead, Egyptian presidents would be limited to two
consecutive terms of office, and the presidential term itself would be
reduced from six to four years.
But no one involved in this initiative has any doubts of the grim future that
awaits them if their brave foray into practical politics fails. There was
more sniping into Tahrir Square during the night – an engineer, a lawyer and
another young man were killed – and plain-clothes police were again
discovered in the square. There were further minor stone-throwing battles
during the day, despite the vastly increased military presence, and most of
the protesters fear that if they leave the square they will immediately be
arrested, along with their families, by Mubarak's cruel state security
apparatus.
Already, there are dark reports of demonstrators who dared to return home and
disappeared. The Egyptian writer Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who is involved in the
committee discussions, is fearful for himself. "We're safe as long as
we have the square," he said to me yesterday, urging me to publish his
name as a symbol of the freedom he demands. "If we lose the square,
Mubarak will arrest all the opposition groups – and there will be police
rule as never before. That's why we are fighting for our lives."
The state security police now have long lists of names of protesters who have
given television interviews or been quoted in newspapers, Facebook postings
and tweets.
The protesters have identified growing divisions between the Egyptian army and
the thugs of the interior ministry, whose guards exchanged fire with
soldiers three days ago as they continued to occupy the building in which
basement torture chambers remain undamaged by the street fighting. These
were the same rooms of horror to which America's "renditioned"
prisoners were sent for "special" treatment at the hands of
Mubarak's more sadistic torturers – another favour which bound the Egyptian
regime to the United States as a "trusted" ally.
Another young man involved in the committee selections admitted he didn't
trust Omar Suleiman, the former spy boss and Israeli-Palestinian negotiator
whom Mubarak appointed this week. Suleiman it is, by the way, who has been
trying to shuffle responsibility for the entire crisis on to the foreign
press – a vicious as well as dishonest way of exercising his first days of
power. Yet he has cleverly outmanoeuvred the demonstrators in Tahrir Square
by affording them army protection.
Indeed, yesterday morning, to the shock of all of us standing on the western
side of the square, a convoy of 4x4s with blackened windows suddenly emerged
from the gardens of the neighbouring Egyptian Museum, slithered to a halt in
front of us and was immediately surrounded by a praetorian guard of
red-bereted soldiers and massive – truly gigantic – security guards in
shades and holding rifles with telescopic sights. Then, from the middle
vehicle emerged the diminutive, bespectacled figure of Field Marshal Mohamed
Hussein Tantawi, the chief of staff of the Egyptian army and a lifelong
friend of Mubarak, wearing a soft green military kepi and general's
cross-swords insignia on his shoulders.
Here was a visitor to take the breath away, waving briefly to the protesters
who crowded the military cordon to witness this extraordinary arrival. The
crowd roared. "The Egyptian army is our army," they shouted in
unison. "But Mubarak is not ours." It was a message for Tantawi to
take back to his friend Mubarak, but his visit was itself a powerful
political symbol. However much Mubarak may rave about "foreign hands"
behind the demands for his overthrow, and however many lies Suleiman may
tell about foreign journalists, Tantawi was showing that the army took its
mission to protect the demonstrators seriously. The recent military
statement that it would never fire on those who wish to dethrone Mubarak,
since their grievances were "legitimate", was authorised by
Tantawi. Hence the demonstrators' belief – however naïve and dangerous – in
the integrity of the military.
Crucially missing from the list of figures proposed for the committee are
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN arms inspectors and Nobel laureate, and
members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the "Islamist" spectre which
Mubarak and the Israelis always dangled in front of the Americans to
persuade them to keep old Mubarak in power. The Brotherhood's insistence in
not joining talks until Mubarak's departure – and their support for
ElBaradei, whose own faint presidential ambitions (of the "transitional"
kind) have not commended themselves to the protesters – effectively excluded
them. Suleiman has archly invited the Brotherhood to meet him, knowing that
they will not do so until Mubarak has gone.
But al-Awa's proposed presence on the committee – and that of the Islamist
intellectual Ahmed Kamel Abu Magd – will ensure that their views are
included in any discussions with Suleiman. These talks would also cover
civil and constitutional rights and a special clause to allow Suleiman to
rule Egypt temporarily because "the President is unable to perform his
duties".
Mubarak would be allowed to live privately in Egypt providing he played no
part – publicly or covertly – in the political life of the country. He is
regarded as a still-fierce opponent who will not hesitate to decapitate the
opposition should he hang on to power.
"He is one of the old school, like Saddam and Arafat, who in the last two
days has shown his true face," another committee supporter said
yesterday. "He is the man behind the attacks on us and the shooting
deaths." Mohamed Fahmy knows what this means. His own father has been
in exile from Egypt for seven years – after proposing identical protests to
those witnessed today to get rid of the Mubarak empire.
The Independent
Caged yesterday inside a new army cordon of riot-visored troops and coils of barbed wire – the very protection which Washington had demanded for the protesters of Tahrir Square – the tens of thousands of young Egyptians demanding Hosni Mubarak's overthrow have taken the first concrete political steps to create a new nation to replace the corrupt government which has ruled them for 30 years.
Sitting on filthy pavements, amid the garbage and broken stones of a week of
street fighting, they have drawn up a list of 25 political personalities to
negotiate for a new political leadership and a new constitution to replace
Mubarak's crumbling regime.
They include Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League – himself a
trusted Egyptian; the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zuwail, an Egyptian-American
who has advised President Barack Obama; Mohamed Selim Al-Awa, a professor
and author of Islamic studies who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood; and
the president of the Wafd party, Said al-Badawi.
Other nominees for the committee, which was supposed to meet the Egyptian
Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, within 24 hours, are Nagib Suez, a prominent
Cairo businessman (involved in the very mobile phone systems shut down by
Mubarak last week); Nabil al-Arabi, an Egyptian UN delegate; and even the
heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who now lives in Cairo.
The selection – and the makeshift committee of Tahrir Square demonstrators and
Facebook and Twitter "electors" – has not been confirmed, but it
marks the first serious attempt to turn the massive street protests of the
past seven days into a political machine that provides for a future beyond
the overthrow of the much-hated President. The committee's first tasks would
be to draw up a new Egyptian constitution and an electoral system that would
prevent the president-for-life swindle which Mubarak's fraudulent elections
have created. Instead, Egyptian presidents would be limited to two
consecutive terms of office, and the presidential term itself would be
reduced from six to four years.
But no one involved in this initiative has any doubts of the grim future that
awaits them if their brave foray into practical politics fails. There was
more sniping into Tahrir Square during the night – an engineer, a lawyer and
another young man were killed – and plain-clothes police were again
discovered in the square. There were further minor stone-throwing battles
during the day, despite the vastly increased military presence, and most of
the protesters fear that if they leave the square they will immediately be
arrested, along with their families, by Mubarak's cruel state security
apparatus.
Already, there are dark reports of demonstrators who dared to return home and
disappeared. The Egyptian writer Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who is involved in the
committee discussions, is fearful for himself. "We're safe as long as
we have the square," he said to me yesterday, urging me to publish his
name as a symbol of the freedom he demands. "If we lose the square,
Mubarak will arrest all the opposition groups – and there will be police
rule as never before. That's why we are fighting for our lives."
The state security police now have long lists of names of protesters who have
given television interviews or been quoted in newspapers, Facebook postings
and tweets.
The protesters have identified growing divisions between the Egyptian army and
the thugs of the interior ministry, whose guards exchanged fire with
soldiers three days ago as they continued to occupy the building in which
basement torture chambers remain undamaged by the street fighting. These
were the same rooms of horror to which America's "renditioned"
prisoners were sent for "special" treatment at the hands of
Mubarak's more sadistic torturers – another favour which bound the Egyptian
regime to the United States as a "trusted" ally.
Another young man involved in the committee selections admitted he didn't
trust Omar Suleiman, the former spy boss and Israeli-Palestinian negotiator
whom Mubarak appointed this week. Suleiman it is, by the way, who has been
trying to shuffle responsibility for the entire crisis on to the foreign
press – a vicious as well as dishonest way of exercising his first days of
power. Yet he has cleverly outmanoeuvred the demonstrators in Tahrir Square
by affording them army protection.
Indeed, yesterday morning, to the shock of all of us standing on the western
side of the square, a convoy of 4x4s with blackened windows suddenly emerged
from the gardens of the neighbouring Egyptian Museum, slithered to a halt in
front of us and was immediately surrounded by a praetorian guard of
red-bereted soldiers and massive – truly gigantic – security guards in
shades and holding rifles with telescopic sights. Then, from the middle
vehicle emerged the diminutive, bespectacled figure of Field Marshal Mohamed
Hussein Tantawi, the chief of staff of the Egyptian army and a lifelong
friend of Mubarak, wearing a soft green military kepi and general's
cross-swords insignia on his shoulders.
Here was a visitor to take the breath away, waving briefly to the protesters
who crowded the military cordon to witness this extraordinary arrival. The
crowd roared. "The Egyptian army is our army," they shouted in
unison. "But Mubarak is not ours." It was a message for Tantawi to
take back to his friend Mubarak, but his visit was itself a powerful
political symbol. However much Mubarak may rave about "foreign hands"
behind the demands for his overthrow, and however many lies Suleiman may
tell about foreign journalists, Tantawi was showing that the army took its
mission to protect the demonstrators seriously. The recent military
statement that it would never fire on those who wish to dethrone Mubarak,
since their grievances were "legitimate", was authorised by
Tantawi. Hence the demonstrators' belief – however naïve and dangerous – in
the integrity of the military.
Crucially missing from the list of figures proposed for the committee are
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN arms inspectors and Nobel laureate, and
members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the "Islamist" spectre which
Mubarak and the Israelis always dangled in front of the Americans to
persuade them to keep old Mubarak in power. The Brotherhood's insistence in
not joining talks until Mubarak's departure – and their support for
ElBaradei, whose own faint presidential ambitions (of the "transitional"
kind) have not commended themselves to the protesters – effectively excluded
them. Suleiman has archly invited the Brotherhood to meet him, knowing that
they will not do so until Mubarak has gone.
But al-Awa's proposed presence on the committee – and that of the Islamist
intellectual Ahmed Kamel Abu Magd – will ensure that their views are
included in any discussions with Suleiman. These talks would also cover
civil and constitutional rights and a special clause to allow Suleiman to
rule Egypt temporarily because "the President is unable to perform his
duties".
Mubarak would be allowed to live privately in Egypt providing he played no
part – publicly or covertly – in the political life of the country. He is
regarded as a still-fierce opponent who will not hesitate to decapitate the
opposition should he hang on to power.
"He is one of the old school, like Saddam and Arafat, who in the last two
days has shown his true face," another committee supporter said
yesterday. "He is the man behind the attacks on us and the shooting
deaths." Mohamed Fahmy knows what this means. His own father has been
in exile from Egypt for seven years – after proposing identical protests to
those witnessed today to get rid of the Mubarak empire.
The Independent
My Son
``“When my father first suggested we go to a demonstration to show support for Egypt, my first reaction was: ‘This is a school night. I have homework. This isn’t my fight,’ ” said Esmaeel, a high school junior who likes to paint and play guitar. “But when I got there and saw all the anger and passion, I saw that I can’t be selfish. I felt like Egypt is my country, and I suddenly felt proud.”''
NYT
It is hard to be American and Arab, and to be American and Mexican.
We have to manage though. Our children are cosmopolitan, whether they know it or not.
Academic Organization
The administration of the university tries to save money, the academic part of the university, tries to optimize knowledge. Besides there are political considerations. Who has power to decide?
These aspects exist together, a way is always found to end each term, and to start the new one.
Somehow students find their way, and eventually find a job.
These aspects exist together, a way is always found to end each term, and to start the new one.
Somehow students find their way, and eventually find a job.
Dylan Thomas
In my craft or sullen art
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
-- Dylan Thomas
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
-- Dylan Thomas
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Nicholas D. Kristof
Inside Tahrir Square on Thursday, I met a carpenter named Mahmood whose left arm was in a sling, whose leg was in a cast and whose head was being bandaged in a small field hospital set up by the democracy movement. This was the seventh time in 24 hours that he had needed medical treatment for injuries suffered at the hands of government-backed mobs. But as soon as Mahmood was bandaged, he tottered off once again to the front lines.
“I’ll fight as long as I can,” he told me. I was awestruck. That seemed to be an example of determination that could never be surpassed, but as I snapped Mahmood’s picture I backed into Amr’s wheelchair. It turned out that Amr had lost his legs many years ago in a train accident, but he rolled his wheelchair into Tahrir Square to show support for democracy, hurling rocks back at the mobs that President Hosni Mubarak apparently sent to besiege the square.
Amr (I’m not using some last names to reduce the risks to people I quote) was being treated for a wound from a flying rock. I asked him as politely as I could what a double-amputee in a wheelchair was doing in a pitched battle involving Molotov cocktails, clubs, machetes, bricks and straight razors.
“I still have my hands,” he said firmly. “God willing, I will keep fighting.”
That was Tahrir Square on Thursday: pure determination, astounding grit, and, at times, heartbreaking suffering.
Mr. Mubarak has disgraced the twilight of his presidency. His government appears to have unleashed a brutal crackdown — hunting down human rights activists, journalists and, of course, demonstrators themselves, all while trying to block citizens from Tahrir Square. As I arrived near the square in the morning, I encountered a line of Mr. Mubarak’s goons carrying wooden clubs with nails embedded in them. That did not seem an opportune place to step out of a taxi, so I found a back way in.
So did many, many others. At Tahrir Square’s field hospital (a mosque in normal times), 150 doctors have volunteered their services, despite the risk to themselves. Maged, a 64-year-old doctor who relies upon a cane to walk, told me that he hadn’t been previously involved in the protests, but that when he heard about the government’s assault on peaceful pro-democracy protesters, something snapped.
So early Thursday morning, he prepared a will and then drove 125 miles to Tahrir Square to volunteer to treat the injured. “I don’t care if I don’t go back,” he told me. “I decided I had to be part of this.”
“If I die,” he added, “this is for my country.”
In the center of Tahrir Square, also known as Liberation Square, I bumped into one of my heroes, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, a leading Arab feminist who for decades has fought female genital mutilation. Dr. Saadawi, who turns 80 this year, is white-haired and frail and full of fiery passion.
“I feel I am born again,” she said, adding that she intended to sleep with the protesters on Tahrir Square. She also suggested that instead of being sent into comfortable exile, Mr. Mubarak should be put on trial as a criminal; that’s a theme I’ve heard increasingly often among pro-democracy activists.
There’s a small jail in Tahrir Square for pro-Mubarak thugs who are captured, and their I.D. cards indicate that many are working for the police or the ruling party. Mr. Mubarak may claim that he’s unhappy about the violence in Cairo, but he caused it — and the only way to restore order in Egypt and revive the economy is for him to step down immediately. I’m encouraged that the Obama administration is reportedly discussing with Egyptian officials ways to make that happen.
Countless Egyptians here tell me that they are willing to sacrifice their lives for democracy. They mean it. But I’ve heard similar talk in many other countries in the throes of democracy movements. Unfortunately, usually what determines the fate of such movements is not the courage of the democracy activists but the willingness of the government to massacre its citizens. In that case, the survivors usually retreat in sullen silence, and the movement is finished for a time.
Whatever Mr. Mubarak is planning, it does feel as if something has changed, as if the Egyptian people have awoken. When I needed to leave Tahrir Square today, several Egyptians guided me out for almost an hour through a special route so that I would not be arrested or assaulted — despite considerable risk to themselves. One of my guides was a young woman, Leila, who told me: “We are all afraid, inside of us. But now we have broken that fear.”
The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square are risking their lives to stand up for democracy and liberty, and they deserve our strongest support — and, frankly, they should inspire us as well. A quick lesson in colloquial Egyptian Arabic: Innaharda, ehna kullina Misryeen! Today, we are all Egyptians!
NYT
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments