That Egyptian Army AIDS Device

In part because I feel I've been snarky enough already about some recent developments in Egypt,  I deliberately decided  to avoid comment on last week's announcement by the Egyptian Military that they had developed a device that could detect and cure both AIDS and Hepatitis C without a blood test. The whole story has been unraveling ever since. Since I don't want to go into the details here for fear of being too irreverent, I'll refer you instead to this blog post at The Economist's "Pomegranate" blog, "It Gets Ever Sillier." It says what I would have said, but better.

The Economist's blog posts datelined Cairo are usually bylined "M.R." I'm sure it's purely a coincidence that their Cairo Bureau Chief is Max Rodenbeck. He grew up in Cairo (his father ran AUC Press for years) and Max wrote the wonderful Cairo: The City Victorious.

Sheikh Khalifa's Health

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, is recovering well from his January 24 stroke, according to Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed,, who yesterday described the Ruler's health as "stable and reassuring."

It had previously been announced that Sheikh Khalifa underwent surgery immediately after his stroke last month.

Bouteflika Reappears in Photos, on TV

Bouteflika with PM Sellal (R) and CoS Gaid Salah (L) (APS)

Yesterday the Algerian Press Service released the first photos of President Bouteflika since his stroke, shown meeting with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and Deputy Minister for National Defense and the Chief of Staff of People’s National Army Ahmed Gaid at the Invalides Veterans' Hospital in Paris. The meeting lasted two hours, and Algerian television also showed video of Bouteflika talking and drinking coffee.

Official statements are also now using
the term "cerebrovascular accident," rather than "transient ischemic attack," suggesting the stroke was indeed more than the "mini-stroke" originally described. But the photos of the meeting are clearly intended to put to rest the rumors that Bouteflika is in a coma. It remains to be seen, however, whether the ailing 76-year-old President will run for a fourth term next year.

They Used to Call it "French North Africa" because its Rulers were in France. Of Course Today ... Oh, Wait

NOTE: A version of this article was posted this morning but was subsequently inadvertently deleted. I have reconstituted it as best I could.

As this article (in French) notes, three North African leaders (the Presidents of Algeria and Mauritania and the King of Morocco) have been in France for several weeks.

Algerian President Bouteflika, as we knew, has been in Paris since late April, when he suffered a "minor stroke," from which he is rumored to be in a coma officially said to be "improving day to day" despite no photos having been made public.

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has been in Paris as well on a "private visit" since attending a meeting in Brussels on May 15. There is speculation about his health as well; you may recall that last October he was wounded when his own Army shot up the Presidential motorcade in a "tragic accident" which was discovered after the President had "accidentally" been shot five times. He received lengthy treatment in France for that as well.

And King Muhammad VI of Morocco is also on a private visit to Paris since May 10. While there have  been recent rumors about the King's health as well (though he's not yet 50), he may be avoiding the political issues at home produced by the Istiqlal Party's intention to withdraw from the ruling coalition.

Of course, they may all just love Paris in the springtime. But who's watching the store at home?

Morocco: Rumors About the King's Health

In Morocco, the monarch's heath is a taboo subject for the media: lèse majesté is still very much an offense. But here's an article (in French), from a French-language (and I gather, Paris-based) online site for Moroccan news, that goes ahead and repeats rumors that King Muhammad VI may be ailing.

Some may recall that back in 2009, the government shut down a publication and jailed its editor for publishing speculation on the King's health. Ironically, my post about that was my only previous post speculating about the King's health, but it clearly showed it's a sensitive subject.
     
For those who don't read French, a lot of the article is wispy and speculative: that the King has put on weight and doesn't look as vigorous as he once did; Spanish reports claiming he'd had surgery secretly in Europe: speculation about lung or kidney or liver ailments, all seemingly without much to back them up. For all I know the King is perfectly healthy, but it's a reminder that when any subject is absolutely taboo, rumors will be circulated.

Kandil's Remarks with Subtitles, and a Subtext Many are Missing

If you've followed any Egyptian media or, even more so, Egyptian social networks the past couple of days you've probably already heard of Prime Minister Hesham Kandil's curious discourse which has generally been reported primarily for his comments that many infants in rural Egypt suffer from diarrhea because their mothers are ignorant and nurse them from "dirty breasts." Plenty of the Egyptian elite have contempt for Kandil, a seeming nonentity elevated to head of government by President Morsi but still seemingly something of a nonentity. Kandil's critics immediately went into a sort of Middle School level of humor (OMG! The PM talked about breasts!), while his supporters said he was in fact urging better hygiene. In fact, of course, most experts say that studies show infants who are breastfed in Third World countries have much lower instances of diarrhea than those fed on formula, because of the unreliability of the water supply. Given the fact that before he was elevated to the premiership, Kandil's job was as Minister of Water Resources, one might think he would know something about this.

What is really curious, however, is how he got to the subject of nursing infants in the first place. In answering a question about police brutality and the televised beating of a man (the "Hamada" he refers to), he launches into a discourse in which he says he is 99% sure that Hamada didn't pay his electric bill (???), then starts talking about the provincial town of Beni Suef south of Cairo, and how he himself has seen, in the 21st century, those women nursing with dirty breasts . . . in other words, in context, it makes even less sense. 

Now the  video below has captions in English which are clearly intended to embarrass Kandil, but as far as I can tell the translation is accurate. (I'd be more confident if it made any sense.) But what strikes me is that the real story is not that he said something stupid about women's breasts (which is both an unusual subject for an Egyptian Prime Minister and especially an Islamist one, which is why it was quickly pounced upon), but that he's also showing an enormous amount of condescension towards rural Egyptians. Since I criticized Mohamed ElBaradei in December when he tweeted about the illiteracy of the Egyptian voter, I need to be consistent and also criticize a Muslim Brotherhood (well, FJP Party at least) member who also disdains the rural voters who, in fact, supported his party. (I wonder how the party office in Beni Suef is feeling about this?) The urban elites are having so much fun making breast jokes in both Arabic and English that they've missed the real anti-rural bias visible in the comments. Anyway, see if you can follow the thread of the Prime Minister's reasoning in what follows.

New MEI Viewpoints: Public Health in the Middle East

There's a new MEI Viewpoints publication: Public Health in the Middle East: Building a Healthy Future, with contributions from six specialists in the field. The information page is at the link. The full report (in PDF) is here.

King ‘Abdullah Leaves New York Hospital

King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has left a New York hospital after his two rounds of back surgery. He will spend some recovery time in New York.

The King's surgery, and the precarious health of the Crown Prince, have sparked speculation about the line of succession, though the Saudis do not care for such speculation, and a Saudi paper last month decried the British press' speculation about British succession, without, of course, drawing any parallels.

The fact of the matter is that the Family does not discuss its inner dynamics, and however much intellectual exercise we may get from various succession scenarios, no one who knows is going to talk, and no one who's talking actually knows.

Egypt Takes Unusual Step; Officially Denies Mubarak Ill

The Egyptian government has taken the unusual step of publicly (in the guise of a "senior Egyptian official") denying that Husni Mubarak is seriously, perhaps terminally, ill and about to return to Europe for possible further surgery. (For the denials: Arabic in Al-Masry al-Youm here; an English account from Reuters here.) [UPDATE: And if you doubted it for a moment, Mubarak dropped in for the Air Force Academy graduation. (Article in Arabic.)]

The wilder rumor mills have been churning again; claiming that Mubarak has cancer of the esophagus, may not last out his term, etc. This is fairly typical fare for the Mideast coffeehouses, and some of it has been turning up in the Israeli press. But two things seem to have combined to persuade the Egyptian government, which usually does not comment on Mubarak's health except to praise how good it is, to openly deny the rumors.

One was the report in the respected Lebanese daily Al-Safir, reporting that Mubarak was due to travel within days to Germany for a new bout of surgery (Arabic).

A second was the fact that Mubarak was scheduled to meet with Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday. That was first postponed until Wednesday, then all the way to Sunday. This led to speculation that it was due to health reasons, especially in Israel. There is plenty of contrary evidence, mostly suggesting that the reasons for the postponement were to express Mubarak's unhappiness about recent demolitions in Jerusalem, or to avoid having a summit coincide with a possible Israeli interception of a Libyan ship sailing to Gaza via Egypt. Also, by moving the meeting to Sunday, it gives Mubarak the opportunity to meet with Mahmoud ‘Abbas first; he's coming Saturday.

Part of the nervousness, too, stems from increasing Israeli speculation about what a post-Mubarak Egypt might look like. The press follows the health rumors, and recently Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Spiritual Leader of the rightist ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, sent Mubarak a letter in which he prayed for his good health. Given some of Yosef's past comments on Arabs, this led to some wry commentary in Egypt.

My conclusion would be that the Netanyahu postponement makes perfect political/diplomatic sense, and therefore is no reason to assume the worst. On the other hand, given the region's love of conspiracy theories, the fact that the Egyptian government took the unusual step of denying these rumors will probably convince at least some that they must therefore be true.