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Secretary of State Clinton declared Monday that the Obama administration would work with ascendant Islamist parties of the Muslim world, answering one of the central U.S. policy questions resulting from the Arab Spring.
Delivering an address at the National Democratic Institute, Clinton offered a forthright embrace of the democratic changes enveloping North Africa and the Middle East at a time when the euphoria of the successful revolutions from Egypt to Libya is giving way to the hard and unprecedented work of creating stable democracies.
After decades of partnering dictators throughout the region, her message was that the U.S. would approach the new political landscape with an open mind and the understanding that long-term support for democracy trumps any short-term advantages through alliances with authoritarian regimes.
While she reached out to the religious-rooted parties expected to gain power in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, she said nothing about changing U.S. policies toward Hezbollah and Hamas, which have performed well in Lebanese and Palestinian elections but are considered foreign terrorist organizations by the United States.
“For years, dictators told their people they had to accept the autocrats they knew to avoid the extremists they feared,” Clinton told an audience that included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “Too often, we accepted that narrative ourselves.”
After almost a year of protests and crackdowns, armed rebellion and civil war, the Arab world’s upheaval has left a jumbled mosaic of liberals and Islamists, military rulers and loose coalitions of reformers. No country appears unalterably on a path toward democratic governance, and for the people of the region and the United States the stakes of long-term instability are high.
U.S. interests, including the security of oil supplies, military relations and Israel’s defense, have forced the Obama administration to engage in flexible diplomacy, with different messages for different countries.
The one-size-does-not-fit-all approach has meant U.S. support for an imperfect military stewardship over Egypt ahead of elections for a new parliament and president, and largely overlooking ally Bahrain’s rough response to protests earlier this year. Washington helped a military effort that ultimately deposed Libyan strongman Gaddafi. It also demanded that leaders in Syria and Yemen leave power, without any real means to make them do so.
“There will be times when not all of our interests align,” Clinton said. “That is just reality.”
VIA AP
The weekend’s Islamic holiday, which centres on sacrifice and feeding the poor, offered the Muslim Brotherhood a golden opportunity.
For the first time, Egypt’s Islamist powerhouse is able to campaign openly under a new party banner, and it is using its long-standing charity networks to gain an edge over more liberal and secular candidates before parliamentary elections scheduled to begin in two weeks.
Across the country last week, the movement’s political and charitable machine was selling discounted meat and vegetables to families who otherwise could not afford the traditional rituals for Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice.
Critics call it vote-buying, but the Brotherhood says social services are its historic conduit to the people.
In a poor district of Cairo on Friday, families crowded outside the neighbourhood mosque as volunteers for the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party yelled out prices on discounted potatoes, lemons, green beans and other vegetables. Sewage ran through potholed streets, and garbage was piled high. Many families in the neighbourhood share one-room dwellings that serve as their kitchen, bedroom and living room.
Nawal Sleem, 40, pushed through the crowd to order vegetables. Potatoes were about half price compared with the regular market she goes to.
Ms Sleem’s husband makes just $US50 a month to support her and her two sons, who cannot find jobs as Egypt’s economy limps along. Eid al-Adha usually includes the sacrifice of a sheep, but the family would have to settle for vegetables.
Unemployment has risen since the winter protests that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak and empowered the nation’s military. Food prices have doubled, she said.
Mr Mubarak had banned the Muslim Brotherhood but allowed it to field candidates as independents. Now, members are eagerly campaigning under the Freedom and Justice party banner.
Because of the discounted produce, Ms Sleem said she was likely to vote for the party.
”They seem good,” she said of the Brotherhood. ”They help with expensive things.”
Maha Abdel Salem, 30, questioned the Brotherhood’s motives as she also left the stall with only vegetables.
She walked back to her haphazardly built apartment, where her son slept on the bed she shares with her four children and husband. Flies buzzed around her sleeping child’s face. When it rains, the roof leaks.
”What is a kilo of vegetables going to do for me when I live like this?” she asked. ”We live with sewage in broken-down houses. We’ll vote for someone who can solve this.”
The Brotherhood’s party has also been trying to address the issues of the poor, selling lower-priced notebooks, pens and other stationery before the school year started, for example. It has also set up mobile health clinics in areas without hospitals and deployed tens of thousands of volunteers to mobilise their programs.
Via Washington Post
Mohammed ElBaradei’s Egyptian presidential campaign suffered a blow on Saturday as campaigners quit in protest at the handling of his election race, saying the former U.N. nuclear watchdog head has become isolated from his grassroots base.
Campaigners in one of Egypt’s biggest electoral blocs walked out and nine other provinces froze their activities, blaming flawed campaign management for ElBaradei’s decreasing popularity, charges his central office has denied.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner is no longer seen as one of the front runners in the election race and the internal dispute could further weaken his prospects ahead of presidential elections expected at the end of 2012.
One survey has placed the former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head seventh in the running as he struggles to navigate the country’s internal politics.
Independent analysts and Western diplomats, while praising ElBaradei’s integrity and diplomatic skills, have questioned whether he has the broad appeal to attract votes from many ordinary Egyptians concerned with local issues rather than his international achievements.
ElBaradei could not be reached for comment but the central office said he was keen on meeting campaigners and had met with “over 1,500 volunteers” recently.
Volunteers in Sharqiya, a province with a voting power of 3.4 million, said they resigned after their campaign leader was dismissed in an “arbitrary decision” by the directors.
“ElBaradei’s campaign office in Sharqiya has collectively resigned to protest the maltreatment the Cairo-based administration has shown to the volunteers and for blocking access between ElBaradei and the grassroots base working for him on the ground,” the statement added.
‘GAP WITH ORDINARY EGYPTIANS’
The Cairo office denied there was a collective resignation, and said it removed three coordinators to “obtain harmony and improve the performance of the campaign,” insisting volunteers and their efforts were respected.
“This campaign is failing because there is a gap between Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei who ordinary Egyptians consider distant and cut off from them,” said Mohammed Gouda, who headed the Sharqiya campaign. Two other campaigners, Saad Bahar and Ahmed Hassan, were dismissed for backing Gouda.
Campaigners in the city of Port Said also quit, while leaders in nine other provinces said in a joint statement they had halted activities until ElBaradei meets them. They also demanded a “transparent and just” probe over the dismissals.
“Volunteers work independently and without integration, like isolated islands. This will be a problem during presidential polls,” said Saad Bahar, one of those dismissed. Bahar was responsible for coordinating field work across the country.
Others said the campaign’s central office had too many business executives and not enough people with local knowledge.
After his return to Egypt in February 19 2010, ElBaradei led a reform movement, saying Egyptians would rise up against 30 years of authoritarian rule under President Hosni Mubarak. A year later, Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising on February 11.
Via Reuters
Officials from the United States reported that they would be “satisfied” if the Muslim Brotherhood(MB) comes out ahead in upcoming parliamentary elections in Egypt, set to begin at the end of November.
“I think the answer is yes, I think we will be satisfied, if it is a free and fair election,” said the administration’s special coordinator for Middle East transitions, William Taylor, who visited Cairo last week and met with several of the country’s interim military rulers.
Taylor, however, was not able to meet with officials from the MB. He would have, given the opportunity, he reportedly said to AFP.
“As long as parties, entities do not espouse or conduct violence, we’ll talk to them,” he explained, marking a significant shift in US foreign policy towards the MB.
In June, the US administration changed its policy about engaging with the Brotherhood, easing restrictions that once mandated that the US could only speak with MB members who were independent members of Parliament.
“What we need to do is judge people and parties and movements on what they do, not what they’re called,” Taylor told a forum at the Atlantic Council.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Egypt’s al-Hayat in October, touching upon the administration’s hopes for Egypt’s next government.
“We hope that anyone who runs for election, and certainly anyone who’s elected and joins the parliament, joins the government, will be committed to making Egypt work and be open to all Egyptians no matter who you might be,” she explained.
“We will be willing to and open to working with a government that has representatives who are committed to non-violence, who are committed to human rights, who are committed to the democracy that I think was hoped for in Tahrir Square,” she added.
Observers of Egyptian politics expect the Muslim Brotherhood’s affiliated Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to win significant gains in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.
Some analysts have made broad comparisons between the Brotherhood and Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda Party, who took the largest number of seats in recent the country’s recent assembly elections.
“This is something that we are used to, and should not be afraid of. We should deal with them,” said Taylor, speaking to the ascent of Islamist parties in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring.
The United States gives $2 billion annually to Egypt in military and economic aid in exchange for its peace treaty with Israel.
Bikasayr
This marked the first El-Adha Eid celebration after the outbreak of the January 25 revolution and the ousting of Hosni Mubarak from power.
A year ago, the press in Egypt marked Eid, as they did for thirty years, by reporting on where Mubarak performed the morning prayer and which high-level public figures stood by his side as he did so.
In fact, the ousted president celebrated the previous Eid ritual at the Police Mosque in Cairo with Field Marshall and a slew of top government ministers and National Democratic Party (NDP) officials.
Mubarak and a host of his men performed what was to be their last public prayer together just weeks before the January uprising swept them from power, and eventually sent many to prison.
On Sunday, Field Marshal Tantawi, who assumed power from Mubarak on 11 February, was the leading Muslim man in the country facing east to Mecca in order to pray to Allah, as believers do when they reconfirm their Islamic faith five times a day.
The field marshal performed the Eid prayers along with a number of generals from his ruling military council and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar at the Army mosque in Cairo.
Interestingly, both the Eid celebrations in 2010 and 2010 fell just weeks from two sets of parliamentary elections which represented milestones, though in disparate ways, in the contemporary history of Egypt.
The 2010 elections were, by independent accounts, the most rigged elections that took place during Mubarak’s 30-year dictatorship; and anger that resulted from widespread fraud that favoured his NDP played a key role in pushing public hatred of the regime to boiling point, hastening its demise in January.
Meanwhile, the 2011 contest stand to be the first in modern Egyptian history to pass without systematic and widespread fraud, vote-rigging and state sponsored violence against opposition candidates.
Last year, as Eid approached, Mubarak’s State Security Intelligence (SSI) was busy rounding up political opponents in a campaign of public intimidation. During those holy days, the SSI focused its wrath and repression, as it did time and again for most of Mubarak’s tenure, on the mass-basedMuslim Brotherhood organisation who were the largest political opposition force to his rule in the country.
Egyptians who are sympathetic to the group’s politics had to walk through government checkpoints if they wanted to pray at Eid in a mosque or a venue that was led by Brotherhood activists and preachers.
This year, the tables have turned.
- The uprisings that swept the Middle East this year have cost the most affected countries more than $55 billion, a new report says, but the resulting high oil prices have strengthened other producing countries.
- Between them, those states saw $20. 6 billion wiped off their gross domestic product and public finances eroded by another $35. 3 billion as revenues slumped and costs rose.
- Oil prices rocketed from around $90 a barrel of Brent crude at the start of the year to just short of $130 in May before retreating to around $113 now. the report estimated, saying overall the year to September saw some $38. 9 billion added to regional productivity.
- Libya looks to have been the worst affected, with economic activity across the country — including oil exports — halted at an estimated cost to GDP of $7. 7 billion, or more than 28 percent.
- Total costs to the fiscal balance were estimated at $6. 5 billion, roughly 29 percent of gross domestic product.
- In Egypt, nine months of turmoil eroded some 4. 2 percent of gross domestic product with public expenditure rising to $5. 5 billion just as public revenues fell by $75 million. HANDOUTS NOT REFORM?
- In Syria, where protests have continued throughout the year in the face of a bloody crackdown, the impact is hard to model but early indications suggested a total cost to the Syrian economy of some $6 billion or 4. 5 percent of GDP.
- Total cost to the economy was estimated at 6. 3 percent of GDP, with the fiscal balance deteriorating by $858 million, 44. 9 percent of GDP.
- Tunisia, where the protests began in late 2010, lost some $2. 0 billion from its GDP, roughly 5. 2 percent, with negative impacts across almost all sectors of the economy including tourism, mining, phosphates and fishing. s government increased expenditure by some $746 million, pushing its fiscal balance some $489 million into the red. s rulers as a way of avoiding real reform.
- But increased oil prices and production helped boost gross domestic product by more than $5 billion and push up public revenues by $60. 9 billion.
VIA IMF
At least 25 people died and hundreds were injured in the violence that erupted Sunday night after a group of Coptic Christians took to the streets, along with Muslim supporters, to demand their rights and protest a church burning in the south. According to witnesses and video footage, soldiers plowed their vehicles into the crowd when protesters refused to disperse and opened fire after several vehicles were torched.
The incident has swelled into the most significant challenge to the military council’s reputation since it took power Feb. 11, with many Egyptians viewing it as a massacre. At the news conference Wednesday, the generals showed videos of demonstrators throwing rocks and chasing and beating a soldier. The dead included three soldiers, according to state television.
Maj. Gen. Adel Emara said that deliberately driving into people was not in the military’s “dictionary.”
“History never saw us run anyone over, not even fighting our enemies,” he said.
Emara blamed the violence on persisting chaos in Egypt and on forces working to reverse the country’s revolution, a reference to the the 18-day uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, but he acknowledged that soldiers may have run over some people accidentally.
Egypt’s military leaders denied Wednesday that soldiers had purposely killed Christian protesters in the capital last weekend, saying in their first public statement since the deadly incident that troops had opened fire in response to attacks by rock-throwing demonstrators.
“It is a fact that citizens lost their lives, but the military did not fire at them, because of the principles that we’ve instilled,” Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Hegazy, a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, said at a news conference. “Those principles are that the armed forces can never fire at its people and that there is no circumstance that can justify that.”
VIA WP
Tags: Egypt,Egyptian,Military,Christian,Coptic,Christians,Muslim
Iran’s popularity among the Arab countries have plunged over the past decade, while Turkey’s favorability ratings have soared, according to a survey by the Arab American Institute in Washington.
The poll, which was conducted last month in six Arab countries – Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon,Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – indicate that Iran, a Shia Muslim power which is developing a nuclear program, is becoming a grave concern to the Arab world.
A majority in each country polled (except Lebanon) thinks Iranian involvement in the Middle East is largely negative.
According to the Zogby poll, Iran’s positive rating is an abysmally low 6 percent in Saudi Arabia. In the other Arab countries surveyed, Iran’s favorability rating ranges between 14 percent and 37 percent. In Lebanon, however, Iran enjoys a positive rating of 63 percent.
Still, as recently as 2006, Iran positive rating ranged between 68 percent and 82 percent.
“It really was rather shocking I thought,” the director of the Arab American Institute, Dr. James Zogby, told Newsmax.
“Even a couple of years ago, people would say, ‘Oh, Arab leaders are against Iran, but their people aren’t.’”
Zogby thinks the Arab countries are becoming annoyed and alarmed by Tehran’s constant meddling in their affairs.
For example, Iran has repeatedly criticized Saudi Arabia’s presence in neighboring Bahrain, where the ruling Sunni elite has been brutally quelled an uprising by Shias.
Iran is also friendly with Syria (which is quickly becoming a pariah state) and is also involved with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The poll also indicated that five of the six Arab countries polled would like to see a nuclear-free Middle East. However, most Lebanese did not share this view. In fact, a majority of Lebanese Shias actually believed that the Middle East would be more secure if Tehran had the bomb.
“It shows Arab leadership is concerned with Iran – but so are Arab people, so the Arab leadership will have to take these sentiments into consideration”, Zogby told reporters.
Meanwhile, Turkey is enjoying high popularity among the Arab nations polled.
Turkey has a favorable rating in Morocco (80 percent), Egypt (64 percent), Jordan (45 percent), Saudi Arabia (98 percent), UAE (62 percent), and Lebanon (93 percent).
VIA IBTimes
U.S. officials met members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would have direct contacts with Egypt’s biggest Islamist group whose role has grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted. Washington announced the plans in June, portraying such contacts as the continuation of an earlier policy. But analysts said it reflected a new approach to the way it dealt with a group which Mubarak banned from politics.
The Brotherhood is one of Egypt’s most popular and organized groups, with a broad grassroots network built up partly through social work even in Mubarak’s era. The contacts may unsettle Israel and its U.S. backers. The Brotherhood renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt years ago. But groups like Hamas, which have not disavowed violence, look to the Brotherhood as a spiritual guide.
Under the previous policy, U.S. diplomats were allowed to deal with the Brotherhood’s members of parliament who had won seats as “independents” to skirt the official ban. This provided a diplomatic cover to keep lines of communication open. “We have had direct contacts with senior officials of the Freedom and Justice party,” the senior diplomat told Reuters, referring to the Brotherhood’s party that was founded after politics opened up following the ouster of Mubarak. The diplomat said U.S. officials did not make a distinction between members of the Brotherhood or its party. “We don’t have a policy that makes a distinction, that one or the other is off limits,” he said, without saying when the meetings took place.
Via Reuters
Egypt’s military ruler has defended his testimony in the trial of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, denying that the army was ordered to shoot protesters during the uprising earlier this year.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi testified in Mubarak’s trial on Sept. 24 under a total media blackout. Leaks of his testimony suggested that he sought to absolve Mubarak of responsibility for the killing of more than 800 protesters during the 18-day uprising that forced him to step down.
Tantawi was Mubarak’s defense minister for some 20 years.
Mubarak could face the death penalty if convicted of complicity in the killings.
In comments carried by state media Sunday, Tantawi said his testimony came from a “sincere man and a soldier of 40 years.”
Tags: Egypt,Hosni,Mubarak,Hussein,protesters
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Now, taking their cue from social-media fueled uprisings in places like Egypt and Iran, a band of online activists are hoping it will work on Wall Street. (15) - Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the venerable counterculture magazine AdBusters, has taken to Twitter and other websites to help organize a campaign encouraging tens of thousands of Americans to hold a nonviolent sit-in on Saturday in lower Manhattan, the heart of the U. S. financial district — a protest monikered, hashtag and all, as #occupywallstreet. of 2011. (13)
- In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Syria, protestors took the streets and occupied public spaces in protest of stagnant economies, lack of freedom of expression, and regimes which seemed more concerned with consolidating power than addressing the needs of their people. (13)
- Each of these revolutions began in a different way, but they all shared a single common denominator: They were organized and fueled by tech-savvy users of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter. Is the U. S. ripe for protests akin to those of the Arab Spring? Lasn said. (12)
- Many people feel that these people who are financial fraudsters, who basically got away with it, have yet to be brought to justice … . now have to congregate on Wall Street and other financial districts around the world, and force the global economic system to move in a better, more just direction." s Tahrir Square. which released a short video urging its supporters to participate in the sit-in. (25)
- Since then, the movement has seen the addition of planned protests in other countries, including Japan, Israel, Canada and a half-dozen European nations. s financial district, although Lasn hopes that number could climb as high as 90,000. Lasn said. (15)
- Of course, the situation here in America and many European countries is quite different. re not living under a torturous dictatorship, for one." s a feeling that the global financial system, the heart of which is in the U. S. he continued. s a feeling that we need a revolution in the way that our economy is run, the way that Washington is run." t, Lasn stresses, an excuse for rioting and looting like the world witnessed recently in the U. K. (Another situation touched off on social-media sites). s a call for radical change, but in the tradition of nonviolent protestors like Mahatma Ghandi, he says. (16)
- If protests turn violent, he fears the message will be lost amid grisly news stories about columns of riot police and bloodied protesters. Lasn said. (12)
- If we have peaceful assemblies and debates about what our demands to President Obama should be, then bit by bit we can create a situation that will rival what happened in Egypt." he said.
- Now, taking their cue from social-media fueled uprisings in places like Egypt and Iran, a band of online activists are hoping it will work on Wall Street. (15)
- Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the venerable counterculture magazine AdBusters, has taken to Twitter and other websites to help organize a campaign encouraging tens of thousands of Americans to hold a nonviolent sit-in on Saturday in lower Manhattan, the heart of the U. S. financial district — a protest monikered, hashtag and all, as #occupywallstreet. of 2011. (13)
- In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Syria, protestors took the streets and occupied public spaces in protest of stagnant economies, lack of freedom of expression, and regimes which seemed more concerned with consolidating power than addressing the needs of their people. (13)
- Each of these revolutions began in a different way, but they all shared a single common denominator: They were organized and fueled by tech-savvy users of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter. Is the U. S. ripe for protests akin to those of the Arab Spring? Lasn said. (12)
- Many people feel that these people who are financial fraudsters, who basically got away with it, have yet to be brought to justice … . now have to congregate on Wall Street and other financial districts around the world, and force the global economic system to move in a better, more just direction." s Tahrir Square. which released a short video urging its supporters to participate in the sit-in. (25)
- Since then, the movement has seen the addition of planned protests in other countries, including Japan, Israel, Canada and a half-dozen European nations. s financial district, although Lasn hopes that number could climb as high as 90,000. Lasn said. (15)
- Of course, the situation here in America and many European countries is quite different. re not living under a torturous dictatorship, for one." s a feeling that the global financial system, the heart of which is in the U. S. he continued. s a feeling that we need a revolution in the way that our economy is run, the way that Washington is run." t, Lasn stresses, an excuse for rioting and looting like the world witnessed recently in the U. K. (Another situation touched off on social-media sites). s a call for radical change, but in the tradition of nonviolent protestors like Mahatma Ghandi, he says. (16)
- If protests turn violent, he fears the message will be lost amid grisly news stories about columns of riot police and bloodied protesters. Lasn said. (12)
- If we have peaceful assemblies and debates about what our demands to President Obama should be, then bit by bit we can create a situation that will rival what happened in Egypt." he said.
Image via Wikipedia
HRW said the arrest and trial of civilians since the onset of Arab Spring in the North Africa state is more than the total who faced military trials during the entire 30-year rule of former president Hosni Mubarak and “undermines Egypt‘s move from dictatorship to democratic rule,” it said. Egypt expects to reach loan agreements soon with Saudi Arabia and the UAE worth several billions of dollars, while another $500m should come from the Arab Monetary Fund, the country’s finance minister said last week. Egypt’s military rulers turned down an offer of $3bn from the International Monetary Fund in June, vowing to fund a budget deficit from domestic resources and foreign aid. HRW said the military trials do not satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality of courts of law as defendants in Egyptian military courts usually do not have access to counsel of their own choosing and judges are military officers subject to a chain of command and are not impartial. “The military can end these trials today — all it takes is one order to end this travesty of justice.” The government has said it hopes to finance a projected 134 billion pounds spending gap by raising 14 billion pounds, or about $2.4bn, from wealthy Arab countriesand 120 billion pounds from the domestic treasury bill market. “There are talks about a package coming from Arab countries, from Saudi Arabia, from the Emirates. In May, Egypt’s military rulers announced plans to put Hosni Mubarak, the former president, on trial for conspiring to kill unarmed protesters during the uprising that unseated him in February. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have already given a total $1bn. No particular conditions were attached to the packages, Beblawi said, with repayment expected in around five years.
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