On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing to present Ambassador-designate to the Kingdom of Bahrain The Honorable Thomas C. Krajeski, Ambassador-designate to Luxembourg Robert A. Mandell, Ambassador-designate to the People's Republic of Bangladesh The Honorable Dan W. Mozena, and the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Michael A. Hammer. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) presided over the hearing, and John Barrasso (R-WY) and James ...

On Thursday, the Project on Middle East Political Science held a discussion with Sultan al-Qassemi, a columnist based in the U.A.E., well-known for his tracking of the events of the Arab Spring via Twitter, to explore the powers and pitfalls of social media during revolution. Marc Lynch, Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs and author of the blog "Abu Aardvark," introduced al-Qassemi. ...

President and Founder of the National Iranian American Council Trita Parsi and Research Director Reza Marashi write about how Iran views the Arab Spring "as a challenge not only to the status quo powers investing in an order that suppresses the streets, but also the powers that claim to champion them."  Both Parsi and Marashi argue that Tehran's decision-makers are more concerned with winning over the soft power of the ...

On Wednesday the New America Foundation hosted an event entitled “How to Ignite, or Quash a Revolution in 140 Characters or Less.” The event featured eight panels throughout the day, including: Reflecting on the Tunisian Hair Trigger by Sami Ben Gharbia, co-founder of www.nawaat.org, moderated by Steve Coll, President, New America Foundation; Internet Freedom and Human Rights: The Obama Administration's Perspective by Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for ...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that TechGirls, an initiative that encourages innovation and the use of new technologies by young women in the Middle East and North Africa, will be launched next year through the TechWomen program.  The initiative will bring teenage girls from the Middle East and North Africa for an "intensive month of educational activities" in the United States. "Since it seems like technology is evolving so ...

Thousands protested in Kuwait for the third straight Friday night calling for the emir to remove Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah, and end the feud with his deputy Sheikh Ahmad Fahad al-Sabah, the latest episode in an ongoing feud of Kuwait's dominant political family. Even while held at night, the protesters brave temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius. Sultan Al Qassemi writes that in Kuwait and other Gulf countries, social ...

Last week, Freedom House released its report on internet freedom in 37 countries around the world. The report found that while the number of internet users have increased, "governments have stepped up efforts to regulate, and in some instance tightly control, the new medium."  The study highlights the  increase in the number of blocked and filtered sites as well as the arrest of bloggers and internet users posting information contrary ...

The National Transitional Council has signed up with the Harbour Group, a well-connected DC-based public relations firm, according to Justice Department records. The firm, which is working pro-bono, aims to gain US recognition of the rebel council, in addition to encouraging US humanitarian aid to Libya and freezing the assets of Libyan ruler Muammar Gadhafi in order to pay for that aid. To this end, Harbour will "help prepare speeches, ...

The State Department has ceased to update the democracy promotion website America.gov. The decision came as the result of a review last fall, which concluded that the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) needed a “more proactive” web engagement strategy that focused less on "static" websites and more on social media, according to IIP Deputy Assistant Secretary Duncan MacInnes. The website, which was launched in January 2008, is ...

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, in an address to the House of Commons, acknowledged that Britain was providing "non-lethal equipment," such as telecommunications equipment, to the opposition transitional council.  Hague reiterated that the UK was not providing weapons to the rebels.   Hague further encourages members of Muammar Gadhafi's regime to follow in Moussa Koussa's footsteps and defect.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury said it had lifted sanctions on Koussa in ...

Syrian blogger, Tal al-Mallouhi, a 19 year old female high school student, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison by a state security court on charges of spying for the U.S. Embassy in Egypt.  She was first detained in December 2009 and had been held since then without charge.  The UK - based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights released a statement (in Arabic)  acknowledging al-Mallouhi's sentencing.  P.J. Crowley, State Department spokesman, also released a statementcondemning ...

Internet service was restored earlier this morning at about 11:30 a.m. Egypt time.  3G, mobile web, and Blackberry services are also back up for some people.Photo courtesy of Arbor Networks.

The Egyptian government's shutdown of the Internet in Egypt is being called an "action unprecedented in internet history." The government has been able to leverage its "kill switch" on the Internet by shutting off the various DNS serves used by Egyptian ISPs.  This is relatively easy for the Egyptian government to do as Telecom Egypt, the nation's dominant ISP, is state-run.  This also allows the government to spy on Internet users.  Telecom Egypt has ...

Reuters is reporting that Facebook was blocked in Syria as of Friday.  This comes after internet access in Egypt was blocked by the Egyptian government on Thursday.  As in Egypt, Syria has been under "emergency rule" for decades.

Our contacts in Cairo tell us that it was eerily quiet most of the morning and that all mobile phones went out a few hours ago. Friday prayers are now underway with a huge security presence in the streets. Police, security forces and groups of plain-clothes thugs are surrounding every mosque in the city. Protests will begin shortly, when prayers end, and people are starting to pour into the street now. ...

The National Iranian American Council released a letter Thursday, signed by a variety of Middle East experts and human rights and democracy advocates including POMED's Executive Director Stephen McInerney, calling on the Obama administration to "reinvigorate" its diplomacy and engagement with Iran as the upcoming round of multilateral nuclear talks draws near: "Diplomacy is the only sustainable means of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, avoiding the dangerous folly of military confrontation ...