Links September 22nd to September 23rd

Links from my del.icio.us account for September 22nd through September 23rd:

• Egyptian Policy Imperils Refugees, Migrants at Israel’s Door – washingtonpost.com – "Since the first recorded border killing in the summer of 2007, when Egyptian authorities announced a live-fire policy on the Sinai border, Egyptian security forces have shot dead at least 28 migrants as they left Egypt for Israel, the rights group Amnesty International said Thursday. Of those, the group said, 23 have been killed since January… Refugee advocates say that Israeli and U.S. pressure on Egypt to stop the flow of African migrants into Israel led the Egyptian government to adopt its live-fire policy — an assertion Israeli and U.S. officials deny. Israeli officials do, however, acknowledge fears that their prosperous country will be overwhelmed if African migration across its porous 155-mile-long border with Egypt is not checked."
• Dissident Lobbies for Conditions on U.S. Aid to Egypt – washingtonpost.com – "Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a 69-year-old sociologist from the American University in Cairo, is lobbying members of Congress to attach conditions to America's $1.5 billion annual aid to Egypt. "I am pushing for conditionality, and I would like the democracy and freedom agenda to be a bipartisan one," Ibrahim said."
• La piraterie au large des côtes somaliennes en pleine expansion – Afrique – Le Monde.fr – On piracy in Somalia – alleges a US warship has already sunk pirate ships, French may start naval escort initiative, how the ransom system works
• Phillip Toledano – America the Gift Shop – Get yourself unique Global War Own Terror souvenirs such as the Abu Ghraib coffee table
• A Deadline for Survival at The Sun – NYTimes.com – Neocon hate rag going down. Remind me to break open the champagne.
• Pourquoi l’armée française doit se retirer d’Afghanistan – Alain Gresh argues for French withdrawal from Afghanistan, essentially on the grounds that the French troops there have no input in the way the peacekeeping mission is run, that it's likely to cause blowback and that the human rights argument is bogus. These are good points. I think I probably disagree: France and the EU should increase their presence in Afghanistan, but only if they are given more decision-making power to correct the mistakes made by the US and the Karzai regime. I don't really see what "negotiations" there is to have with al-Qaeda.