media – Page 5 – Testbist

Links January 25th and January 26th

Automatically posted links for January 25th through January 26th:

The Arab – New London-based magazine on MENA

MidEast Brief::Egypt – Newish website links to articles on region

Egypt says will keep border open and help Gazans restock – Unable to stop flow of people, Egypt maintains borders open

Abbas: No talks with Hamas despite Gaza border chaos – Abu Mazen turns down Cairo talks with Hamas

PALESTINIANS CREATE NEW BREACHES DESPITE EGYPTIAN ATTEMPTS TO SEAL THE BORDER – Article mentions Egyptian tanks on their way to border

Gaza source: Hamas planned border wall blast for months – Amira Hass

Gaza into Egypt Middle East Strategy at Harvard – M. Kramer revives “give Gaza a chunk of Egypt” idea, good response by S. Cook

The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process – Juan Cole’s Informed Comment hosts Joel Beinin op-ed

ANALYSIS: Gaza border breach shows Israel that Hamas is in charge – Haaretz analysis

?????????? ?????: ????: ???? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ????? ??? – Mahdi Akef denied that Khaled Meshaal asked him to stage Gaza siege demos

Furlough Day for Gazans (Prospects for Peace) – Daniel Levy

Appeal for the defense of individual freedoms – Moroccan liberals call for right to individual freedoms after Islamist gay witch-hunt

Egypt’s Gaza policy / A pan-Arab consensus? – Haaretz analyzes Egypt’s tough position re: Gaza and Hamas

Links January 20th and January 21st

Automatically posted links for January 20th through January 21st:

al-Qaida Solicits Questions Online – Questions include “why haven’t you opened a new front in Egypt” and more depressing idiocy

Measuring liberty | When freedom stumbles | Economist.com – Look at the charts: in 1982 Egypt was “partly free,” now it is “not free”

Economics focus | Selling sex | Economist.com – Interesting article on the economics of prostitution

HAMAS ASKS EGYPT TO REOPEN RAFAH BORDER – Hamas puts Cairo on the spot

Translating the Party of God into English – Quilty reviews Hizbullah in translation

Review: Loaded Dice by Neill Lochery – Debunking of idea that UK Foreign Office is pro-Arab or anti-Israel

The rise and decline of London as a pan-Arab media hub – Media critic Najm Jarrah

An Israeli Law for Censorship of Web Comments – Elijah points to a bill in the Knesset that would enable libel laws for web comments

Why does Johnny come marching homeless? – How Iraq veterans with psychological problems end up homeless

Those troublesome engineers « Kafr al-Hanadwa – SP has a good post on why engineers are over-represented in Islamist groups

Links for January 12th

Automatically posted links for January 12th:

The Lost Archive – Recovery of lost German archive of early Qurans

Egypt?s cartoon revolution – Yemen Times – Profile of Destour cartoonists

Rival Egyptian families agree to end ‘mustache war’ – Saidi mustache vendetta ends in reconciliation

Egypt’s new golden age of television | Menassat – Review of Egypt’s satellite channels

Bush Alters Stand on Palestinians – WaPo as bad as NYT, thinks Palestine occupation is just “presence”

Links January 7th and January 8th

Automatically posted links for January 7th through January 8th:

Bhutto Killing Roils Province, Spurring Call to Quit Pakistan – WSJ.com – Sindhis outraged, some call for armed insurgency, secession!

Trip Notes from the Middle East – White House blogs during Middle East trip

The Clash – Fouad Ajami, with hindsight, agrees with Huntington and fears for West

Menassat – New NGO website on Arab media

Egypt Police Officer Jailed 5 Years – Another conviction in a police abuse case

G H A S B O U B A: Touareg Genocide – Very interesting interview (in French) of Niger Touareg leader

An American in Iran – The New York Review of Books – Max Rodenbeck visits Iran

Links for January 6th

Automatically posted links for January 6th:

Report: FBI translator says Israel planted nuclear ‘moles’ in U.S. – Another twist the Larry Franklin affair / Israeli spy operation in US

Interview with Khalil Enani – Author of new book on Muslim Brothers

Egypt police torture mentally handicapped boy – Can a day pass without one of these stories?

Egypt court jails three police in abuse case – Another conviction against police torturers

al-Qaida Videos Now on Cell Phones – Bin Laden & co. develop multimedia distribution platforms

Links December 19th and January 5th

Automatically posted links for December 19th through January 5th:

Fashion and Faith Meet, on Foreheads of the Pious – NYT article from Dec 2007 on that bizarre Egyptian fetish, the zebibah

Al Jazeera appelée à présenter ses excuses – Al Jazeera called on by its Algerian staff to apologize for poll about Algiers attacks

Le Monde.fr : Le Dakar 2008 a été annulé – Paris-Dakar race cancelled for first time because of “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” threats

Benazir Bhutto | Economist.com – A good obituary

AFP: Egyptian woman in legal test of SMS divorce: report – Woman argues third divorce SMS makes it legal

Guardian’s Tehran correspondent expelled without explanation – Robert Tait kicked out of Iran

Anti-Zionist author kicks off speaking tour of Lebanon – Norman Finkelstein tour

Du Nil à la Seine, l’étrange destin des Badraouis – Unusual story about an Egyptian village that specializes in emigrating to France

U.S. envoy Jones starts Mideast security push – New American governor of Palestine arrives

Links for 12-18 December

Automatically posted links for December 12th through December 18th:

Democracy Digest – Newsletter on democracy developments in Arab world and elsewhere, current issue has article on MB
BBC World Service | ‘Free to Speak’ Events – Is new media the only truly independent media in the Arab world today?
GWOT: Egypt – Negar Azimi on Egypt and the “Global War On Terror”
Islamist calls for boycott of Egypt billionaire – “An Islamist shaikh on Monday called for a boycott of the companies of telecommunications billionaire Naguib Sawiris for speaking out against the influence of Islam on public life in Egypt.”
YEARENDER: In Egypt, unrest will spill over into 2008 – corrected : Middle East World – In the last few months of 2007, Egypt has experienced a series of massive workers strikes, motivated by none other than poor standards of living and lack of privileges, foreboding the beginning of a possible “uprising” by Egypt’s poor.
Incumbent Regimes and the ?King?s Dilemma? in the Arab World: Promise and Threat of Managed Reform – Carnegie report says political stagnation seen as more likely outcome if regimes not serious about reform
Arab Reform Bulletin: December 2007 – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Beyond the FaÃ§ade: Political Reform in the Arab World – New book by Carnegie Endowment
Anthropologists on the Front Lines – TIME – TIME looks at debates in academic community about Human Terrain Teams
The Press Association: Army chief among Beirut blast dead – Michel Suleiman successor killed

Hereâ€™s Ulrich Ladurner of Die Zeit (one of Germanyâ€™s largest and most influential papers) travelling to a remote Iranian province to find out whether Ahmadinejadâ€™s promises to improve life in the countryâ€™s regions were fulfilled.

(Which is a laudable intention, as few bother to look at the country beyond nuclear bomb issue.)

The article simply ends up being about how difficult it is to find information in Iran (title: The Persian labyrinth â€“ Has President Ahmadinejad improved the situation of the poor in the provinces? To find an answer to that is as difficult as decoding the truth on
the Iranian bomb.)

Continue reading In eigener Sache

Links for 5-6 December

Automatically posted links for December 5th through December 6th:

CAB Advised To Audit Independent Newspapers – al-Masri al-Youm English story on a decision to have government accounting office audit independent newspaper. Is seen as an attack on freedom of the press, could provide pretexts for newspapers to be shut down or financially pressured
25 Al-Azhar University Students Detained Wednesday Dawn – Latest crackdown on Islamist students at al-Azhar, who in the past few months have staged sit-ins to protest the exclusion of some Islamist from the university and its dorms. MB leaders I’ve spoken to recently said it is becoming more difficult for them t
Le Monde.fr : RSF rÃ©compense le blogueur Ã©gyptien Kareem Amer, emprisonnÃ© pour quatre ans – Reporters Without Borders gives Karim Amer its annual prize
Tunisia’s Ben Ali promises more democracy – METimes.com – And I promise you the moon is made of solid gold
Shatah?An Egyptian Cleric Adored By Muslims And Americans, Unheard Of In Egypt – al-Masri al-Youm profiles up-and-coming Egyptian imam in Amreeka who is Amr Khaled fan
Islamists Today: The Autumn of Arab Islamists – Khalil al-Anani continues to see Islamists on the decline
Changes in Guantanamo Bay SOP manual (2003-2004) – Wikileaks – Comparison in leaked 2003 and 2004 Guantanamo Bay Standard Operating Procedures has evidence of abuses

The NYT and Annapolis

Reading the New York Times’ editorials on Annapolis, full of praise for “moderates” and worrying about who shook whose hand, I am reminded of why I barely read that newspaper anymore. The reporting is occasionally good, such as the very nice long feature on radicalism in northern Morocco a few days ago, but when it comes to Israel just forget about it. This piece for instance quotes, aside (current) US officials, Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and John Bolton. Never mind the jovial hamster and his bosses.

I mean, is there anything more to Annapolis than providing a mechanism for boosting Mahmoud Abbas while keeping the Palestinian Authority subservient to Israel and the US, thus isolating Hamas and preparing the ground for booting it out of Gaza? And in the meantime recreating the illusion of a peace process Palestinians will never credibly endorse while divided and many in the Israeli political establishment (and certainly the current ruling coalition) have no intention of ever finalizing? Or am I missing something? The NYT could celebrate that if it wanted to, but enough with the bullshit.

(Most links through Angry Arab.)