The Cancer of Mubarak plagues the Egyptian Body Politic and Legislature

The Egyptian prosecution’s summary of the case against at least 16 Americans and others from five democracy and human rights groups focuses largely on the testimony of their accusers, with evidence primarily limited to proof that their organizations used American and other foreign funds for payrolls and rent.

The prosecution’s dossier also shows leaps of logic in a case that has imperiled a decades-old alliance with Washington and threatened Egypt with the loss of $1.5 billion in aid. The case, for example, cites documents seized in December from one group, the International Republican Institute, that included Wikipedia maps of Egypt showing the country divided into four parts. While Egypt is typically described as comprising four regions — upper and lower Egypt, greater Cairo and the Suez Canal and Sinai region — the prosecution suggested that the maps showed a plan to dismember the country. 

The summary, compiled by the Office of the Investigating Judge of Egypt’s Ministry of Justice, sets the stage for the group trial, scheduled to begin on Sunday. A copy was given to The New York Times by a person close to the investigation on the condition of anonymity because of legal restrictions. 

The primary force behind the prosecution is a holdover from the Mubarak era, Fayza Abul Naga, who has continued to press the case against the democracy groups, despite opposition from military rulers worried about losing American aid, most of which goes to the armed forces. She is foremost among the 13 accusing witnesses, most of them also formerly officials under Hosni Mubarak, the president who was toppled a year ago. Some are underlings of Ms. Abul Naga, who as minister of planning and international cooperation is in charge of dealing with foreign aid. 

Ms. Abul Naga’s central accusation is that the groups were unregistered under Egyptian law, and that the American groups were receiving some $150 million in aid diverted from the larger American aid package to Egypt. They are the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute — which have ties to Congressional party leaders — Freedom House and the International Center for Journalists. The fifth group, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, is German, and receives money from that government. 

More than 40 defendants have been indicted on charges of illegal activity by foreign agents, and face penalties of up to five years in jail. Three of the six accused Americans who are still in Egypt have taken refuge in the American Embassy, including Sam LaHood of the Republican Institute. He is the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. 

Democratization has been a goal of the Obama administration in Egypt, and the case against the Americans has infuriated many in Congress and the administration. 

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, the chairman of the board of the International Republican Institute, arrived Monday in Cairo, where he met with the military leader Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and other officials and came away with assurances of a speedy resolution to the case. “We’re not making threats,” Mr. McCain said. “There’s plenty of time to make threats.” 

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was part of the McCain delegation, was sharply critical of the case. “As an American, I’m offended that people would say things about these organizations,” Mr. Graham said, calling the charges “ridiculous.” 

“The person who brought this forward I think has an agenda that’s not helpful,” he said. 

Senator Graham also praised the moderation of the Muslim Brotherhood officials the delegation had met and said they were sympathetic to the plight of those facing prosecution under laws enacted during the Mubarak government.

al-Assad must go! NOW

The U.S. will “redouble efforts”and work with “partners outside the United Nations” to put“immense pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end bloodshed and step down, after the U.N. Security Council failed to deliver global condemnation of Syria giving the regime room to continue its 11-month crackdown on protesters, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Sofia today.

Russia refuses to Condemn Syria with the rest of the UN Security Council

The battle over Syria moved to the United Nations on Tuesday with Western powers and much of the Arab world confronting Russia and its allies in the Security Council over their refusal to condemn the Syrian government for its violent suppression of popular protests.

As top diplomats gathered in the Council chamber for the showdown, the drumbeat of violence continued without pause in Syria, where government forces used heavy weapons and tanks to push rebels back from strongholds near Damascus. 

At the United Nations, the two sides skirmished over a draft Security Council resolution proposed by Morocco that calls for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to leave power as the first step of a transition toward democracy. 

But behind all the arguments lurked the ghost of Libya, with Russia determined to block any resolution that might be construed as a license for regime change. The Arabs and top Western diplomats argued that endorsing the demonstrators was the minimum step required to support popular demands for change that began with peaceful demonstrations and have evolved into an increasingly armed uprising. 

“The Syrian government failed to make any serious effort to cooperate with us,” Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, told the Security Council about Arab League efforts to mediate the dispute. “The government killing machine continues effectively unabated.” 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and several other countries, argued that Libya was a “false analogy.” The plan for a gradual democratic transition “represents the best efforts of Syria’s neighbors to chart a way forward, and it deserves a chance to work,” she said.

The proposed resolution, which most likely would not be voted on before Friday, called for Mr. Assad to cede power to his vice president, who would help form a unity government that would prepare for elections. It is unlikely that Mr. Assad would heed the demands to step down, even if the resolution made it through the Council.

Twitter to be Censored: Possibly at the request of Saudi investor...

Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, through his investment firm Kingdom Holding Co., has dropped $300 million into Twitter and now Twitter’s announcement this week that it was going to enable country-specific censorship of posts is arousing fury around the Internet and seems connected. 

The Saudi’s like most Middle East Dictatorships don’t want their people talking to each other or the world at all and certainly not freely = uncensored.

Commentators, activists, protesters and netizens have said it’s “very bad news” and claim to be “#outraged”. Bianca Jagger, for one, asked how to go about boycotting Twitter, on Twitter, according to the New York Times. (Step one might be… well, never mind.) The critics have settled on #TwitterBlackout: all day on Saturday the 28th, they promised to not tweet, as a show of protest and solidarity with those who might be censored.

Arab League to send troops to topple Syrian government...meanwhile Mohamed El Baradei will not run for Egyptian President due to military interference

Arab troops should be sent to halt Syria’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters, the emir of Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, said in an interview to be broadcast tonight on the U.S. television network CBS.


Elsewhere in the region, attacks on demonstrators continued in Syria yesterday.

“Some troops should go to stop the killing” in Syria, the Qatari emir said in the interview with the program “60 Minutes,” according to the CBS website.

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Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei said he wouldn’t run for president of Egypt.

In Egypt, ElBaradei said his withdrawal as a candidate for president was to protest the continued military control of the country, according to The New York Times.

“My conscience does not permit me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless it is within a real democratic system,” he said, according to the Times.

ElBaradei won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his work as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"SCENES OF HORROR" = Syria = Middle East

Scratch the surface of any Middle Eastern nation and you will find scenes of horror.  Syria is merely capturing our attention today.  But change comes by cutting one piece of cancer at a time from the body human...

The mission hit more trouble when one monitor accused Syria of war crimes, saying the mission was a "farce," a day after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said a U.N. official had told the Security Council the killings had gathered pace since the monitors arrived.



The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people had been killed in Kafr Nabouda, in Hama province, where troops staging raids fought army deserters. The British-based group put Tuesday's civilian death toll at 27, including 15 in the city of Deir al-Zor and 10 in Homs, plus four army defectors.


The Arab League monitor, Anwar Malek, said he had resigned because the mission was powerless to prevent what he said were the "scenes of horror" he had seen in the restive city of Homs.


"The mission was a farce and the observers have been fooled," the Algerian told Al Jazeera English television. "The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime ...

"The regime isn't committing one war crime but a series of crimes against its people," he added.

Bahrain: Police deny torturing human rights activist... claim he merely triped and fell...(next they'll claim he did it in the shower)

The United States called on its ally Bahrain on Saturday to investigate the case of a prominent Bahraini human rights activist who the opposition says was beaten by security forces.



Opposition activists said several security officers threw Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, to the ground and beat him on the head, neck and back after a protest march on Friday.

Bahrain's Interior Ministry has denied those accounts.


The Sunni-led island kingdom, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, last year sought to crush anti-government demonstrations mounted by the country's Shi'ite Muslim majority. Protest marches have continued in recent months, sometimes turning violent.

Officials from the U.S. embassy in Manama met for about an hour on Saturday with Rajab, who had a cut beneath one eye and bruising on his face, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.


"The United States is deeply concerned by continuing incidents of violence in Bahrain between police and demonstrators," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a written statement.

IRAN 60 days of change...آزادی

Iran announced on Friday new military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, but the West has readied plans to use strategic oil stocks to replace almost all Gulf oil lost if Iran blocks the waterway, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters.


They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA) discussed on Thursday an existing plan to release up to 14 million barrels per day (bpd) of government-owned oil stored in the United States, Europe, Japan and other importers.

The Combined Maritime Force protecting Gulf shipping also includes countries such as Britain, France, Canada, Australia and the Gulf Arab states, under the command of a U.S. admiral.

Most traders believe Iran will still be able to find buyers, at least for now, for its exports of 2.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). But it may have to offer steep discounts that reduce the revenue it needs to feed its 74 million people.

The sanctions are already hurting ordinary Iranians, faced with rising prices and a falling rial currency. They have been queuing at banks to convert their savings into dollars.

Iran holds parliamentary elections in two months, the first since a 2009 presidential election that led to nationwide mass street protests, put down by force. However, the Arab Spring has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to protests fuelled by anger over economic hardship.

From US Employment and Equal Opportunity Website: Religious discrimination involves treating a person (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of his or her religious beliefs." Perhaps Bahrain's leadership needs to read it?

Riot police in Bahrain fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades as they clashed Sunday with hundreds of opposition supporters, some hurling Molotov cocktails, following the politically charged funeral of a 15-year-old boy murdered by police.



Thousands of opposition supporters carrying Bahraini flags and chanting anti-government slogans converged on the island of Sitra, south of the capital Manama, to mourn the death of Sayed Hashim Saeed. They are demanding that police be tried for the deaths of some 40 people since protests began in February.


Police earlier tried to seal off the site of the funeral to prevent crowds from gathering.


The clash on Sitra marks the latest burst of violence in more than 10 months of confrontations and widespread street protests on the strategic Gulf island nation, which is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. The country's Shiite-led opposition is pressing for greater rights and reforms from the country's Sunni monarchy and minority population.


Jaffer al-Sheik, 40, who identified himself as a relative of Saeed, said after the funeral that the boy died while participating in a protest march. He said the canister fired by riot police caused burns on Saeed's chest arm and head.


A statement signed by six opposition groups condemned Sunday's attack on the funeral procession.


"We reaffirm our commitment to nonviolence," the statement said. "We call on the government to stop its policy of repression... and bring to trial those accused to respond to the legitimate demands of the Bahraini people."

Syria one step closer to civil war.

An Arab League advisory body called on Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of the organization's monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was allowing Damascus to cover up continued violence and abuses.



The Arab League has sent a small team to Syria to check whether President Bashar al-Assad is keeping his promise to end a crackdown on a nine-month uprising against his rule.

The observer mission has already stirred controversy. Rights groups have reported continued deaths in clashes and tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to show the observers the extent of their anger.


The Arab Parliament, an 88-member advisory committee of delegates from each of the League's member states, on Sunday said the violence was continuing to claim many victims.

"For this to happen in the presence of Arab monitors has roused the anger of Arab people and negates the purpose of sending a fact-finding mission," the organization's chairman Ali al-Salem al-Dekbas said.

"This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League," he said.


The Arab Parliament was the first body to recommend freezing Syria's membership in the organization in response to Assad's crackdown.

Syria next unavoidable step = civil war...

Syria is at risk of civil war or foreign intervention if the mission can’t end the unrest, said Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the Syrian National Council, the umbrella opposition group that seeks to topple Assad. In Homs, 70,000 people rallied Dec. 26 and 50,000 marched in Duma yesterday, Merei said.

The delegation is getting the “needed cooperation” from all sides, including Syrian government, the Arab League said today in an e- mailed statement.

Where is the UN where you need them....silent again!!!

Hundreds of Bahrainis call on the UN to hear their words in what they say is an absence of human rights in the Gulf state.

Earlier in the year, thousands of mainly Shi'ite Bahrainis marched through the streets. They were demanding political change, to limit the power of the ruling Sunni Al-Khalifa family.

Bahrain called in troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as it cracked down on protests. There has been no progress in talks between the government and opposition groups on political reforms. In Maqshaa on Tuesday, people gathered in a demonstration organised by Bahrain's main opposition party. (

DIRECTOR OF WEFAQ SOCIETY WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION, AHLAM AL-KHUZAEI, SAYING: "There is no other solution but an elected government that represents the people's will instead of an appointed government, the national assembly must have the authority to question its members, ministers and officials, no one escape can questioning including the Prime Minister."

Bahrain has ordered an investigation into all deaths and torture cases implicating the police during the crackdown, as part of reconciliation efforts. A move commended by the United States. But the people on the streets feel more needs to be done.

Repression + Dictatorships + Human Rights Abuses = Lower Investment + Higher Insurance Costs

Arab states have suffered a slump in foreign direct investment of as much as 24 percent this year as political unrest sweeps the region, according to the group that insures such funding against non-commercial risks.

Foreign financing will shrink to between $50 billion and $55 billion in 2011 from $66.2 billion the previous year, the Arab Investment & Export Credit Guarantee Corp., known as Dhaman, said in an e-mailed response to questions.

The total value of insurance operations concluded by Dhaman in the first eight months was about $780 million, “a significant increase” versus last year, indicating heightened concern, Fahad al-Ibrahim, its director-general, said in the e-mail.


Egypt is worst affected, with foreign direct investment dropping an estimated 92 percent to $500 million, according to a report issued by Dhaman in October. Tunisia, where the so-called Arab Spring began, is estimated to have drawn $1.2 billion in funding this year, a decline of 20 percent, the report said.


Kuwait-based Dhaman’s figures, which have not been verified by individual governments, suggest Libya received about $500 million, down 87 percent, and Syria $484 million, where unrest continues, a decline of 65 percent. Bahrain, which witnessed anti-government protests by the majority Shiite population, may have suffered a 36 percent drop to $100 million.

UAE Bloggers for Democratci Change sentenced to prison for 2-3 years

The five-month-long trial of the activists has been seen as a gauge of how the Gulf state, the world’s No. 3 oil exporter, with no tradition of organised political protest, responds to hints of political dissidence in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings.



Ahmed Mansoor, a communications engineer and poet, was the main defendant, accused of running a website that gave the other defendants a venue to express anti-government views. He was sentenced to three years in jail.


“The website included insults that diminished the standing of His Highness the president and His Highness the vice president,” the state prosecutor said in October when he presented his case, without specifying the insults.


The other four – Nasser bin Ghaith, Fahad Salim Dalk, Hassan Ali al-Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq – were sentenced to two years.


The court also ordered the closure of the website. The five, who were arrested in April for urging public protest and disrupting public order, had been on trial since June.


The five have been on hunger strike for almost two weeks, lawyers and relatives said.


“Their health is deteriorating and they lost a lot of weight,” Mohammed al-Roken, one of two lawyers defending the five activists, told reporters. “But I don’t know if they will continue or not.”

One of the defendants had written an essay describing that approach as buying off citizens to avoid political reform.


Prosecutors also said in October one of the activists published a petition urging a boycott of elections in September for half of a 40-seat consultative council. Prosecutors said they had evidence the defendants incited citizens to “breach public order and stage demonstrations against the state”.


Three rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), accused the UAE government last week of failing to investigate what they described as a campaign of death threats, slander and intimidation against the five.

Kuwait on the path to freedom....

Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah and his Cabinet resigned today, following months of protests calling for his ouster and a change of government.



State television reported the resignation after an emergency cabinet meeting chaired by Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. It was the seventh time Sheikh Nasser’s cabinet has asked or been forced to stand down since he was appointed in 2006, and each previous time he was reappointed by the Gulf nation’s ruler. The emir accepted the resignation and asked the government to stay in place until a new one is formed, state news agency Kuna reported.

“If the same prime minister is reappointed, there will be more demonstrations in the streets which will lead to social unrest,” said Ayed Al-Manna, a political analyst at Kuwait’s Public Authority for Applied Education. “We might see something similar to what has happened in other countries.” A change of premier would be “a victory for the opposition,” he said.

The standoff has put Kuwait’s semi-democratic political system under growing strain. The country’s rulers have granted more powers to elected lawmakers than other monarchs in the six- member Gulf Cooperation Council, without satisfying opposition groups who say they are still denied a representative role in shaping policy. Their political tussles have slowed economic growth and delayed key investment projects.

Too little; too late; not to mention no real change

SANA, Yemen — After more than three decades of autocratic rule, President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement on Wednesday that immediately transferred power to his vice president, bowing to unrelenting street protests and raising hopes for an end to a political crisis that brought this impoverished nation to the brink of collapse.



If the agreement holds up, it will make Mr. Saleh the fourth Arab leader to be forced from power this year by popular uprisings that have shaken the Middle East and North Africa.

Activists in Arab World Vie to Define Islamic State

CAIRO — By force of this year’s Arab revolts and revolutions, activists marching under the banner of Islam are on the verge of a reckoning decades in the making: the prospect of achieving decisive power across the region has unleashed an unprecedented debate over the character of the emerging political orders they are helping to build.

Few question the coming electoral success of religious activists, but as they emerge from the shadows of a long, sometimes bloody struggle with authoritarian and ostensibly secular governments, they are confronting newly urgent questions about how to apply Islamic precepts to more open societies with very concrete needs.

In Turkey and Tunisia, culturally conservative parties founded on Islamic principles are rejecting the name “Islamist” to stake out what they see as a more democratic and tolerant vision.

In Egypt, a similar impulse has begun to fracture the Muslim Brotherhood as a growing number of politicians and parties argue for a model inspired by Turkey, where a party with roots in political Islam has thrived in a once-adamantly secular system. Some contend that the absolute monarchy of puritanical Saudi Arabia in fact violates Islamic law.

A backlash has ensued, as well, as traditionalists have flirted with timeworn Islamist ideas like imposing interest-free banking and obligatory religious taxes and censoring irreligious discourse.

The debates are deep enough that many in the region believe that the most important struggles may no longer occur between Islamists and secularists, but rather among the Islamists themselves, pitting the more puritanical against the more liberal.

UAE Think at your own peril; and in any case don't blog about it...

ABU DHABI: A hearing was held yesterday for six activists in the United Arab Emirates charged with incitement and insulting the Gulf country’s leadership, drawing criticism by a rights groups’ representative over the lack of transparency.

"Six men have been referred to the Federal Supreme Court over charges including perpetrating acts that pose threats to state security, undermining the public order, opposing the government system, and insulting the president, the vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the UAE Attorney, General Salim Saeed Kubaish, said yesterday."

The world’s No. 3 oil exporter has been virtually untouched by the unrest that has swept through the Arab world and toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but has been swift to silence any open political dissent.


“We were denied access today,” said Jennie Pasquarella, who flew in from the United States to observe the trial on behalf of four groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

“We’re concerned about the fairness of the trial. None of the hearings have been open in public, they’ve all been secret, in fact no reason has been given for making them secret.” Police arrested the political activists and intellectuals in April, and the attorney general later said the men were suspected of inciting “acts that threaten state security and public order”, and “insulting the president, vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.”


They pleaded not guilty in July at the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, whose verdicts are final. Another hearing was scheduled for Sunday when the court will hear testimony from a final witness, a judge told lawyers outside the courtroom.


Among the defendants is Ahmed Mansoor, an outspoken rights activist who joined several dissidents this year to start an online petition demanding the country’s Federal National Council, an advisory body, greater powers.


Another defendant, Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France’s Sorbonne University, published an article criticising what he called Gulf states’ attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their populaces through generous government spending programmes.

Saudi Prince raped Spanish Woman

A Spanish judge has reopened an abandoned sexual assault case against a Saudi prince who is one of the world’s richest men, reviving accusations that he raped a 20-year-old model on a luxury yacht in the Spanish Mediterranean in August 2008.



The prince, Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, is the largest individual stakeholder in Citigroup and, among his other major holdings, is the second largest investor in the News Corporation. Forbes valued his fortune this year at $19.4 billion, making him the 26th richest man in the world and the single richest in the Arab world.

Bahrain Military Trials of Civilian Medical Staff

A rights group in Bahrain says more detainees are joining a hunger strike to protest ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations for greater rights by the Gulf nation's Shia majority.


A statement on Saturday by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said the strike now includes nearly 20 doctors who are jailed and face anti-state charges linked to the protests against Bahrain's ruling Sunni dynasty.

The rights group said at least two other prominent activists, Abdul Jalil al-Singace and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, have also begun hunger strikes in solidarity. The activists were sentenced to life in prison in June.



Nabeel Rajab, a spokesman for the group, said the detainees are insisting that a trial, if any, should take place in a civil court not a military tribunal.



The trials are scheduled to resume on Wednesday.


Rajab said because little change has come into effect despite promises of reform from the government, there are now renewed protests in the prisons and in the streets.


Zainab al-Khawaja says her father, Abdulhadi, and al-Singace, opposition Haq movement member, stopped eating on Tuesday in solidarity with detainees held at Bahrain's Dry Dock prison.

She said the detainees, who were arrested as part of a March crackdown on pro-democracy protests, went on hunger strike against the government's failure to honour promises to release them.

"I am concerned about my father's health," al-Khawaja said. "He was beaten when detained and his jaw was broken.


"He has already lost too much weight in prison and yesterday he called me and said his blood sugar level has dropped," she added.

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who also holds Danish citizenship, was jailed for life along with Singace and six other opposition activists in June.

Security forces backed by troops from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia crushed the protest movement.


The opposition says that scores of people were arrested, and many of them tortured. Hundreds more were dismissed from their jobs.

Four people have been sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment. Nine others were jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of abducting a policeman.