The coming Cairo autumn

Political openings in Egypt over the last 30 years have come in waves. Swelling and then retreating, they have had little permanence...

The heat is on

I am spending this Ramadan outside of Egypt, in cooler climes. I suppose I should be grateful to have avoided both the blistering August heat and the power cuts that have plagued the country in the last few weeks...

Virtual Brotherhood

The National's Matt Bradley has a story on the Muslim Brotherhood's Facebook clone:..

The unpolitician

The genius of Mubarakism is that it remains anti-political...

Pew poll reveal Hamas not so unpopular in Egypt after all

I was interested to see how the people polled on views of Hamas and Hizbullah. As you can see from this chart, in Egypt Hamas retains surprising popularity despite a considerable amount of anti-Hamas propaganda coming from the state press and elsewhere, as well as the (contested) shooting of Egyptian border guards by Hamas. I'm a little surprised by this, because some of the anti-Hamas agitation appears effective, and I did not get the feeling that the average Egyptian was particularly outraged by Egypt's anti-Hamas policies...

What does ElBaradei want?

Back to the ElBaradei campaign's potential. The sense that I get is that most of his prominent supporters are focusing on the potential for ElBaradei to be a symbol, a loudspeaker for the Egyptian opposition's near-universal agreement on what needs to be changed in the country: an end to emergency laws and the police state, constitutional reform to make politics competitive, and an end to the Mubarak family's role in politics...

The Campaign for ElBaradei

Two days ago we went to the office of a small NGO in Downtown Cairo to meet Abdel Rahman Youssef, poet, television presenter and activist who is being the campaign to draft Mohamed ElBaradei...

Arab actors and Hollywood

The LAT has a great piece by Ashraf Khalil on Arab actors in Hollywood dealing with prejudice and typecasting — More work, one role for Arab actors..

Desmond Tutu, anti-Semite

Tutu’s appearance—slated for the spring of ‘08—was made possible by the university’s partnership with PeaceJam International, .....

Links for 10/5/07

Some important links from Arabist blog..

Investor confidence and the succession issue in Egypt

“Foreign investment really has to do with the stability of the country,” said Arsene Aka, analyst with Global Insight. Although he found the central bank’s readiness to put a figure on the cost of freedom of speech “a bit disturbing,” he admitted that from an economic standpoint, it did make sense..

Egypt: A war on the press?

The surprise verdict that came down this morning against the editors of four independent political tabloids is the herald of more repression to come — at least when it comes to dealing with President Hosni Mubarak, ..

A new report out on Egypt

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Ibrahim on monitors, Abdo on Islamists

Backlash against the Ikhwan

Saddam is dead, long live SADDAM

Making a renewed appearance in the State of the Union address this year was Iran. Bush set out an agenda that puts the U.S. on a path of ..... ..

Renowned philosopher to head Kifaya movement