zaterdag 26 februari 2011

Iran 348

Analysis: Iran's first nuclear plant faces more delays

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Analysis & Opinion

Arie Elshout van de Volkskrant 26

Deze mensen hebben Arie Elshout's artikel in de Volkskrant niet gelezen over een Amerikaan die Mubarak ten val heeft gebracht.

Anger in Egypt

A revolution far from over

Saturday's army crackdown in Cairo's Tahrir Square highlights deepening tension between protesters and army.

Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 26 Feb 2011 09:00 GMT

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Protesters celebrated Mubarak's ouster but also warned the military junta that it must implement real reform [EPA]

The reports started coming in shortly after midnight: Contacts I met in Cairo earlier this month, a few of them still camped out in Tahrir Square, said the Egyptian military was using force to expel protesters from downtown Cairo.
Protesters had gathered on Friday, the two-week anniversary of Hosni Mubarak's ouster, to remind the country's military junta that they want real democratic reforms.
Witnesses in the square said soldiers, many wearing masks and wielding cattle prods or automatic weapons, forced everyone to leave. A number of people - it is not clear how many - were injured and arrested during the onslaught.
The crackdown highlighted a tension that is likely to worsen in the months leading up to scheduled elections in September. Many protesters do not trust the military, and say they will continue agitating for political and economic reforms; but the military's patience with demonstrations seems to be wearing thin.
An ongoing process
It is tempting, and convenient, to view the serial uprisings sweeping the Middle East as finite events. Tunisians protested for 28 days and won the ouster of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali; Egyptians did the same with president Mubarak after 18 days.
Now the world is focused on Libya, where an embattled Muammar Gaddafi clings to an ever-shrinking power base. Perhaps, if he is toppled soon, attention will shift to another embattled autocracy - Yemen? Bahrain?
But the Egyptian revolution (like the Tunisian one) is far from over, and it would be a mistake to view it in the past tense.
The protesters in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt have a long list of demands: free and fair elections, an end to the country's decades-old emergency law, and a more equal and less corrupt economic system, to name a few. None of these have been achieved yet.
In other words: Toppling Mubarak was a major achievement, but it is a milestone, not an endpoint.
"We need to decide our own destiny," e-mailed one activist who was in Tahrir Square last night, an architect who asked to remain anonymous. "We can't trade one zaim [leader] for another."

The military leadership's appearance on Dream TV was generally well-received

The junta has so far said the right things about democracy and reform. Three of its leaders - Mohamed al-Assar, Mokhtar al-Mollah, and Mamdouh Shahin, all of them generals - made an unprecedented appearance on Egypt's Dream TV earlier this week.
They took questions from journalists and the public during the three-hour programme, which generally won positive reviews from Egyptians.
And they promised a number of significant reforms:

The current government, headed by prime minister Ahmad Shafiq, will be temporary.
High-ranking officials accused of corruption during the Mubarak regime will be investigated and arrested (several have been already, and the generals promised more).
Political prisoners will be released (though they did not specify when).
Egyptians will be allowed to vote in upcoming elections using their national IDs, rather than using the old fraud-ridden system of voting cards.

But despite their pledges, and the endless chants of “the people and the army are one!” that echoed through Tahrir Square this month, there is a lingering unease about the army's motives. It is the oldest pillar of the modern Egyptian state, after all, the source of all four post-revolutionary presidents and a powerful political and economic force in its own right.
Saturday's crackdown, with its echoes of the repressive tactics used by Mubarak's government, only deepened that mistrust.
"Can we now please stop this our-army-is-cute tune which everyone has been singing for a month now?" tweeted Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist and labour activist. "Those generals are Mubarak's, not ours."
A system worth restarting?
The military, for its part, seems to be trying to outmanoeuvre the protesters, by pledging political reforms while simultaneously casting the rallies as a drag on the struggling Egyptian economy.
The labour movement was a key force behind the protests that toppled Mubarak: Strike actions across the country siphoned off support from the country's economic and military elite, which came to view Mubarak's continued grip on power as a threat to the Egyptian economy.
Since Mubarak's overthrow, organised labour has continued to rally for better wages and working conditions. Strikes since February 11 have affected textile mills, banks, public transportation and several other sectors of the economy.
The junta has seized on labour's continued role to paint continued protests as a threat. It issued a statement last week warning that protests organised by the labour movement are "illegitimate," and threatened to take "legal steps" against the demonstrations.
Egypt's economy has undoubtedly suffered from a month of unrest. Tourism, which accounts for more than 10 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, is the most visible example: Hotel occupancy rates in places like Sharm al-Sheikh, which normally run 60 to 70 per cent during this time of year, have plummeted into the single digits.
But labour activists view this as a rare opportunity to win real economic reforms. Corruption and nepotism were hallmarks of the Mubarak-era Egyptian economy, which allowed a handful of well-connected cronies to enrich themselves through monopolies and back-room deals.
Average Egyptians receive few protections: The government guarantees them a minimum wage of just six dollars - per month - and even the average salary, LE300 (US$51), is hardly enough to provide for a family.
Strike actions are likely to continue, in other words, with a few activists even now calling for a nationwide general strike to oust the Shafiq government and the military junta.
The military has promised changes, but it is also keen to get Egypt "back to work" and restore much of the status quo. Opposing it is an energetic, organised protest movement, which does not entirely trust the military and will continue to agitate for far-reaching reforms.
This tension will probably come to define Egyptian politics over the next few weeks and months, and decide the (still uncertain) outcome of the Egyptian revolution.

Source:

Al Jazeera

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Topics in this article
People Hosni Mubarak Hossam el-Hamalawy Mohamed al-Assar Ahmad Shafiq Mamdouh Shahin Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Mokhtar al-Mollah	Country Egypt Yemen Libya Bahrain	City Cairo	Organisation Egyptian military army Mubarak's government Shafiq government Environmental Protection Agency

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http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/anger-in-egypt/2011/02/201122675333177233.html

Michael Moore 2

Michael Moore

Michael Moore is an Academy-Award winning filmmaker and best-selling author

53Comments Print

February 25th, 2011 9:16 AM

Why I Support the People of Thompson, Canada -- And You Should Too

By Michael Moore

To people down here in the U.S., Thompson, Canada and its fight with the Brazilian mining giant Vale may seem very far away.

It's not.

(Don't be embarrassed if you need a map to find Thompson, though -- blame the U.S. media, which will only tell you about Canadians if they have some connection to Justin Bieber.)

Right now Thompson is fighting a frontline battle in a war that's been raging for the past 30 years -- the global war of the world's rich on the middle class. It's a war the people of Flint and all of Michigan know much too well. It's a war going on right now in Wisconsin. And it's a war where the middle class just won a round in Egypt. (You probably didn't know -- because the U.S. media was too busy telling you about Justin Bieber -- that Gamal Mubarak, son of Egypt's dictator and his chosen successor, worked for years for Bank of America.)

Here's what's happening in Thompson, and why it matters so much:

Canada isn't like the United States -- it's still a first world country, where corporations are supposed to exist to benefit people, not the other way around. They don't just have universal health care -- they even have something called the Investment Canada Act, which says multinationals like Vale can only invest in Canadian industries if it will benefit all of Canada. I know, crazy!

The mine in Thompson used to be run by Inco, a Canadian corporation that made peace with unions and shared the wealth. When Vale bought Inco in 2006, they signed a contract with the government setting out what they would do to benefit Canadians.

Immediately afterward, Vale violated the contract and went on the attack -- forcing miners in Sudbury, Ontario out on the longest strike in their history. And now in Thompson they're trying to shut down the smelting and refining operations that have made the city a major economic hub of the province. Meanwhile, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper -- think of George W. Bush with a Canadian accent -- is actually helping Vale do this to their fellow citizens, with a giant $1 billion government loan which Vale is using to move jobs out of Thompson. Moreover, the largest institutional investor in Vale is Blackrock, an investment firm which in turn is owned by several of America's bailed-out banks ... including Bank of America.

So this is about one thing and one thing only: killing the social contract of Canada. Vale and the Harper government don't want a future where Brazil gradually becomes more like Canada. Instead, they want a future where Canada becomes Brazil. And not just Canada: the corporations' plan is that the Third World will become the Only World.

That's why people everywhere need to support Thompson. As Niki Ashton -- the MP who represents Thompson and the second-youngest woman ever elected to the Canadian Parliament -- says: "It Was Flint Yesterday, It's Us and Wisconsin Today, and Tomorrow It's Going to Be Everyone."

And that's why I'm proud to feature Ashton and voices of the people of Thompson on my website. And it's why I'm asking you to watch their powerful video, hear their stories, and share them with everyone you know.

Regular people across the world are standing up right now and saying "No!" to the future they have planned for us. We won in Egypt. We're waking up and fighting back across the U.S. Let's all stand with Thompson and make it the place where we turn the tide in this awful war. As Kamal Abbas, one of Egypt's most important union leaders, said in a video message to Wisconsin: "We stand with you, as you stood with us."

(Confidential to people of Thompson: we're not saying Americans will only help if you promise to introduce us to Justin Bieber. We're just saying, you know, it couldn't hurt.)

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-i-support-people-of-thompson-canada

Arab Regimes 179

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-tTg7iJo0M

Nawal el-Saadawi has been fighting for change in Egypt for more than half a century. As Egypt prepares to herald in a new era, what role will women play in the emerging political landscape?

Women of the Egyptian Revolution

http://www.sawtalniswa.com/2011/02/women-of-the-egyptian-revolution/

This is a homage to all those women out there fighting on the streets of Egypt, to those whose voices and faces were hidden from the public eye during the first days of the revolution! The album by now has traveled the world back and forth via online social networks, blogs and websites.

First and foremost the credit for this album goes to the courageous people of Egypt who are teaching us that freedom is taken and not given.

Second, to the women who by their courage, determination and strength are inspiring millions of us around the world.

Third to the photographers who took these photos and especially to those who have caused absolutely no problems when it came to copyright issues.

Fourth, to the amazing web of people who have been sending me photos and captions for the album, and to those who are sending corrections of mistakingly posted or labeled photos.

This compilation is meant to further shed the light on the Egyptian people´s strife for freedom, and the complicity of the world governments with the Mubarak regime. It is meant as a call for action and active solidarity with the Egyptian people. A call to protest companies like Vodafone and Orange/France Telecom who have left the Egyptian people incommunicado in the face of a brutal and a repressive regime. The world governments and big corporations have ignored the voices of millions of Egyptians, and the voices of millions of us worldwide and continue to further support and whitewash the crimes of the dictatorship, both vocally and silently.

This album is just a small reminder of what is happening right now, as you are reading this, on the streets of Egypt. A hint of the grassroots and popular revolution facing up to around 41 years of a totalitarian regime, a dictatorship and emergency laws (around 11 years under Sadat, and around 30 years under Mubarak)

It is also very important to highlight the first spark of it all, the Tunisian revolution and its women. To stress that we should not shift our attention from them. They are still fighting and the battle is not over yet. Here is a link to a photo-stream from Le Monde / France in total admiration of the inspiring and courageous women of Tunisia http://ow.ly/3MDyZ

It is important to note that I did NOT TAKE ANY of these photos and that neither I nor Sawt Al-Niswa have the rights to any of them. For any commercial usage we suggest getting in contact with the people who have the rights to them, agencies and photographers.

I´m trying to confirm that all the photos I´m receiving are from Egypt and that they were taken during the past week´s rebellion. It is not an easy task judging the amount of photos I´m receiving and the limited resources I have. If you identify any photo that is mistakingly posted here, or that is not from Egypt or from the ongoing revolution please don´t hesitate to contact me.