Egypt: Power Has Already Been Transferred

Last week, the daily newspaper al-Shorouk reported that important figures in Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (N.D.P.) are meeting to decide the name of the party's 2011 presidential candidate. The article didn't cite any sources, and the N.D.P. issued a flood of statements denying the occurrence of such a meeting. However, the rumor has caused the issue of succession in Egypt to resurface. It doesn't matter how hard the N.D.P. denies the speculation and conjecture, it is going to have to name a candidate in the near future.

Although President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal (picture), managed to make a quiet, backroom entry into the political scene, his emergence as the N.D.P.'s next candidate is clear. He gives major speeches, tours poor villages and has a say in all the economic, social and political issues. As Egypt has always been run as a one-man show, the elite usually reflect the ruler's ideology, identity and beliefs. Egypt's economic, political and social trends indicate that Gamal Mubarak already has a wide breadth of influence. MORE HERE

Book Review: James Maskalyk, Six months in Sudan

Charles R. Larson, Professor of Literature at American University, Washington, D.C, reviews James Maskalyk, Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-Torn Village (2009). He calls it 'a disturbing and utterly brilliant book'.

Sometimes you start writing one book and end up writing another. Nowhere is this more apparent than in James Maskalyk’s painfully honest account of his six months as an emergency physician in a remote area of Sudan. Answering the call for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Maskalyk served as a doctor in a town called Abyei, trapped—one might say—at the crossroads of the warring factions within the country. His account of his duties is often disturbing, particularly in the details of the horrors he encountered virtually every day. But the real story is the transformative nature of the experience itself, which exposed him to the depths of his self, and packed such an emotional wallop that he will probably never be the same. MORE HERE

Egypt arresting leaders of Muslim Brotherhood

Egyptian authorities have detained seven members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic opposition group. The arrests on Monday, which included three senior leaders, were part of a security crackdown on the organisation, Abdel Moneim Abdel-Maksoud, the group's lawyer, said. A security official, who was not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the arrests but gave no reason. No charges were filed, Abdel-Maksoud said. More on AlJazeera

3 years prison for Moroccon amazigh rights activist

The sentencing today of the human rights activist Chekib el-Khayari to three years in prison is a stark reminder of Morocco’s tenuous and uneven progress on human rights, Human Rights Watch said. El-Khayari, who had criticized public officials for alleged complicity in drug-trafficking, was convicted of “gravely insulting state institutions,” and of minor violations of regulations governing foreign bank accounts and currency.

El-Khayari is president of the Association for Human Rights in the Rif, an independent organization based in the Mediterranean coastal city of Nador. Before his arrest on February 17, 2009, el-Khayari had made numerous statements on drug-trafficking from northern Morocco to Europe, both to the international media and in conferences in Europe, accusing some officials
of complicity in the trade or laxness in combating it. El-Khayari is also an activist for Amazigh (Berber) rights and has spoken out against mistreatment of migrants and abuses by both Moroccan and Spanish security forces at the border with the Spanish enclave of Melilla. All of these factors make the Rif region a sensitive issue in Morocco. MORE HERE

Arab activists watch Iran and wonder... why not here?

Mohamed Sharkawy bears the scars of his devotion to Egypt's democracy movement. He has endured beatings in a Cairo police station, he said, and last year spent more than two weeks in an insect-ridden jail for organizing a protest.

But watching tens of thousands of Iranians take to the streets of Tehran this month, the 27-year-old pro-democracy activist has grown disillusioned. In 10 days, he said, the Iranians have achieved far more than his movement has ever accomplished in Egypt.

"We sacrificed a lot, but we have gotten nowhere," Sharkawy said. More in the Washington Post

Yemen's forgottten war

Restricting access to information can be as serious a threat to journalism as overt censorship or government persecution. The ongoing insurgency in Yemen’s northern governorate of Sa‘ada (picture) is one example of how a state’s attempt to enforce an information blackout has helped hide and sustain a conflict that has festered over four years, killing thousands and leaving a city destroyed, and continuing to stoke fears of a return to violence. The Sa‘ada governorate, located in Yemen’s mountainous northern region on the border with Saudi Arabia and home to around 750 thousand people, has witnessed stop and go wars since 2004.[1] Precise numbers of the dead and wounded are unknown because no organization, national or international, has been allowed full access to the area to make an independent account of the violence, although most estimates put the death toll well into the thousands. MORE HERE

Fear of Massacre Grips Christian Village in Egypt; Crops Destroyed

We hear of shocking problems in Egypt; as Christians who live in democratic countries, we must lift there brothers and sisters up to God. Fears of an impending massacre has gripped the Christian Copts in the village of Ezbet Boshra, El Fashn, which was scene to Muslim mob attacks on Copts on Sunday (AINA 6-22-2009).

Egyptian State Security has placed only Coptic villagers under curfew since the Muslim assaults on Sunday. According to correspondent Mary Bassit of Copts United, The terrified villagers fear that being confined to their homes, while Muslims are free, might encourage Muslim fanatics to massacre them, especially with the bias of the security forces.

Lawyer Makkar Watany, who was detained with the 19 other Copts after Sunday's events, told Coptic News Bulletin on 6/23/09 that they were mistreated during police detention, with several Copts suffering broken limbs and wounds. "I was singled out as the police knew that I am a Coptic activist and have connections with the NGOs in Cairo. I was beaten by a junior office, in spite of being a lawyer." he said. "The other Coptic detainees told the police that they 'are ready to die as they have nothing more to lose.'" More HERE