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Issandr El Amrani Contact him here
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Egypt follows EU line on GM Egypt has unexpectedly rescinded its support for a lawsuit filed by the US against the European Union... 'Baghdad' -- music to Arabs' earsFor Mamdouh, the music that comes out of his creaky radio is one of the few respites from the dense, noisy Cairo traffic... All hell breaks loose in CairoDemonstrators riot and try to close the U.S. Embassy in a country where protest has been mostly banned for 20 years... Mirror of a movementThe word "ebullient" seems barely adequate to describe the atmosphere in the austere Cairo courtroom... Arab League faces uncertain futureOfficials at the Arab League's Cairo HQ - an unassuming building in the city's central square that blends modernist and Islamic architecture - wear long faces these days.
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~ Scoop by Evelyn Waugh |
Fri, 11 Jul 2003 Let’s hope so. Josh Marshall continues to deliver the goods on the story with peerless analysis. Perhaps he can do on Niger what he did on Trent Lott. Also see Eric Alterman for some priceless Ari Fleischer quotes and more digging.
posted at 10:55 | Tue, 08 Jul 2003 This well-intentioned article about The Guardian’s intention to launch a US edition seems to kinda miss the point when it calls that paper anti-establishment. The Guardian has not been anti-establishment since 1997, when Tony Blair first came to 10 Downing Street. It has been for the most part loyally New Labourite, critical from time to time of course and always willing to pander to the right-thinking North London (well, and South and West) set by including a few truly leftist columnists like George Monbiot. But it’s certainly not the revolutionary rag this makes it out to be, and a far cry from the original, borderline Communist Manchester Guardian or the Guardian that defended the dockers and the miners from Thatcher in the 1980s. The Guardian today is a good paper, often critical, but once gets the feeling that its particular brand of indignation is slightly ironic or modishly PC. The G2 section in particular shows how much The Guardian is a paper that caters more to creative types hanging around the Institute of Contemporary Arts in fashionable Japanese clothing and well-meaning middle class Twinkies (TWin Income No Kids Yet) than anything else. The reason some people will welcome The Guardian stateside is not mostly because it’s an antidote to Fox’s poison. It’s because it’s trendy.
posted at 09:38 | Mon, 07 Jul 2003 The Washington Post had this fantastic story last week about Frank Lloyd Wright’s plans for an opera house in Baghdad in 1957. Who knows, these plans may well be dusted and brought back to life… (via American Samizdat)
posted at 20:35 | There have been a lot good articles about the phantom WMDs in Iraq lately, but this one is different. It’s a career diplomat who was sent by the CIA to investigate the Niger uranium allegations, found nothing and said so. And was ignored. Will he continue to be ignored? Let’s hope not. [Update: Josh Marshall has the goods on the White House’ reaction. Priceless.]
posted at 20:10 |
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. William Safire’s Op-Ed in today’s NYT is so over the top ridiculous that one wonders if he’s actually sane. First, of course, there’s the concept of writing an interview with Nixon, which is cute at best and gimmick at worst. Perhaps he’s spending too much time with Thomas Friedman these days, which is a shame because for all his faults Safire is a better writer — he just masters the English language much more fluently, as his columns on linguistics show. And I think talking to Nixon is completely valid even if he’s vilified by many people. Hell even the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm thinks Nixon an “able” US president. And at least it’s not as sycophantic as his phone calls to his good friend Arik Sharon. What is outrageous, though, is that the reason Nixon is in purgatory is not Watergate or Vietnam, but “his sin of imposing wage and price controls.” Is he looking for a fight? Then he goes on to explain that Bush’s approval rating is still high despite economic problems because he’s focusing on the war on terror and the war on Iraq — “keeping his eye on the ball in center court.” As if Bush is some kind of Mr. Smith man of the people defending freedom from sinister elites, he adds: “The more the elites here and in Europe holler, the solider the Bush support gets.” Because of course Bush is not the elitist son of an elite family brought to power by elite, Beltway-insider politicians and elite corporate power. Noooooo. Not our W!
Then, he explains, Bush is “moving to the center” with his token spending increases, aid to Africa, and support for the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision. Never mind all of the other programs he slashed, the future cuts that will be the necessary outcome of an unbalanced budget, and all the pandering to a tiny minority of extremely wealthy people and companies. Virtually every paragraph is either a celebration of the lack of accountability that the Bush administration has shown in its three years in power (such as not holding formal press conferences where the “fourth branch of government” could ask tough questions to the president) or a cynical endorsement of manipulative politicking. I wish I had the time and energy to debunk it in full, but is it really worth it? One last thing to point out is singling out Dean as the looniest of Democratic candidates for the presidency (the other have problems like smiling too much, not enough, or not having eyebrows). This is a common refrain in right-wing circles, arguing that Dean would be a “Godsend” because he’s such an extreme liberal — a communist, really. But of course, Dean is a loony liberal who supports the death penalty (but responsibly), has a clear track record of being pro-business (particularly small businesses) and shows every sign of being a moderate. But the problem is more that the designation “liberal”, which Dean most certainly is in the finest of ways, has become synonymous with Trotskyist. For more outrage at this go here. And to see what Dean really stands for, go to his excellent site. It’s not that I particularly support him, but the way he’s portrayed as a loony is simply surreal. William Safire, you’re going to hell for this.
posted at 14:18 | |
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