More "Good News" from the ME

"Iraq “cracked down harshly” on freedom of expression and assembly in 2011 by intimidating, beating and detaining activists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said Sunday in its World Report 2012.

“Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists and torture detainees,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a budding police state.”"  washpost

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-human-rights-report-details-crackdowns-in-iraq/2012/01/22/gIQAfjD6HQ_story.html

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"The political wing of Egypt’s most historic Islamist party won by far the largest number of seats in the first post-revolutionary parliament, final results confirmed Saturday, and is now poised to play a dominant role in the drafting of a new constitution.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party took 47 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament, and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party won 25 percent of the elected seats."  Leila Fadel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/final-results-confirms-islamists-winners-in-egypts-elections/2012/01/21/gIQAXpwbGQ_story.html?sub=AR

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 "Followers of a puritanical form of Islam will fill about a quarter of the seats in the lower house of the new Egyptian parliament on Monday, underscoring the political power being wielded by Islamists in the wake of the Arab spring.

Finding themselves badly outnumbered, some Egyptian liberals are weighing whether to align themselves with the moderate Muslim Brotherhood in hopes of preventing an all-Islamist alliance between the Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party will be the largest in the new parliament, and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour party, the second-largest."  Leila Fadel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/salafists-to-take-a-quarter-of-egypts-lower-house/2012/01/20/gIQAcgZKGQ_story.html

 

Comments

[Joseph Moroco]

Thank God it's all going swimmingly in Libya.

[Jose]

Sir, what your opinion on Syria? Would we be better off with a weaker Assad (like Saddam) or simply allow the game of thrones to continue? IMHO, there is more bad blood in Syria than Iraq (tribes can be mix of Sunnis, Shiites and even Kurds).

[turcopolier]

Jose

Nobody here is willing to do anything. pl

[Charles I]

For the eco-determinists among us:

Failed treasury auction
portends Egyptian disaster

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA24Ak02.html

See:

"Egypt faces a disaster of biblical proportions, and the world will do nothing about it. Officially, Egypt's foreign exchange reserves fell by half during 2011, including a $2.4 billion decline during December - from $36 billion to $18 billion, or about four months of imports.

But the situation almost certainly is worse than that. More than $4 billion left the country during December, estimates Royal Bank of Scotland economist Raza Agha, noting that the December drop in reserves was cushioned by a $1 billion loan from the Egyptian army and a $1 billion sale of dollar-denominated treasury bills.

The rush out of the Egyptian pound is so rapid that Egyptian investors refuse to hold debt in their own national currency, even at a 16% yield. After Islamist parties won more three-quarters of the seats in recent parliamentary elections - 47% for the Muslim Brotherhood and 25% for the even more extreme al-Nour Party - the business elite that prospered under military rule is counting the days before exile.

The first reports of actual hunger in provincial Egyptian towns, meanwhile, are starting to trickle in through Arab-language press and blog reports. A shortage of gasoline accompanied by long queues at filling stations and panic buying was widely reported last week. "

[Morocco Bama]

****the business elite that prospered under military rule is counting the days before exile.*****

Wonderful, just what the U.S. needs. Some more hopelessly corrupt and overly-privileged, aristocratic emigres to further poison its well, as if it didn't have its share of them already....the list is seemingly endless and it just keeps getting larger and larger. You couple that form of immigration with desperate peasants from around the globe looking favorably upon meager working conditions and pay, and you quickly realize this isn't a Melting Pot, if it once was, it's a Chamber Pot. Before long, this new home will soon look like their old home.....and then to where do they run? Another planet? Don't laugh. They're considering it.