Live: Al Jazeera coverage of Egypt’s growing revolution

[AlicetheKurious]

The language barrier is very frustrating, because there are so many videos of the Muslim Brotherhood inciting to murder, making explicit threats against Egyptians, etc., but they're all in Arabic. If someone here could explain to me how to add English subtitles to Youtube videos, that would be really great.

[AlicetheKurious]

This Ahmed Moussa has become the face of the counter-revolution on TV and a sort of kite-flyer for increasing repression: he says the most outrageous fascist things then they see how it plays. It plays pretty well.

TV host Moussa had described this year's commemorations of the January 25th revolution anniversary as an attempt to destabilize the country. Moussa referred to participants in these protest rallies as "members of the terrorist (Muslim) Brotherhood society," along with "the terrorists of the April 6th Youth Movement," and "the saboteurs of the Revolutionary Socialists Movement."

"I have no problem with the killing of two, three, or four hundreds terrorists," commented Moussa on the episode of his show that aired on January 25.

I don't think he's a fascist. I think he's fed up of having to report, every day, that a bomb exploded here or there, that people were killed, that people had legs or arms blown off, that a whole town is without electricity because three high-pressure electric towers were blown up, that the Brotherhood is gleefully celebrating all these things and threatening more and more. And honestly, no matter how horrible the crime, the Brothers (and Sisters) seem immune to feelings of even pity. They're sick. Or demonic. When a woman was attacked by a group of them on the day of CC's inauguration, separated from her friends while she was celebrating, stripped and stabbed repeatedly with knives (15 times in her pubic area), while the attackers told her, "CC can't help you," and later CC visited her in the hospital to apologize on behalf of all men, they found this hilarious, and joked about how "she asked CC to kiss her boo-boo." While the government is struggling to build and repair and try to improve people's lives, they are determined to destroy everything they can. At this point, I'm seriously questioning whether these people are even human. Seeing these things day after day, is unbearable. Finding out that a bomb was found and defused in front of a mall you and your family were in yesterday, or they rampaged through a parking lot smashing cars, or that yet another bomb was found and defused in a public bus or metro, or outside a school, or that a professor (!) was caught smuggling bombs into a university in her car, can bring anyone to the end of their rope. At the risk of being called fascist, I admit that I've said worse.

The build-up to January 25th had us all on edge. The MB were explicitly threatening to launch wave after wave of destruction against Egypt starting on January 25, from their tv channels in Qatar and Turkey. Thank God, the police and army did a great job of catching the big criminals who were positioned to open the gates of hell on all of us. Nevertheless, there were smaller explosions across the country, especially in the crowded, poor neighborhoods, where several people were killed by homemade bombs and buckshot and fires. One 17-year old (a Copt from a poor family who was his handicapped parents' sole breadwinner) was burned alive in the KFC restaurant where he worked. A little boy was shot to death by the random shooting from Brotherhood "demonstrators", most of whom were armed with knives and shot-guns or clubs. In their rampages, the Brotherhood caused millions of dollars' worth of property damage.

In this video, the (hopefully soon-to-be former) Egyptian Mahmoud Nassar, is inciting more violence from one of the many Brotherhood channels based in Turkey. (After I had started translating the video, I found one with English sub-titles, so I stopped translating after the first couple of minutes):

I just want to tell you that today's actions are very, very positive. Just shut everything down in his face. Continue. Kill his officers. I'm telling you on the air: kill his officers. I want to tell every officer's wife: your husband will be killed. If not today, then tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, your husband will be killed. He will be killed. I want to tell you that if the revolutionaries continue what they're doing, they will ruin the economic conference in March that the villainous dog is organizing. And when the March economic conference fails, the last fig leaf left to him will fall. With the death of Abdullah, he lost his backing. His back is totally exposed. There is nothing he can do. The few businessmen who would have come to invest, pushed by the Saudi King Abdullah, it's finished. They won't come. So the March conference is very close to failing. All that's left is for some action on the ground to prove to people and to the world that there cannot be investment in a land where there is a murderer like Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. I need to tell you some breaking news: two army recruits were killed on Pyramids Street. This happened right now, in an ambush.

He then goes on to just spew lie after lie, citing reports from his "correspondent", identified only as "Amr". Borrowing a leaf from Al-Jazeera, those videos in the split screen show old demonstrations as though they were happening live.

Then this other asshole chimed in, from another channel based in Turkey, to threaten all foreign nationals and investment in Egypt. I hate to link to MEMRI, but at least I can verify that the subtitles are accurate:



This is just a tiny sample of the violent incitement and threats we were bombarded with 24/7. I admit it was a little hairy for a couple of weeks, starting on January 23 and peaking just before February, as the MB went all out, in a desperate effort to prevent the March 13-15 Egyptian Economic Development Conference at all cost. They even sent threatening letters to prospective attendees. But in the end, it all fizzled, and couldn't stop Egypt's advancement. Keep in mind that the period from 2011 to 2014 was truly catastrophic, especially economically. Capital fled in droves, while new investments virtually ground to a halt. Unemployment increased as thousands of factories simply shut down. If it weren't for the Saudis and the Emirates and Kuwait, the country would have quickly spiraled into a tailspin and crashed. All these efforts are designed to literally ruin Egypt, to create social and political chaos, to mire Egypt in violence until it becomes a failed state.

To that end, the MB and their US/Zionist patrons are determined to sabotage Egypt economically, thus creating the social unrest that will provide the optimal environment for their plan to succeed. They won't give up, but neither will we. As the saying goes, "success is the best revenge." The government has left security issues to the security forces, judicial issues to the judiciary, logistical day-to-day running of the country to the ministries, and focused on building international alliances and a strong economic base. As I can personally attest, they seem to be succeeding. There is still corruption, but now it is possible to fight it and win, because it no longer has the backing of the regime, as it did under Mubarak and Morsi. Over the past two years, law and order are gradually being restored, although we still have a way to go. We still have big problems, but it's amazing what a difference it makes when you know your leadership is working to solve them. There's hope. It's growing. The whole country feels like a construction site, with lovely new roads and bridges and entire neighborhoods and office parks and factories and shops and malls going up all over the place. People are bringing their money back, and investing it here. The government's national development plan is well thought-out, extremely ambitious, and aims to lift millions of Egyptians out of poverty and implement huge advances in education, public health, agriculture, industry, tourism and energy production in the next few years.

The Conference is supposed to start tomorrow, but already it's clear that it will succeed beyond expectations. So many big international investors have registered that the biggest problem during the past week has been figuring out how to accommodate them all. The Egyptian government has prepared a solid and wide-ranging development plan for Egypt that includes a large number of very attractive investment opportunities. Win-win.

Your media probably won't be covering this much, but the Conference starting tomorrow in gorgeous Sharm el-Sheikh is really big news here and throughout the region. Because if Egypt succeeds (and it will), the repercussions will be huge and very positive for the Arab nation. Here's the official commercial of the Conference. I know, it's glossy, but it's a refreshing change from all the gloom and doom the Western and other hostile media relentlessly dish out.



By the way, Egyptian law does permit an Egyptian's citizenship to be stripped, in certain specific cases. These include if it can be proven that the individual took money from a hostile foreign state in exchange for working against the Egyptian national interest from abroad. If I'm not mistaken, the process of stripping an Egyptian of his or her citizenship must be initiated by the Prime Minister's Office. We've got individuals working for tv channels located in the hostile states of Turkey and Qatar, who are being paid to do nothing but incite violence against the Egyptian people, police, army, judiciary and all the pillars of the nation, 24 hours a day. It's obscene that they can still legally call themselves Egyptians.

[AlicetheKurious]

Total joy and exultation in Egypt, at the resounding success of the Egyptian Economic Development Conference (EEDC) in Sharm El-Sheikh. Two thousand four hundred and fifteen delegates, representing the world's biggest and most influential investors, coming to participate in Egypt's economic rebirth. The speeches yesterday were incredible, especially the first four, by President Sisi, followed by the Kuwaiti, Saudi and Emirati Emirs, who made very moving speeches about Egypt and the Egyptian people. In all there were 17 speeches by heads of state and cabinet ministers from the Arab world, Africa, Europe and Asia, and one by US Secretary of State John Kerry. The dominant theme expressed by the speakers was that to empower Egypt is to empower the Arabs; to empower Egypt is to empower Africa. The representatives of the Spanish and Italian and Cypriot and French governments articulated a very similar idea, as did the Lebanese Prime Minister: that Egypt's struggle against the forces of darkness is the struggle of humanity against those forces.

And they're backing up their words with actions: the Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia announced injections of US$ 4 billion each into Egypt's economy, for a total of $12 billion. Other countries announced smaller cash injections, of hundreds of millions. These are not counting the much bigger private investments in individual projects. More importantly, China will be investing around US$ 12 billion over the next few years to develop Egypt's transport infrastructure, including a high-speed train connecting Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south. Egypt has already added hundreds of kilometers in new roads and bridges in record time, and will be building a new network of airports and ports. Russia of course is already implementing massive industrial projects in Egypt, and updating old ones in the iron & steel and textile sectors.

There are plans to build entire new cities surrounding Cairo and Giza and Alexandria, and these projects have already been assigned to investors from the Gulf (these do not include the hugely ambitious "New Capital"). The same with enormous desert reclamation agricultural projects involving millions of acres. The region surrounding the Suez Canal is being totally re-designed to create urban, industrial, agricultural and shipbuilding and service centers with access to world markets through the Canal. This will provide incredible development opportunities for Upper Egypt, which has been neglected and isolated for far too long. Egypt will be building thousands of new public schools and dozens of new public universities around the country, not to mention scientific research labs and even entire complexes devoted to research, development, manufacturing and marketing of new technologies. "Zuwail City" is the first of these to be launched, and it's been up and running for several months already.

Egypt will no longer export raw materials, but invites investors to take advantage of our rich resources to manufacture and process them here, then export them to nearby Arab, African, European and Asian markets. All this expansion will require massive amounts of energy. BP has announced new investments amounting to US$ 12 billion in the immediate future, which will increase Egypt's production of natural gas by 25%, not to mention employing thousands of Egyptians, and Russia is currently building nuclear energy plants. The German giant Siemens has just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Egyptian government, to invest $10 billion in electricity production. General Electric is investing $200 million in a new electric plant near the Suez Canal. But much of the new energy will be coming from alternative energy sources including solar and wind and wave and waste energy plants. The United Arab Emirates is a world leader in solar power research and development, and Emirati investors have already begun building solar power plants in Egypt.

Tourism, which was Egypt's biggest source of hard currency, is also receiving a lot of attention: the new museum of antiquities complex is almost completed and will open during the next year. It will be the largest museum in the world, and house the greatest collection of antiquities on earth. Egypt not only has one-third of the world's most important antiquities and monuments, but also some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world, breath-taking oases resorts, the Nile, vibrant urban centers, and natural springs and mineral-rich areas ideal for medical tourism. There is a project to establish an entire city dedicated to the breeding, training and showing of Arabian horses, complete with tourist resorts and facilities.

What we're witnessing is the rebirth of Egypt as an industrial, agricultural, financial, cultural and political leader in the Arab/African region, with the first phase being implemented over the next 15 years. It's a genuine revolution, on the ground, as opposed to the more telegenic kind favored by the international media. During the past four decades or so, investment in Egypt was designed to ONLY serve investors' profit margins, regardless of the impact on Egypt and the Egyptians. This led to disastrous consequences on so many levels, including a yawning (and constantly growing) gap between a tiny elite and masses of poor and desperate. It also led to extremely dangerous feelings of alienation, cynicism and despair within large sectors of the population (not just the poor), and contempt for the government. Egypt was a passive recipient of foreign and domestic investors' money, injected where they wanted, and designed to produce quick and easy profits, and of imperialist economic policies designed to serve global capital at all cost.

This dynamic has been reversed. What is being unveiled during the EEDC is a unified, comprehensive Master Plan devised under the government's supervision by a team of top experts in the fields of politics, intelligence, military, economy, energy, education, ecology, various industries, agriculture, finance, various sciences, etc. The purpose of the Master Plan is to provide a road-map for Egypt's transformation into a developed country, with the first phase being completed by 2030, and especially to give Egyptians a radically improved quality of life and a framework to allow them to build a much, much better and sustainable future for themselves and their children. The Plan requires massive amounts of money (the first five-year phase of the New Capital alone -- which will be built by a consortium of Emirati developers -- will need US$ 45 billion), but it also provides excellent opportunities to make profits for those investors willing to work within the Plan. For its part, the government has made a number of radical changes in the way it deals with investors, by increasing transparency and simplifying the bureaucratic process (which also reduces the opportunities for corruption); and by other measures related to the currency (allowing the currency to float in a limited way); and adjusting the tax system to allow corporate investors to pay taxes in Egypt while taking advantage of Avoidance of Double Taxation Treaties, and other measures, especially designed to reassure investors that agreements and contracts will be respected. This is an ongoing process that is expected to evolve at an even greater pace once a new parliament is elected during the next three months.

All this sounds fantastic, but the best part is that it's no longer a dream, nor a fantasy, but a detailed plan for which the groundwork is being laid, one step at a time. So far, it's proceeding according to schedule. Confounding those who considered the time-frame for constructing the new Suez Canal unrealistically short, it is ahead of schedule, as is the expansion of Egypt's roads and highways system. As I've mentioned, the EEDC has already succeeded far above expectations; suffice it to say that the conference great hall has a maximum capacity of 2000, but 2415 international investors are here right now. They've come prepared, and many contracts have been signed and will be signed today and tomorrow. The mood is exultant. Egyptians are proud to bursting of their incredibly hard-working, dedicated, selfless president and his team, and also determined to live up to his example. Decades of bitter experience have taught us that there are no short-cuts and no instant solutions. The years ahead will be very challenging, and will demand that we pull together and work, sometimes beyond what we think are our limits. There's a very big burden of responsibility on every one of us. But, as President Sisi always says, "Failure is not an option." Either we succeed and realize our brightest dreams for our children and for Egypt, or we plunge into a bottomless hell, and be the generation that betrayed thousands of years of history. That's the only choice we face.

As President Sisi always does, he ended his speech opening the conference with the invocation, "Egypt lives. Egypt lives. Egypt lives." Yes.



Edited to correct a typo.

[AlicetheKurious]

Update: the contract was signed this afternoon. The project will be completed within 7 years.

It's hard to believe, but even the implacably hostile CNN is sounding almost... friendly:

Egypt unveils plan to build glitzy new capital
By Brian Walker, CNN
Updated 1321 GMT (2121 HKT) March 14, 2015


The yet-to-be-named city will be roughly the size of Denver
Developers say it could eventually be home to 7 million people

(CNN) Forget the pyramids, Tahrir Square and the Nile. Egypt is ready to ditch Cairo and build a shiny new capital if the government has its way.

Fed up with pollution, traffic gridlock, a packed population with soaring rents and creaking infrastructure, Egypt is teaming up with a developer in the United Arab Emirates to build a city in what could be one of the world's most ambitious infrastructure programs.

The yet-to-be-named city will spread out over 150 square miles, or roughly the size of Denver, and could eventually be home to 7 million people, the developers and government announced Friday.

The current capital of Cairo, while full of history and vibrant charm, is home to more than 18 million people, and living in and getting around the city can be maddening and frustrating. The government says the idea is to reduce congestion in Cairo, which is projected to double in population in the coming decades.

An exact location was not announced, but the city is expected to be built east of Cairo. It will be closer to the Red Sea -- between two major highways -- the Suez and the Ain Sokhna roads.

The ambitions are big. In addition to the new embassies and government buildings, it plans to have an international airport bigger than Heathrow, solar energy farms, 40,000 hotel rooms, nearly 2,000 schools and 18 hospitals -- all linked together by over 6,000 miles of new roads.

But if the dream is big, the bill will be bigger.

The total cost is estimated at U.S. $45 billion, Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly announced at an economic development conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The unveiling of the new capital was paired with a glitzy website with renderings showing a lush and technological urban scape of glass towers and pools.

The plan is backed by a group that describes itself as "a private real estate investment fund by global investors focused on investment and development partnerships" led by Emirati developer Mohamed Alabbar.

Alabbar made his name as the founder of Dubai's Emaar Properties, primarily known for developing the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

Egypt is not the first country to plan on moving its capital from established big cities to rural greener pastures. Myanmar has only recently completed its move from crumbling Yangon to the new city of Naypyidaw. Nigeria moved to Abuja in the 1990's, and Brazil carved its capital Brasilia out of the wilderness over 50 years ago.

And then there was another crazy idea of building a capital on a square of swampland that seemed mainly to be a boondoggle for wealthy land speculators at the time.

That city? Washington, D.C. [url=http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/14/africa/egypt-plans-new-capital/index.html]

Siemens : Egypt and Siemens to massively increase power generation capacity

03/14/2015 | 07:04am US/Eastern
Sharm El-Sheikh, 2015-Mar-14

-Increase by up to one third of current generation capacity
-Agreement on 4.4 gigawatt (GW) Beni Suef power plant in Southern Egypt
-Building of 2 GW wind power generation capacity and wind rotor blade factory agreed
-Agreement signed for Siemens to develop concepts for a further 6.6 GW of combined cycle power plants and ten substations

Siemens and the Egyptian government have reached firm agreements today to build a 4.4 GW combined-cycle power plant and install wind power capacity of 2 GW. Siemens will build a factory in Egypt to manufacture rotor blades for wind turbines, creating up to 1,000 jobs and therefore nearly trebling Siemens' footprint in the country. Including two further Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) which were signed at the event, Egypt's power generation capacity will be massively increased by up to one third mostly by 2020. Under the agreements, Siemens will propose to build additional combined cycle power plants with a capacity of up to 6.6 GW and ten substations for reliable power supply. The agreements were signed at the Egypt Economic Development Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh in the presence of Egypt's Minister of Electricity Shaker al Markabi, Germany's Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, and Joe Kaeser, President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens AG.

"Egypt needs a powerful and reliable energy system to support its long-term, sustainable economic development, and experienced partners who understand the specific challenges facing the country", said Joe Kaeser. "Siemens' technology and expertise has been supporting Egypt's growth for more than 150 years, and our track record shows that we deliver what we promise - also in challenging times. We are part of Egypt's society and proud to shape Egypt's future together. We have also agreed to continue the well established practice of dual-education apprenticeships, a success-story between Germany and Egypt for decades."

According to the agreement, Siemens will be the contractor responsible for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) for the Beni Suef power plant in Upper Egypt, and will work together with local partners. The 4.4 GW power plant will be built in four modules, each consisting of two H-class gas turbines, two heat recovery steam generators, one steam turbine, and three generators. Siemens H Class technology is matching Egypt's requirements, combining high output with record-breaking levels of efficiency.

"Wind power is clean and renewable, and will strengthen Egypt's energy security at this important point in its history. Adding two gigawatt will be a significant step towards diversifying the country's energy mix", said Markus Tacke, CEO Siemens Wind Power and Renewables Division. "Egypt has great potential for wind power generation, especially in the Gulf of Suez and the Nile Valley", Tacke added. "We are proud to be working with the government and people of Egypt to tap this potential."

Siemens has class-leading technology for both onshore and offshore wind power technology, and substantial global experience in the construction and delivery of wind energy projects. The Egyptian government plans to expand wind capacity over the coming years as part of a plan to increase wind generation to 7.2 GW by 2020.

Siemens has been working in Egypt since 1859, and has maintained a continuous presence in the country since opening its first office in Cairo in 1901. The company's technology has been implemented in the Nubaria, Talkha, Damietta, Midelec and El Kureimat power plants, and Siemens is also a key technology supplier to major projects in the transport, healthcare and industrial sectors. Siemens has been a reliable and trusted partner throughout more than 100 years in Egypt. http://www.4-traders.com/SIEMENS-AG-436 ... -20027203/

[AlicetheKurious]

This is a little essay written by Ahmed Rifaat in Saturday's edition of Veto, an independent Egyptian newspaper. I liked it, because it highlights another dimension of the unprecedented success of Egypt's Economic Development Conference March 13-15. (As of today's official Al-Ahram newspaper, dated Monday, March 16, the Minister of Investments announced that final contracts and Memorada of Understanding have been signed that will inject $175.2 billion into Egypt's economy, mostly in massive infrastructure projects, over the next 5-7 years).

The translation is mine:

The Conference: A Black Day for the Muslim Brotherhood and Israel

When John Kerry sees how low he was ranked on the list of speakers to the delegates at the Sharm el Sheikh Conference;

When the Italian prime minister, speaking for most of the EU, stresses how vital Egypt is to the stability of the world -- "the world", not just the region -- and announces his country's partnership with Egypt in her struggle against terrorism and Italy's full backing for Egypt's position on Libya;

When the Saudi Crown Prince condemns, to Kerry's face, "some people's" double-standards and refusal to acknowledge what really happened in Egypt; (This statement received the longest and loudest applause of all the delegates' speeches -- Alice).

When the Emirati leader informs the world that Arab oil is not more precious than Arab blood;

When the Palestinian president refers to Israel's unchecked orgy of violence in the region;

When the Prime Minister of Lebanon reminds the audience of what happened to the Arab world during Egypt's absence;

When China ensures that every element is in place to guarantee the success of its partnership with Egypt, beginning with a $1 billion down payment for energy projects to support Egypt's industrial growth;

When the Ethiopian prime minister addresses the conflict with Egypt by saying flat out that Egypt and Ethiopia share one destiny, and that the security of Egypt is the security of Ethiopia;

When Egypt ranks the speakers, not alphabetically, nor according to their political weight, nor even according to the length of time they have held office, but solely according to their importance to Egypt's national security, according to the famous "circles" laid down by Gamal Abdel-Nasser in 1955: Arab, African, Islamic, followed by friendly states;

Then know, beyond a doubt, that:

Yesterday, the resounding success of the Sharm El-Sheikh Conference marked the blackest day in recent memory for the Muslim Brotherhood and Israel. For the terrorist Brotherhood, every passing day it becomes more obvious that there is no hope for the Brotherhood's return, nor for Morsi's, nor for any victory, period. And nothing horrifies Israel as much as the prospect of a developed, prosperous state along its borders. This is what it fears above all, even more than its neighbors buying advanced weapons. For Israel considers the greatest threat to its own security to be the existence of a productive, technologically advanced Arab nation that serves and represents its people.

This, perhaps, explains Kerry's infamous slip of the tongue yesterday morning before delegates at a breakfast hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, in which he said, "We must all join together to build Israel's future", which the US Embassy explained away as the result of jet lag and lack of sleep.

More than anything else, the destiny and objectives of the terrorist Brotherhood have long been linked to those of Israel. Nobody has been more determined than the Brotherhood to persuade Egyptians that they were defeated in 1956, other than Israel. And we have seen no one celebrate the 1967 "Naksa" (Israeli invasion and occupation of Arab lands) other than the Muslim Brotherhood, with their annual gleeful celebrations that aim to demoralize and destroy hope, rather than to warn and to teach the lessons of the past. And no individual or organization has been more relentless in attacking the memory of the single leader most implacably hated by Israel, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, than the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood and Israel are one hand. Yesterday was an ordeal for them, as over and over again, all the delegates insisted on Egypt's pivotal role in the region, and that the security of the Arab nation depends on Egypt's strength, echoing the principles set down during the 1950s. How agonizing it must have been for the Brotherhood and for Israel to hear the President of Tanzania and the Chinese president's representative invoking Gamal Abdel-Nasser and praising him, with China reminding the delegates that Nasser was the first Arab, African or Middle Eastern leader to officially recognize the People's Republic of China. The Brotherhood and Israel both hate Gamal Abdel-Nasser, just as they hate President Sisi, and just as both of them hate Egypt. But Egypt is preserved by a covenant between God and the Egyptians, which cannot be broken by the cunning of her enemies, nor by any unholy alliance between them.

Edited to replace an unofficial figure from the media with the official figure announced by the government.

[Elvis]

Such good news! and in a time when it seems there's never any. Very happy for you, Alice, and thanks again for bringing us another report.

When John Kerry sees how low he was ranked on the list of speakers to the delegates at the Sharm el Sheikh Conference

Kerry's infamous slip of the tongue yesterday morning before delegates at a breakfast hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, in which he said, "We must all join together to build Israel's future"

which the US Embassy explained away as the result of jet lag and lack of sleep.

Plus he was probably stoned on Ambien™:

"It's the drug of choice around here."
- Colin Powell, at the State Department

[AlicetheKurious]

Thanks, Elvis. Seriously, I'm so happy I feel like my heart will burst. It's a scary feeling, like your heart is taking up all the space in your chest. Three days of doing nothing but following every tiny detail of the conference, and it's all good news. Just when you think it can't get any better, it does. And it's not just me, it's the whole country.

Everybody's laughing at the young people who swarmed up to the stage before CC's closing speech, when he invited them up to thank them for the incredible job they did. They're like puppies. This video was just before they all started taking selfies, right on the stage.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=82 ... nref=story



Allow me to indulge myself by posting a song I keep playing, over and over. I can't get enough of it. It's called "One Brick at a Time," and over the past several months, it's become kind of an unofficial theme song for CC. It's all about how Egyptians will pull together to build up their nation, and overcome every challenge.

[82_28]

That's a beautiful song, Alice. As a side, the first thought that came to mind was going on a failed quest yesterday to get all the ingredients to make baba ganoush. I've never made it before and really want to. But nobody near me has what I need and/or too expensive. What does tahini go for in Egypt? It's like $10 for 6oz in Seattle. They kept telling me that they had it in the deli, which they did, but I explained that I wanted to make it to learn how to do so. It's pretty damned simple. I've tried my hand at every middle eastern dish that I can think of, trying to make from scratch. I have fucked up along the way, but damn do I want to get it down like the restaurants.

In other words, when I hear beautiful music like that, I think of beautiful places, beautiful people and awesome food. Though, I've never been there, that music simply reminds me of beauty.

Say, do you happen to have a good recipe or two? I know, off topic, but seriously, I consumed a lot of time trying to find what I needed.

Are there dishes you can recommend that we can piece together? I love the place, but the nearest middle eastern joint is way too expensive. Like 18-20 bucks a plate.

This is the only reason I miss Denver btw:

http://www.jerusalemrestaurant.com/

I have never had better food of any kind than there!

Alright, back on topic. But I would love some recipes, Alice!

[AlicetheKurious]

Tahina is only around a tenth of the cost here, but the good thing is that a little goes a long way. You only need about 2 tablespoons of it to make a good amount of baba ghanoug, with two medium eggplants. It's the same with most recipes that use it, unless you're actually making a whole bowl of tahina sauce as a dip or to use with grilled meat or falafel for a big group. I don't want to clutter up this thread, though, so if you have any particular type of recipes in mind, let me know by pm.

[AlicetheKurious]

One thing I forgot to mention, though it's important. In his closing speech, President Sisi announced that the Sharm El-Sheikh conference will become an annual event, but that future events will not only be about Egypt. He is inviting Third World countries to devise their own detailed, comprehensive development plans, and to identify specific projects that will make those plans possible, and which need financing and at the same time provide good investment opportunities for international investors. Analysts are calling this "an alternative to Davos", which is designed to serve the rich countries. This is another model, in which struggling countries protect their sovereignty and set their own agenda.

[stefano]

Thanks Alice. I'm glad you're glad, and I hope it works out the way it's meant to. There is a model of employment-creating industrialisation that can work for capital and labour, so I do hope this is, as they are saying, along those lines.I still don't like the tax cuts for the rich though. Or Blair and Lagarde's oily endorsements. If they're happy about something I reflexively suspect it is something that I won't like.

Do you really have no concerns over grand corruption? The squashing of the convictions against Ahmed Ezz, or Ahmed Nazif, or Habib el-Adly? I'd have expected, given your views on Israel, you'd be especially upset about the reversal of Sameh Fahmy's sentence for selling cheap gas to Israel to line his pockets. Or censorship, as with that Al-Watan story (or are you sure that's not true)?

[AlicetheKurious]

The whole tax system is being overhauled to promote investment, yes, but it won't work out as a tax cut for the rich. It includes property tax (which has never been imposed before), as well as capital-gains tax (ditto), and the corporate taxes are being raised to the international level. Egypt has "Avoidance of Double-Taxation" treaties with most countries, so that lowering corporate taxes isn't actually an incentive for foreigners to invest here, since corporations must either pay their taxes in their home countries or in Egypt. Lowering corporate taxes on their revenue in Egypt would have simply meant that they'll pay the difference at home.

Tony Blair works for the United Arab Emirates. He says whatever they pay him to say, and the UAE is firmly with Egypt. As for Lagarde, what could she do? The IMF used to make us beg and crawl for puny loans like the $ 1.48 billion they held over our heads a couple of years ago, which came loaded with crippling conditions that would have effectively made them our real government. Now, the Egyptians have proven we don't need their stupid money: first, last summer when in one week ordinary Egyptians themselves raised more than $ 8 billion to expand the Suez Canal, and last week, when this conference raised well over $ 100 billion in investments for massive infrastructure projects designed to empower Egypt and to serve her people. Now the IMF is running after the train, trying to get on. Lagarde's support was almost superfluous, but nice, because the IMF's endorsement gives Egypt a higher credit rating and allows us to negotiate better terms with both investors and lenders.

Do you really have no concerns over grand corruption? The squashing of the convictions against Ahmed Ezz, or Ahmed Nazif, or Habib el-Adly? I'd have expected, given your views on Israel, you'd be especially upset about the reversal of Sameh Fahmy's sentence for selling cheap gas to Israel to line his pockets. Or censorship, as with that Al-Watan story (or are you sure that's not true)?

I have no concerns about grand corruption. I have grand concerns, though, about petty corruption. The obscenely bloated bureaucracy is riddled with it, and if it's not cleaned out, then everything will go down the drain, and there will be no second chance. This is the biggest challenge facing Egypt right now, at a time when Egypt is literally facing existential challenges on multiple fronts. It's either heaven or hell, with nothing in between, and everything hinges on our ability to change (and on the leadership's ability to impose change). I hope (and trust) that there will be zero tolerance and no mercy, and that corrupt individuals will be treated as the traitors they are. The process has begun, though too many of them are living in denial.

As for the trials of Mubarak's cronies, these were the product of the chaos that characterized the period after the January 25th Revolution, when the Public Prosecutor's office was under tremendous pressure to lay charges against anybody associated with Mubarak, based on uncorroborated eyewitness testimonies and often flimsy evidence. Under normal circumstances, a complaint is made to the Public Prosecutor against a person, accusing them of criminal activity. The Public Prosecutor asks for supporting evidence by the plaintiff, then requests the police to investigate. The Public Prosecutor's Office is also authorized to conduct its own investigation, until it is satisfied that a solid case can be brought to court. All this collapsed in the period starting in 2011: the Public Prosecutor was deluged with thousands of complaints daily, hourly, coming from all over the place, most of which were either poorly or not at all backed up. At the same time, there was literally no police -- the Interior Ministry had disintegrated, the Public Prosecutor didn't have the resources to investigate even a tiny fraction of the charges, and was under tremendous pressure (including physical threats) to lay criminal charges or be accused of complicity. The Public Prosecutor at the time did the only thing he could do: he simply transferred the files to the courts, leaving the judges to sort it all out.

Consequently, a lot of the charges were dismissed, either because the evidence was unreliable or non-existent, or because no specific laws were violated. In the case of Ahmed Ezz, he and his gang were in a position during Mubarak's time, to custom-design laws to serve their interests and to have them rubber-stamped by the parliament they controlled, and so on paper, at least, their actions were legal. Nazzif was a terrible prime minister, but the criminal charges against him were ludicrous. As for Sameh Fahmy, this is a different story: in his recent trial, his defense was able to prove that he was not working on his own behalf, but on behalf of Egyptian national security; that the sale of Egyptian gas to Israel was an extremely valuable intelligence operation from start to finish. Top level intelligence officials, whose testimony was unimpeachable, testified on his behalf, explaining how it worked, in closed sessions during the trial.

Habib El-Adly was charged with ordering the killing of demonstrators. His trial, like Mubarak's was broadcast live, over several days last summer. It was a real eye-opener. I won't go into the details here, but personally, I watched every minute and was shocked to discover how badly we had been manipulated, especially by Al-Jazeera, which at the time was virtually our only source of information. Habib El-Adly's biggest fault was to grossly misread what was being organized for January 25th, and to be unprepared. The prosecution was unable to produce any evidence that police were ordered to kill demonstrators; in contrast, the defense played desperate radio calls for help by police officers under attack, including officers who were later killed, and superior officers ordering them to use only tear-gas against the attackers. A lot of videos were viewed in court, taken by cell-phone cameras, which showed police stations and police cars being set on fire and policemen being lynched by armed "demonstrators", while the media was portraying the opposite. The defense was also able to demonstrate, for example, how a total of 36 demonstrators were killed in Tahrir Square, at a time when there was no police presence in the Square; at the same time, videos proved that some of the "demonstrators" were armed with rifles, guns and knives. Similarly, the prosecution proved that the snipers firing at demonstrators and dropping molotov cocktails from the roofs of buildings overlooking the Square were taking their orders from the Muslim Brotherhood. When the army stepped in after the police had withdrawn, the army got the Muslim Brotherhood to order them down by threatening to shoot them off.

Anyway, it's impossible to squeeze everything we've learned and seen and experienced during such an intense period as the past 4 years, into a neat summary. But we've been incredibly lucky: Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen, and, for that matter, Ukraine, stand as sobering examples of what was in store for us. As President Sisi has said, we are 90 million, so the collapse of Egypt would have created a human catastrophe even greater than all these combined. But instead of falling, we've not only pulled back from the brink, but are getting set to rise from the ashes much better off than we were before.

It's a miracle. I am convinced that the plan would have succeeded if the planners had been patient, allowing the corruption and decay of the Mubarak regime to continue for only a few years longer. The way things were going, Egypt was rapidly approaching the point of no return. The planners' fatal mistake was to be impatient, lured by the promise of the Muslim Brotherhood to finish things quickly. But the shock woke Egypt up out of its stupor, and Egyptians exceeded all expectations by rallying to save their country. And not just to save their country, but to emerge as a rallying point for the Arab nation as a whole. Talk about blow-back.

[AlicetheKurious]

Or censorship, as with that Al-Watan story (or are you sure that's not true)?

Which Watan article?

[AlicetheKurious]

Under Egyptian law, if a dual-citizen Egyptian is convicted of a crime, and he/she meets certain security conditions, the Egyptian government may offer him/her the opportunity to be extradited to their other country if she/he abdicates her/his Egyptian citizenship. Mohamed Fahmy, the former Cairo Bureau Chief of Al-Jazeera International, has thus formally agreed to give up his Egyptian nationality and be extradited to Canada, although he hasn't left yet, but where he is now suing Al-Jazeera, although he continues to appeal his sentence, and is trying to reinstate his Egyptian citizenship:

Why I Am Suing Al Jazeera: An Open Letter From Mohamed Fahmy

In June 2014, Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, which he is currently appealing, on charges of aiding the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, broadcasting false news and operating without an equipment and operational license. He is now suing Al Jazeera in a Canadian court for $100 million for negligence, misrepresentation and breach of contract. In an exclusive letter to Egyptian Streets, Fahmy explains his decision to take legal action against his employer. Don’t forget to check out Egyptian Streets’ exclusive interview with Fahmy by clicking here.

TO START OFF

My legal case is against my employer, Al Jazeera Media Network. The Network – which is chaired by Sheikh Thamer Bin Hamad Al Thani, cousin of Qatar’s Emir – owns and operates AJ Arabic, AJ English (“AJE”) and many other channels. At the time of my arrest in December 2013, the Network was also illegally operating an Egyptian anti-government propaganda channel called Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr (AJMM), which it eventually shut down under international pressure in December 2014.

AJE had — and in some circles still has — a strong reputation for journalistic independence and integrity. I relied on this reputation when I agreed to become AJE’s Cairo Bureau Chief in September 2013. I was repeatedly assured that AJE’s legitimate journalism wouldn’t be undermined or tainted by the Network’s other channels. I had expected the Network to respect AJ English’s independence and integrity. It didn’t.

So in short, while I once drew a distinction between AJE and the Network’s other channels, my experience has shown that any distinction is illusory and that the Network will use any means at its disposal to attain Qatar’s foreign policy objectives. What I learned in prison and throughout the trial about Al Jazeera’s actions in Egypt cannot be forgiven by any man who has dignity.

I am suing the Network for punitive and compensatory damages in the amount of $100 million. As I state in my lawsuit, the Network was not only grossly negligent in the way it treated my AJE Cairo Bureau colleagues and me, but it also lied to us and kept us in the dark about the fact that it was knowingly breaking Egyptian laws and antagonizing the Egyptian authorities.

My metamorphosis and preparation for the lawsuit started in prison after I interviewed many prisoners and read the full case documents, including the interrogation of my colleagues and the students bundled in the case, and realized the network’s serious and unforgivable contribution to our wrongful detention. Indeed, I have been the most outspoken critic of the foggy Egyptian prosecution, both through my statement in prison and in my speeches in court.

The same integrity I brought to my modest 15-year career is what drives me today to be balanced in my critique of Qatar’s treachery. The world has spoken loudly about Egypt’s questionable trial, but Al Jazeera’s respected Cairo-based press pack knew about the network’s shortcomings, and its breach of journalistic ethics, but said nothing until our release on bail. In reality, the judge put three innocent journalists in the cage instead of placing Al Jazeera on trial.

NEGLIGENCE AND BREACH OF CONTRACT

I asked the network repeatedly – in writing and orally – upon arriving to work on the first day at the Marriott Hotel if our operation was legal. The response was that we were legal, and to leave the legalities to the headquarters in Doha and focus on editorial. When raising the question again, the network stated that we would be returning to our offices soon, giving us the impression they were handling business, as any network should do. I even offered to meet prosecutors, lawyers, and officials to better understand where we stood when I realized the Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr channel was officially shut by a court order days before I accepted the job. I learned from the staff that the former bureau chief of Al Jazeera English had fled town abruptly without telling his employees.

I was told by managers that all was well when it wasn’t. It turns out, as Baher Mohamed and I learned in court last March, that the channel did not have the proper operational broadcast licenses. It’s a misdemeanor that could result in one to three years behind bars and/or a fine. When your bosses tell you they’re taking care of business when they are not, this is unacceptable. Employment law number one is to provide a safe working environment for your staff. I am not talking about the assumed risk we journalists are accustomed to on the front-line; I am talking about the basics. They told me time and again not to make any enquiries, that they were taking care of it and that I shouldn’t worry. I believed them and I relied on them to take these most basic steps to ensure our safety. They didn’t, and I ended up in jail because of it.

I insisted that my team conducts their own news gathering, sourcing and booking, and became obsessed with making this distinction. However, not only was the Network illegally broadcasting anti-government propaganda on Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr, which was shut down by a court order that classified it as “biased towards the Muslim Brotherhood and a national security threat”, they were also taking our AJE journalism and rebroadcasting it with Arabic voice-overs, basically in support of the anti-government, pro-Muslim Brotherhood message. This was very obviously endangering myself and my AJE colleagues, so I repeatedly asked the Network to make sure the practice stopped. Each time, the Network told me not to worry and that it wouldn’t happen again; that they would respect the independence and integrity of AJE. But they didn’t honor these promises. Instead, they kept re-purposing our AJE content for illegal broadcasting. They even continued to do it after the government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization on December 25, 2013. Just a few days after that, I was arrested and subsequently convicted of supporting a terrorist organization: the Muslim Brotherhood.

Unfortunately, this meant it was hard to argue with the prosecutor, who heard the lead investigator testify under oath in court that “Fahmy, the main suspect, works for the banned Mubasher Misr channel.” The journalist Robert Fisk interviewed me while I was in prison and confronted the network on the matter. The network lied in their response to my allegation, documented in his Independent article, claiming that they “cannot find evidence of this happening.” Upon my release, the network changed their statement in response to Jonathan Miller’s Channel Four documentary “Al Jazeera in Egypt: the inside story”, stating that “no-one has been able to provide specific instances following Fahmy’s email of 27 September 2013 where this may have happened.” On March 7 2015, Al Jazeera responded once again to an online CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Channel) story where the rebroadcast videos were actually displayed. They replied by saying: “This may have happened on a very small number of occasions over the course of three months.”

COOPERATION WITH THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

As I discovered during my first trial, whilst I was working for AJE, the network was secretly paying anti-government Muslim Brotherhood protesters to go out on the streets and produce video footage and other content, which was then broadcast without attribution on the propaganda channel AJMM.

In prison, I interviewed a number of Muslim Brotherhood members, as well as activists affiliated with the group, who surprisingly confessed to receiving cameras and live equipment from – and to selling footage to – the banned Al Jazeera Arabic and Mubasher Misr channels. Upon my release, I also acquired their official interrogation documents from their lawyers in order to double check this. I realized the fury of some of the families of those young Brotherhood and opposition activists at the fact that Al Jazeera used content from their sons without telling them that they were in fact breaching the law. My research was even corroborated by Brotherhood fugitives residing in Turkey and Qatar. My favorite testimony that wrapped it all up came from the former accountant of the Al Jazeera Mubasher who has moved on with his life in one piece.

This is not citizen journalism! Broadcasting footage that is not sourced and that has been filmed by a banned political group designated as terrorists by the government where you operate is simply breaking the law. If Qatar – and its most valuable foreign policy tool, Al Jazeera – does not consider the Brotherhood to be a terrorist group, then that is their business. However, the sovereign state where you operate tells you so and it ends there. Unfortunately, Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and myself had no say in this. Al Jazeera had become part of the story rather than reporting it neutrally. We journalists producing balanced reports in the Marriott Hotel should have been given the choice to accept or reject such nonsense orchestrated by managers of the Arabic network and signed off by the director general, who fueled the struggle rather than reported it.

Some of the activists I interviewed in prison informed me that they used money they acquired from Al Jazeera to print posters for the pro-Brotherhood protests and to buy food for the protesters, who were their friends. It gets worse, but I will keep that for court. None of the veteran reporters who worked with me in the Marriott Hotel – such as Sue Turton, Dominic Kane and Mohamed Fawzy – who have been sentenced to ten years imprisonment in absentia would have accepted such propaganda if they had known it was taking place in Egypt at the time.

I can unfortunately and confidently say that Al Jazeera Media Network is not just biased towards the Muslim Brotherhood, they are sponsors of the group designated as terrorists by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

THE AL JAZEERA LAWYER, FALSE TESTIMONIES AND REFUSAL TO PAY LEGAL FEES

I rejected the lawyer Al Jazeera appointed for my defense from day one of the arrest. I told Peter and Baher to join me but they didn’t. A month before the verdict, the lawyer abruptly quit in court and handed us on a gold platter to the judge. He told the judge, who was known as the “executioner”, in the press that Al Jazeera is suing Egypt in a $150 million compensation claim, and that the network was out to defame Egypt and had fabricated his quotes on the banned Mubasher Misr channel. I wrote to the network from prison demanding an explanation, and received none. This is one example of the political score settling that left us as pawns in a cold war between Egypt and Qatar.

If this is not negligence then what is? This lawyer had represented Al Jazeera for years. I interviewed him upon my release – his testimony and his email communications with the network literally gave me high blood pressure.

Al Jazeera also refused to pay for my legal fees throughout the course of the trial, as is documented in the emails exchanged between them and my family while I was in prison. Only after intervention from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Media Legal Defense Initiative (MLDI) did the network partially reimburse me. The latter donated toward my fees after conducting a thorough investigation and inspecting all my receipts and contracts. I raised some of the fees through an ongoing crowd-funding campaign. I am thankful to each donor who supported me at the most difficult times.

Unfortunately, an Al Jazeera English colleague had confessed under duress, as he claims. The twenty pages of horrific testimony married perfectly to the accusation brought against us. The questioning was attended by the lawyer, and took place in an air- conditioned room adjacent to mine at State Security, while we were served coffee and tea and allowed to smoke. He stated that Al Jazeera requested he film empty streets during the June 30 protests, and that Al Jazeera English fabricated the numbers of protesters reported on the screen, took direction from Brotherhood leaders specifically named in the interrogation, that his bosses altered his translation of a Sisi speech to portray a call for civil war, that Peter brought in bags of unclaimed cash and that he was always asked to defame Egypt and focus on negative issues in his reporting on the constitution. I don’t believe that Al Jazeera English would do that. Unfortunately, the general prosecutor who sent us to court only reads written investigations and testimonies, just like the judge who sentenced us.

I wrote to Al Jazeera from prison demanding that their lawyer dismiss this false testimony, have the judge question my colleague again and show videos in court to prove that the network never fabricated reports. They sent us the head of deployment at the time to visit us in prison. She informed us that the testimony would “disappear” and not to worry. Of course it didn’t. The prosecutor described the confessions in detail to a courtroom which journalists were coincidently delayed entrance to. The judge also cited the testimony in his verdict as part of his explanation of the 7-10 year sentence.

Al Jazeera had already sold the million dollar #FreeAJStaff campaign to the world and manipulated the masses by claiming there was not a shred of evidence. Their lawyer later explained to me that he was ordered by the network not to contest the testimony in court and to avoid any queries around their campaign and the questionable headlines that would surely follow. The prosecutor cannot fabricate our testimonies because we respond orally to his questions, as he repeats our words out loud to a clerk who writes down our exact words. We then sign on each paper of the testimony as my colleague did and the lawyer signs the confessions as well.

THE RIYADH AGREEMENT

We were kept in the dark about the ongoing negations between Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The tension leading to the negotiations started before our arrest. This means Qatar had prior knowledge from diplomats that there was official discontent with the network’s position on Egypt. The issues surfaced publically while we were in prison when the Riyadh Agreement was brokered by Saudi Arabia, forcing Qatar to shut down Mubasher Misr in December 2014 – a month before the appeal court overturned our sentence citing procedural errors. The Qatari Emir signed the agreement and promised that Al Jazeera would review its editorial line to limit the hypercritical programming against Egypt and the Arab states. They were on the brink of reconciliation when the late King Abdullah of Saudi died, and so did the agreement.

The fact that the Emir signed the deal regarding Al Jazeera’s future is so telling of who calls the shots in the channel that was shut down in most of these countries. Their slogan – “the Opinion and the Other Opinion” – is a tad off. The network almost never reports on Qatar’s ban on protests, political parties and labor unions or the mutterings of the opposition. I tried to get the voice of the Qatari opposition on the channel several times during my short tenure but the bosses rejected this without giving an explanation.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

I am very grateful to the millions of people around the world who supported the #FreeAJStaff campaign while we were in prison which became a life line during the most horrendous times in solitary confinement and throughout the 412 days. The noise resonated through the cracks of the thick concrete walls. It was a reason to keep going knowing we were not forgotten.

It’s my duty to share with our supporters what I learned in prison in regards to Al Jazeera’s recklessness that contributed immensely to our incarceration. I can’t be a journalist for the time being while my case is ongoing but I can surely highlight the plight of others wrongly imprisoned for doing their job. I hope by suing Al Jazeera that the network will finally listen and protect my fellow staff members. No journalists should be jailed.

However, its seems that there are no neutral grounds for us with more than 200 reporters jailed and 60 killed in the past sixteen months globally. I believe both governments and media corporations alike should invoke more transparent regulations to protect members of the media from prosecution.
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[stefano]