Live: Al Jazeera coverage of Egypt’s growing revolution

[norton ash]

Vanlose Kid:

endorsed.

new blog post soon? lots of material here, chief.

If you don't stop harassing Mr. Salinger we're going to have to ask you to leave.

[vanlose kid]

Vanlose Kid:

endorsed.

new blog post soon? lots of material here, chief.

If you don't stop harassing Mr. Salinger we're going to have to ask you to leave.

yessir, chief minister of information and education, sir!

*

[vanlose kid]

Egypt Rapidly Running Out Of Food
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/31/2011 07:20 -0500


Forget Egypt ATMs running out of cash. A far bigger problem for the country is starting to materialize, one which would promptly shift the revolution into overdrive: the disappearance of all staples. CNN reports: "While discontent, resentment and nationalism continue to fuel demonstrations, one vital staple is in short supply: food. Many families in Egypt are fast running out of staples such as bread, beans and rice and are often unable or unwilling to shop for groceries. Everything is running out. I have three children, and I only have enough to feed them for maybe two more days. After that I do not know what we will do." school administrator Gamalat Gadalla told CNN." And while the world is merely concerned about whether the Suez canal is still open, perhaps it is time for a little food paradropping exercise, because if the 80+ million strong population realizes there is nothing to eat, we may just see the kind of Somali ship piracy in the Red Sea we have all grown to love, move just a little bit inland.


More from CNN:

The unrest has paralyzed daily life in Egypt with many grocers closing shop and spotty food shipments.

"With the curfew, there are no restaurants, food or gas. Basic goods will soon be in shortage," Sandmonkey, an Egyptian blogger said via Twitter.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has ordered a curfew in Egypt to be extended from 3 p.m. to 8 a.m. on Monday, further stifling normal life in the embattled nation.

Egyptian state-run Nile TV has set up a hotline for citizens to call in and report bread shortages. There has been no other indication of what the Egyptian government is doing to address the crisis.

Unfortunately for Egyptians they seem blissfully unaware that they can't eat E-minis, which have resumed their algo driven melt up this morning as the revolutionary margin and bottom line appears to have blown out analyst expectations.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/egypt- ... g-out-food

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[vanlose kid]

The CIA On Egypt's Economy, Financial Deregulation And Protest
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/30/2011 19:15 -0500

Submitted by Nomi Prins

The CIA on Egypt's Economy, Financial Deregulation and Protest

The ongoing demonstrations in Egypt are as much, if not more, about the mass deterioration of economic conditions and the harsh result of years of financial deregulation, than the political ideology that some of the media seems more focused on. Plus, as Mark Engler cross-posted on Alternet and Dissent yesterday, the notion that the protests in Cairo are 'spontaneous uprisings' misses the mark. As he eloquently wrote, "there are extraordinary moments when public demonstrations take on a mass character and people who would otherwise not have dreamed of taking part in an uprising rush onto the streets. But these protests are typically built upon years of organizing and preparation on the part of social movements."

That got me thinking about what else has been building up in Egypt under Mubarak's 29-year as President, but more specifically over the past decade, and in particular the years leading up to the world economic crisis catalyzed by the US banking system - and that would be, extreme financial deregulation and the increased influx of foreign banks, capital, and "investment" which tends to be a euphemism for "speculation" when it belies international funds looking for hot prospects, no matter what the costs to the local population.

According to the CIA's World Fact-book depiction of Egypt's economy, "Cairo from 2004 to 2008 aggressively pursued economic reforms to attract foreign investment and facilitate GDP growth." And, while that was happening, "Despite the relatively high levels of economic growth over the past few years, living conditions for the average Egyptian remain poor."

Unemployment in Egypt is hovering just below the 10% mark, like in the US, though similarly, this figure grossly underestimates underemployment, quality of employment, prospects for employment, and the growing youth population with a dismal job future. Nearly 20% of the country live below the poverty line (compared to 14% and growing in the US) and 10% of the population controls 28% of household income (compared to 30% in the US). But, these figures, as in the US, have been accelerating in ways that undermine financial security of the majority of the population, and have been doing so for more than have a decade.

Around 2005, Egypt decided to transform its financial system in order to increase its appeal as a magnet for foreign investment, notably banks and real estate speculators. Egypt reduced cumbersome bureaucracy and regulations around foreign property investment through decree (number 583.) International luxury property firms depicted the country as a mecca (of the tax-haven variety) for property speculation, a country offering no capital gains taxes on real estate transactions, no stamp duty, and no inheritance tax.

But, Egypt's more devastating economic transformation centered around its decision to aggressively sell off its national banks as a matter of foreign and financial policy between 2005 and early 2008 (around the time that US banks were stoking a global sub-prime and other forms-of-debt and leverage oriented crisis). Having opened its real estate to foreign investment and private equity speculation, the next step in the deregulation of the country's banks was spurring international bank takeovers complete with new bank openings, where international banks could begin plowing Egyptians for fees. Citigroup, for example, launched the first Cards reward program in 2005, followed by other banks.

According to an article in Executive Magazine in early 2007, which touted the competitive bidding, acquistion and rebranding of Egyptian banks by foreign banks and growth of foreign M&A action, the biggest bank deal of 2006 was the sale of one of the four largest state-run banks, Bank of Alexandria, to Italian bank, Gruppo Sanpaolo IMI. This, a much larger deal than the 70% acquisition by Greek's Piraeus Bank of the Egyptian Commercial Bank in 2005, one of the first deals to be blessed by the Central Bank of Egypt and the Ministry of Investment that unleashed the sale of Egypt's banking system to the highest international bidders.

The greater the pace of foreign bank influx and take-overs to 'modernize' Egypt's banking system, inevitably the more short-term, "hot" money poured into Egypt. Pieces of Egypt, or its companies, continued to be purchased by foreign conglomerates, trickling off when the global financial crisis brewed full force in 2008, though not before Goldman Sachs Strategic Investments Limited in the UK bought a $70 million chunk of Palm Hills Development SAE, a high-end real estate developer, in March, 2008.

When a country, among other shortcomings, relinquishes its financial system and its population's well-being to the pursuit of 'good deals', there is going to be substantial fallout. The citizens protesting in the streets of Greece, England, Tunisia, Egypt and anywhere else, may be revolting on a national basis against individual leaderships that have shafted them, but they have a common bond; they are revolting against a world besotted with benefiting the powerful and the deal-makers at the expense of ordinary people.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest- ... nd-protest

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[23]

A revolution that depends upon the sympathy of the armed forces is on shaky ground, even if it's successful. I was optimistic on Friday, expecting Mubarak on a plane by the end of the day. I'm worried now that may have been the last chance to avert civil war.

I wholeheartedly agree with your initial assessment, but not necessarily with your closing one.

The last chance, and in IMO the most effective one, to avoid a civil war is to effect a prolonged and nationwide general strike.

Economically collapse Egypt until the regime has no other choice but to comply with the revolutionaries' will.

Thus far, some revolutionaries are advocating for a day-long general strike. That's not effective enough. The general strike must last until their will is accomplished.

Nonviolent acts of civil disobedience can be an effective revolutionary tool. But only if you can constructively channel your anger towards this objective.

[Jeff]

new blog post soon? lots of material here, chief.

New material is the problem. I'm still working through the old material.

But since you asked, here's the first paragraph. It took only a year and a half to compose, so you should expect the balance in short order.

They may be our Most Terrible Lizards, but they wouldn't be called the best and the brightest by even the hindmost fart-catcher in Abaddon's human centipede. They can turn blood into gold, playing Last Days' alchemists in the booming catastrophe and collapse sectors, but don't confuse an habituated massacre with a meritocracy. They're the eschaton of open jaws at the close of the food chain, but only because brutal design rewards a cold heart with the cruelest bite. We're the 99 and they're the One Percenters, and like the outlaw bikers who share the patch, they run the drugs and guns and kill for their club, all oxymoronic howlings of billionaire philanthropists notwithstanding. Just don't call them elites. No. Apparently and with great perversity, that's me and my tribe, over-educated beyond utility at the end of things.

[vanlose kid]

What the U.S. Loses if Mubarak Goes
Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
By Tony Karon

The revolt that appears to have fatally undermined President Hosni Mubarak's prospects for remaining in power is a domestic affair — Egyptians have taken to the street to demand change because of economic despair and political tyranny, not because of the regime's close relationship with Israel and the U.S. But having tolerated and abetted Mubarak's repressive rule for three decades precisely because of his utility to U.S. strategy on issues ranging from Israel to Iran, his fall from power could deprive Washington of a key Arab ally.

"The birthpangs of a new Middle East" was then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's description of the bombs falling on Beirut in 2006 as Israel and Hizballah traded blows in an inconclusive war, but her words more aptly describe the convulsions currently shaking Egypt. Rice's vision of an alliance of Israel and Arab autocrats crushing Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizballah proved to be a chimera, but Mubarak's ouster could change the regional order in ways quite at odds Secretary Rice's vision. (See how Obama has been forced to sit on the sidelines during Egypt's turmoil.)

The situation in Egypt remains dangerously fluid, its outcome still difficult to predict. But even if the duration and terms of the inevitable transition are unknown, five days of dramatic street demonstrations have effectively called time on the strongman's 30-year rule. Even the Obama Administration appears to be distancing itself from a leader that Washington has long hailed as a pillar of regional stability. The White House has stopped short of demanding that Mubarak resign, but it has called for "an orderly transition" to "a democratic participatory government," and for Egypt's U.S.-funded security forces to refrain from violence against protestors. Heeding those calls would effectively consign Mubarak to political oblivion. And even if he tried to fight his way out of the crisis, the autocrat's ability to serve as a bastion of stability will have been fatally compromised. In the space of less than a week, a central pillar of U.S. regional strategy has become an untenable ruler.

The man most likely to replace him if the political process is thrown open now looks to be Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winning former nuclear inspector who has been endorsed as a presidential candidate by the smaller secular parties and importantly also by the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition party. ElBaradei is a moderate and a democrat, but he doesn't share Washington's allergy to Islamist parties and has publicly questioned the Obama Administration's strategy on Iran's nuclear program.

Curiously enough, years before the current turmoil, Washington was warned it could expect a difficult transition after Mubarak, even if his succession had been handled within the regime. "Whoever Egypt's next president is, he will inevitably be politically weaker than Mubarak," reads a remarkably prescient May 2007 cable from the U.S. embassy in Cairo released late last year by WikiLeaks. "Among his first priorities will be to cement his position and build popular support. We can thus anticipate that the new president may sound an initial anti-American tone in his public rhetoric in an effort to prove his nationalist bona fides to the Egyptian street." (See TIME's video "Tahrir Square: The Epicenter of Cairo's Protests.)

The cable also warns that any new president would have to bolster his support by reconciling with the banned Muslim Brotherhood. If all of that was true for what was then anticipated would be an in-house transition, it may be even more so now that the citizenry has demanded a say in the matter. It's not that the rebellion is fueled by anti-Americanism or radical Islamist sentiments; on the contrary, it's a protest driven by Egyptians' own economic and political needs. The U.S. is viewed with hostility among the demonstrators first and foremost because of its longtime support for a tyrannical regime.

The Muslim Brotherhood may be in the "radical" column of Condi Rice's schema, but Egypt's democracy movement doesn't see it that way. "The Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the Iranian movement, has nothing to do with extremism as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places," ElBaradei said over the weekend. He called the Brotherhood a conservative group that favors secular democracy and human rights, and said that as an integral part of Egyptian society, it would have a place in any inclusive political process. (Read "Is There an ElBaradei Solution?")

Israel has looked on aghast as its most important friend in the region tumbles — with the U.S. doing little to save him. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly reached out to Washington and European capitals to urge them to ease off on criticism of the Egyptian leader, whose ouster would bring instability to the wider region. It's highly unlikely that any new Egyptian government would go to war with Israel, but an administration more responsive to its own citizenry than Mubarak will almost certainly cool relations. Mubarak's role as the go-to guy when the U.S. and Israel have wanted to pressure the Palestinians into new talks, for example, is unlikely to be reprised by any successor. Nor can Israel count on Egypt's continued cooperation in imposing an economic siege on Gaza, aimed at unseating the territory's Hamas rulers.

If Israel is alarmed, so is the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, who on Saturday phoned Mubarak to express his solidarity and whose security forces blocked demonstrations in support of the Egyptian democracy protests. Mubarak has been an important source of political cover for Abbas in his dealings with Israel and the U.S., and has kept the pressure on Hamas in Gaza. And the Palestinian leader who presides over a less-than-democratic administration won't have been thrilled by the Egyptians' example to his own people of the power of mass protest.

None of the region's moderate autocrats will have been particularly reassured by the Obama Administration's perceived willingness to wave goodbye to an Egyptian autocrat whose 30 years of service to U.S. regional agendas had the likes of Vice President Joe Biden just last week reiterating how important his contribution had been. (Comment on this story.)

Syria and Iran, of course, are celebrating the travails of one of their fiercest Arab antagonists — even if the type of popular rebellion that has rocked Mubarak could at some point also come to the streets of both Damascus and Tehran. Indeed, the Egyptian rebellion may stand as the ultimate negation of the Bush Administration "moderates" vs. "radicals" approach to the region: Mubarak's ouster might be a loss for the moderate camp, but that wouldn't necessarily translate into a gain for the radicals. Instead, it marks a new assertiveness by an Arab public looking to take charge of its own affairs rather than have them determined by international power struggles. Even that, however, suggests turbulent times ahead for U.S. Middle East policies that have little support on the Egyptian street.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,881 ... 48,00.html

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[vanlose kid]

new blog post soon? lots of material here, chief.

New material is the problem. I'm still working through the old material.

But since you asked, here's the first paragraph. It took only a year and a half to compose, so you should expect the balance in short order.

They may be our Most Terrible Lizards, but they wouldn't be called the best and the brightest by even the hindmost fart-catcher in Abaddon's human centipede. They can turn blood into gold, playing Last Days' alchemists in the booming catastrophe and collapse sectors, but don't confuse an habituated massacre with a meritocracy. They're the eschaton of open jaws at the close of the food chain, but only because brutal design rewards a cold heart with the cruelest bite. We're the 99 and they're the One Percenters, and like the outlaw bikers who share the patch, they run the drugs and guns and kill for their club, all oxymoronic howlings of billionaire philanthropists notwithstanding. Just don't call them elites. No. Apparently and with great perversity, that's me and my tribe, over-educated beyond utility at the end of things.

woof! look at that! what say ye know, mr norton ash? eh? what say ye now?

reads well chief.

*

[23]

They may be our Most Terrible Lizards, but they wouldn't be called the best and the brightest by even the hindmost fart-catcher in Abaddon's human centipede. They can turn blood into gold, playing Last Days' alchemists in the booming catastrophe and collapse sectors, but don't confuse an habituated massacre with a meritocracy. They're the eschaton of open jaws at the close of the food chain, but only because brutal design rewards a cold heart with the cruelest bite. We're the 99 and they're the One Percenters, and like the outlaw bikers who share the patch, they run the drugs and guns and kill for their club, all oxymoronic howlings of billionaire philanthropists notwithstanding. Just don't call them elites. No. Apparently and with great perversity, that's me and my tribe, over-educated beyond utility at the end of things.

You closing comment suggests that a reframing of the meaning of elite may be in order.

With the title of article being, "We Have Met the Elite, and He is Us".

[norton ash]

woof! look at that! what say ye know, mr norton ash? eh? what say ye now?

reads well chief.

Reads very well. Thanks for the taste, Jeff.

I wonder how things are with Alice the K...

[vanlose kid]

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[23]

^^^ Consequences that serve the revolutionaries' aims. Now if only they can identify economic collapse as an intended goal of their efforts. Until their requirements are met.

[MacCruiskeen]

brutal design rewards a cold heart with the cruelest bite

Cruel enough to kill at least 150 people in Egypt this week, for instance. But! The bravery of those Egyptian demonstrators is really inspiring. This video shows cops deliberately driving heavily-armoured vehicles into the crowd at high speed, with the clear intent of killing, maiming or terrifying anyone in sight. Towards the end, though, the demonstrators apparently manage to capture one of those police vans, and merely by driving it slowly towards the police lines they succeed in forcing those shameless tools of the elite to scurry off in a panic:

[Jeff]

UPDATE 1-Egypt army: will not use violence against citizens
Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:46pm GMT

CAIRO Jan 31 (Reuters) - The army said on Monday it would not use force against Egyptians staging protests demanding President Hosni Mubarak step down, a statement said.

It said "freedom of expression" was guaranteed to all citizens using peaceful means.

It was the first such explicit confirmation by the army that it would not fire at demonstrators who have taken to the streets of Egypt since last week to try to force Mubarak to quit.

"The presence of the army in the streets is for your sake and to ensure your safety and wellbeing. The armed forces will not resort to use of force against our great people," the army statement said.

"Your armed forces, who are aware of the legitimacy of your demands and are keen to assume their responsibility in protecting the nation and the citizens, affirms that freedom of expression through peaceful means is guaranteed to everybody."

It urged people not resort to acts of sabotage that violate security and destroy public and private property. It warned that it would not allow outlaws and to loot, attack and "terrorise citizens".

http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews ... JC20110131

Well that's Mubarak done. But I also think this is the military assuring Washington of an "orderly transition."

[23]

I'm not so impressed.

Corporatist media sources here, too, have touted that the protesters' demands are legitimate. Only they cloak that legitimacy in the garb of reform, not revolution.

I smell another effort to reframe their revolutionary message with a reform one. But my nose isn't infallible.