Riots in Egypt

[Роберт]

That's a horrifyingly tasteless article. What does her sex life have to do with anything? Or the repeated references to how attractive she is? That is not at all appropriate.

Yeah, I read a different version of the article that didn't go on about how attractive and promiscuous she was. Seemed more tasteful.

[Iulus Cofield]

I mean jesus, the person who wrote that article was a fellow female journalist. You'd think she might have a little bit of empathy for a situation she herself could be in.
And isn't there some kind of unwritten rule of professional journalism that you don't highlight alleged promiscuity of sexual assault victims? Or at least avoid mentioning that some wacko news outlet said they would rape the victim too?
Add LAWeekly to my list of bad news outlets.

[Роберт]

Add LAWeekly to my list of bad news outlets.

The word "blogs" was in the URL, if that makes a difference.

[Pez Dispens3r]

Add LAWeekly to my list of bad news outlets.

The word "blogs" was in the URL, if that makes a difference.

A newspaper is still responsible for the quality of their editorials, even if they use the new hip cyber nomenclature.

[The Reaper]

Yea, sorry bout the quality there. It was the first one I saw. I believe someone else posted a separate thread about it later, with a much better link anyway.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=68602

In recent news, the army is working on fixing the government
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast ... index.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle- ... 893?repost

and wants the strikes to stop
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/ne ... s-1.343837
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/13-1

and the people want better pay
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12448413

[Iulus Cofield]

The military council's current actions look promising. I've got my fingers crossed.

[PeterCai]

egypt's economy can't compete without cheap labour and tourism, and the latter is quite devastated by the protests already...i don't think it's the right time to ask for raise in minimum wage.

[Zamfir]

egypt's economy can't compete without cheap labour and tourism, and the latter is quite devastated by the protests already...i don't think it's the right time to ask for raise in minimum wage.

But a big underlying cause of the revolts seem to be that Egypts GDP has been growing pretty well for a long time, while the people on the ground don't see similar increases in pay. That suggest that the problem is not uncompetitiveness, but simply that the money goes to the people in power.

[The Reaper]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12500968

The authorities in Egypt have arrested three ex-ministers for corruption including the former Interior Minister, Habib el-Adly, judicial sources say.

Mr Adly and the ex-ministers for housing and tourism, Ahmed Maghrabi and Zuheir Garana, were detained for 15 days along with steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz.

All four, who are already banned from travelling abroad, deny any wrongdoing.

Suspicions of corruption at the top fuelled the protests which forced out President Hosni Mubarak last week.

Correspondents say the arrest of four prominent figures from the Mubarak era are an attempt by the military-led interim government to quell continuing unrest.

Charges were filed against Mr Maghrabi, Mr Garana and Mr Ezz last week, along with former Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, who also denies misconduct.

Allegations against the four men arrested on Thursday range from money laundering to abuse of authority and squandering state wealth.

Calls for Mubarak inquiry

Mr Adly was in charge of police during the massive demonstrations against President Mubarak in Cairo and other cities and is blamed by some for the deadly use of force by riot police against protesters.

Prosecutors froze the bank accounts of Mr Adli and his family members on accusations that over 4m Egyptian pounds (£420,000; $680,000) were transferred to his personal account by the head of a contractor company, Reuters news agency reports, quoting Egyptian state TV.

Some policemen have been calling for the prosecution and even execution of the former minister.
Egyptian steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz (image from 2008) Ahmed Ezz was a close ally of President Mubarak

Mr Ezz is a senior leader in Mr Mubarak's party and owner of Ezz Steel.

The company said in a statement last week that he strongly denied the accusations against him and the investigation was a personal matter that would not affect its operations.

In all, about a dozen ex-ministers and businessmen are now under investigation for corruption or abuse of authority, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Anti-corruption campaigners have been pressing prosecutors to open an investigation into the assets of Mr Mubarak and his family.

The family's wealth - put at anywhere from $1bn to $70bn - has come under growing scrutiny since Mr Mubarak resigned on 11 February after three decades in power.

[sardia]

Sup, the Times says that the military will prioritize it's profits and monopolies first and foremost, then it'll think about the rest of Egypt. Apparently, the military has fingers in all sorts of pies/industries with plenty of subsidies from the state. Signs point against free market reforms especially since they forced out 2 pro-market ministers under the guise of corruption.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world ... anted=1&hp
If these would be revolutionaries want to accomplish anything, they'll have to convince the military, which is popular due to it's actions during Mubarak's fall, to give up massive revenues.

[The Reaper]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/ ... 7Q20110226

A judicial committee formed to draft changes to Egypt's constitution on Saturday proposed capping to eight years the time a president can stay in office and loosening the rules that curbed competition for the post.

Tariq al-Bishri, head of the judicial committee formed by Egypt's ruling military council, said the amendments to be put to a public referendum included reducing the presidential term to four years and imposing a two-term limit. President Hosni Mubarak was serving in his fifth, six-year term when he was toppled by a mass uprising on February 11.

Under the amendments, the future president would also need to appoint a deputy within 60 days of taking office. Mubarak kept the post empty until the very end of his rule, when he appointed intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Bishri said presidential candidates must either have: the support of 30 members of parliament; or the backing of 30,000 eligible voters across about half the country's governorates; or be nominated by a registered political party with at least one member elected to either the upper or lower house of parliament.

The constitutional amendments are to be put to a national referendum ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has promised to hold within six months.

Elections would be subject to judicial supervision -- one of the main demands of protesters and opposition groups behind the demonstrations that forced Mubarak to step down and hand power to the armed forces.

The proposed amendments will make it complicated for a president to maintain the state of emergency -- in place for decades -- which opposition activists want lifted as part of their broad demands for reform to Egypt's autocratic system of government.

The state of emergency is still in place, though the military council has said it will lift it within six months.

Bishri said amendments to 11 articles of the constitution would be put to a referendum and a new charter would be drawn up after elections.

[The Reaper]

Egyptian Military Cracks Down on New Protest
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world ... .html?_r=1

[CorruptUser]

Sigh, new dog, same fleas. Who would've thought that the military that was supported by Mubarak's regime would turn out to be very similar to Mubarak's regime?

[GenericPseudonym]

You could tell the military wouldn't end up being much better, seeing as everybody but the actual folks in tanks cooperated just fine in sending along the order to massacre everyone in the square a few days ago..

[The Reaper]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 0880.story

Prison guards indiscriminately fired on inmates during the recent unrest in Egypt, sometimes gunning down men who were carrying the dead or even staging escapes that ended in new volleys of bullets, human rights groups and inmates charge. At least 200 prisoners were killed, the groups say.

As many as 168 inmates at Fayoum prison near Cairo were killed Jan. 30 after jailbreaks triggered by the street demonstrations that would depose Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to a lawsuit filed by the Egyptian Center for Development and Human Rights.

Amnesty International reported that inmates provided a list of 43 prisoners they say were killed by prison guards at Al Qatta al Gadeed, another prison near Cairo.

The lawsuit, filed with Egypt's prosecutor general, described prisoners' corpses riddled with gunshot wounds to the head and chest, and signs of torture such as fingernails pulled out. Amnesty International said some inmates were shot by guards firing from towers.

[Chen]

Reading that article its not clear if the prison guards were one group or several. It seems like some guards were letting prisoners out while others were trying to keep them imprisoned (or well shooting them as appears to be the policy). I also have to wonder what kind of marksmen they hire at prisons if the prison policy is

In Egypt, prison guards are required to first fire a warning shot, then shoot to maim, resorting to lethal force only as a final recourse.

[The Reaper]

Islam is no longer Egypt's religion
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/midd ... 40117.html

After the army council took power, it immediately suspended the constitution, raising hopes that there would be major changes in election laws, as well as a softening of the almost unlimited powers of the presidency, as well as an end to the provision saying Islam is the national religion, which has led to the country's Coptic Christian minority often complaining of discrimination.

Muslims and Christians work together in new Egypt
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/most-pop ... egypt.html

[The Reaper]

Newly appointed prime minister Essam Sharaf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 06364.html

Massive crowds turned out across the Arab world for a Friday of mostly peaceful protests, although the Iraqi government responded with a forceful crackdown and at least three people were killed in Yemen.

In Egypt, the huge crowd that had gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square cheered as the country's newly appointed prime minister waded into throngs of protesters and asked for their support and help.

"I draw my legitimacy from you," Essam Sharaf told the demonstrators, who greeted him with a deafening roar and later carried him off on their shoulders.

Sharaf had been appointed Thursday by the ruling military council in a move calculated to appease protesters ahead of Friday's demonstrations. He replaced Ahmed Shafiq, who had been chosen for the job by President Hosni Mubarak just days before Mubarak resigned and who was considered by protesters an unpopular vestige of the old regime.

Many hours later, after nightfall, hundreds of Egyptian protesters in Alexandria tried to storm a building belonging to the internal security service, a much-hated agency blamed for human rights violations during Mubarak's rule. Officers inside the building opened fire on the crowd, injuring three demonstrators, according to the Associated Press, which quoted a medic and one of the protesters.

In his speech, Sharaf appealed to the crowd members, praising them for carrying out the revolution, promising to fulfill their demands and pleading for their help in "rebuilding Egypt."

While the crowd's celebratory response suggests the tensions that emerged after Mubarak's ouster might be easing, it is unclear whether the latest moves will be enough. Protesters say many of their demands remain unmet, including the dissolution of the much-hated state security police and the release of political detainees.

"But just the fact that he came here without any protection, like an average man, this is good credit for him," said Ashraf Abdel Aal, 45, a protester who witnessed Sharaf's speech.

State television announced Friday that Egypt will hold a referendum March 19 on amendments to its constitution. The referendum is necessary before Egypt can hold free, multiparty elections later this year.

[Iulus Cofield]

I'm not sure what to make of the current situation. On the one hand, things like this are happening, but on the other hand the army hasn't given us too much reason to trust them. I guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

[The Reaper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/23/f ... t-amnesty/

The international human rights group Amnesty International claimed Wednesday that a number of female protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square were rounded up by the Egyptian military and tortured recently.

Some women even said they were subjected to a "virginity test" while soldiers looked on and took pictures.

Amnesty said at least 18 different women were subjected to this treatment, first at a military prison, then inside the Cairo Museum.

The women claimed they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks, and one woman who allegedly "failed" her virginity test was reportedly singled out for the worst abuse.

"20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window," the group explained. "During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women."

All of them were taken on March 9, as the military cleared Tahrir Square of demonstrators.

"Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment,” Amnesty said in an advisory. "The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public."

The group also demanded that the women not face trial before a military court due to the system's history of hasty verdicts and allegations of corruption.

Led by journalist Rasha Azeb with the al-Fagr newspaper, the women have filed a lawsuit against Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, demanding that the use of military courts end.

Amnesty added that testimony gathered by the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence corroborated Azeb's claims of torture, beatings and sexual abuse.

A spokesperson for Amnesty International was unavailable for comment. Messages left with Egypt's embassy in Washington, D.C. were not returned.

[buddy431]

I'm not sure whether to resurrect a nine-month-old thread or start a new one, so feel free to move this if you think it's appropriate.

Egypt is holding their parliamentary elections right now. In the first round of voting for the lower house, Islamic parties made a very strong showing. It was pretty expected that the Muslim brotherhood would do well, and indeed, they took about 37% of the vote. The more surprising result is that the Salafi's, a stricter, more conservative group, has garnered about a quarter of the vote. The two main liberal parties picked up about 20% between them. The runoffs will be held Monday and Tuesday.

The new election process is extremely convoluted, with three rounds of elections for the lower house stretching from late November to mid-January. Elections in the upper house will begin in late January and run through mid-March. For the lower house, about two-thirds of the seats (332) are filled via proportional representation (4-10 seats per district, 46 districts), while about a third (166) are elected directly in a first-past-the-post system (two per district, 83 districts). A handful (10) are to be appointed by the military council. I'm not sure exactly what the different rounds are for. Reading some of the articles, it looks like it might be that a third of the provinces vote in each round, I guess to make elections more manageable (can someone confirm this? It's not really clear who's voting when).

There are 270 seats in the upper house, with 180 being elected in early 2012 in a manner similar to the lower house. The remaining 90 are to be appointed by the new President after he's elected in mid 2012.

Can you imagine if we voted like this in the U.S.? People would have no clue what was going on. It actually looks like a much better system, at least how the candidates are elected. You preserve the regional representation, but eliminate some of the problems with a FPTP voting system. Even the candidates who are elected via FPTP have to have runoffs if they don't get 50% of the vote, which is a lot better than what we're doing in the States in a lot of our elections. Each candidate in the lower house represents (on average) about 160,000 Egyptians, compared to about 700,000 people per congressman in the U.S. house of representatives. In the upper house there are about 450,000 people per elected representative (discounting the 90 appointed by the president), compared to over 3 million per senator in the U.S. (the people-per-senator also varies widely depending on the state in the U.S., while it sounds like in Egypt the distribution will be significantly more even).

The parties all have to adopt a visual symbol, so that illiterate voters know which party they're voting for. That's an awesome idea. There's also some weird rules about a certain proportion of candidates having to come from working and farming backgrounds and a certain proportion from professional backgrounds. I'm not sure exactly how all that works out.

Turnout for the first round of elections was something like 60%, which is considered quite high.

No matter what the results are, it still remains unclear how much power the parliament is really going to have. The military council hasn't seemed too keen on relinquishing all of their power. There's still the tricky business of drawing up a new Constitution, which I believe is to occur before the Presidential elections.

It's an exciting time for the Egyptians, but it's also a bit of an uncertain turning point - there's a lot of questions about the future.. If you're religious, I ask that you pray for a successful implementation of Democracy in Egypt.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/201112320622436522.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_parliamentary_election,_2011%E2%80%932012