Today in Egypt the interim Minister for Information Dorreya Sharaf El-Din made a short televised statement in which she announced that the Interior Ministry had been authorised by the government of national unity to end the Muslim Brotherhood's protest camps at both the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city Cairo and at Al-Nahda Square in New Cairo city, Cairo. Describing the situation at the protest camps as dangerous and continuing Sharaf El-Din went on to cite the terrorism and traffic congestion associated with the camps as reasons why the protest camps simply could not be allowed to continue giving the current threat to Egypt's national security.
I couldn't agree more with the assessment that the Brotherhood's camps represent a threat to Egypt's national security because the protest marches that resulted in the deaths of 36 people on the night of July 5-6th (5-6/7/13), the protest march that led to the deaths of 42 people outside Cairo's Republican Guard HQ on July 8th (8/7/13), the protest march that led to the deaths of 7 people on July 15th (15/7/13) and the protest march that lead to the deaths of 80 people on July 27th (27/7/13) all originated from the Muslim Brotherhood's Rabea al-Adweya protest camp. Added to that the Brotherhood have been attempting to enforce their own style of Sharia influenced street justice in the camps and the surrounding streets. As result in the last four days 12 bodies have been found close to the camp apparently tortured to death and there have been multiple complaints - both official and unofficial - from local residents of people being kidnapped and tortured by Muslim Brotherhood members who have been cutting off fingers and hands of people suspected of minor crimes such as petty theft. Finally the protest camps have created a culture of insecurity that has forced governments around the world to issue instructions advising their citizens to avoid travelling to Egypt. This has obviously had a devastating effect of Egypt's vital tourism industry with there said to be a 55% drop in visitor numbers at Cairo airport alone.
Most importantly though the Brotherhood's protest camps have been delaying the nations transition back to the democracy that so many have fought so hard to achieve. For example I should be sitting here talking about reforms need to be made to the constitution or how the economy needs to be modernised but instead I and everybody else keep being forced back into talking about the latest round of violence and killing triggered by the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore it is clear that the time has come for the Brotherhood's protests to end. The only question is how to go about it?
Obviously I would much prefer that the Brotherhood voluntarily ended their protests and joined in with the political process. However it is quite clear that it not going to happen in turn forcing the military to act. I think it is obvious that the military should wait until after Eid al-Fitr before breaking up the protest camps. Then rather then simply trying to eradicate the camps by arresting all those attending the military should first set up an alternative, less disruptive site for the protests to continue. As I've said before I don't have the local knowledge of Cairo to designate an alternative site but from a quick look at maps and aeriel photographs Cairo's International Stadium and the Paradise Gardens both seem obvious locations. That is because they allow the Brotherhood to continue to protest if they so wish but they also allow the military to easily contain those protests in order to make sure that they don't spill out to affect local residents and into protest marches that lead to more violent confrontations with the military. I appreciate though that both the International Stadium and the Paradise Gardens are important public areas in Cairo that no-one wants to see damaged or disrupted by lenghty protests. Therefore as alternative locations the area of apparent wasteland bordered El-Nasr Road, Youssef Abbas and Dr Abd El-Aziz El-Shennawy close to the Al-Ahazr university or the vast stretches of waste land to the south of Nasr city close to the Muslim Brotherhood's HQ seem viable alternatives although the military will need to erect fencing and barricades in order to contain the protest site.
Once an alternative protest site has been nominated and prepared the Brotherhood protesters should then be given a deadline of a week or so to voluntarily move to the new site. If they refuse the military should then blockade the Rabea a-Adaweya and Al-Nahda Square protests preventing new people from entering but allowing people to leave. They then have the option of escalating to stopping supplies of food, water and electricity entering the site. Finally if the Brotherhood supporters still fail to transfer to the new protest site the military will have to move in slowly and gently breaking the crowd up into smaller sections. The protesters in the targeted section will obviously be arrested if they engage in violence but if they don't should be placed onto buses and transported by the military to the new protest site. From there they will be able to either continuing protesting peacefully or return home.
20:55 on 31/7/13.
Wednesday 31 July 2013
Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 4, Day 3.
It's now been independently verified that Rihanna has returned to her home in Los Angeles. There is also some speculation that she will soon move onto her native Barbados. I don't have any problem with that at all provided that any change in location is declared and verified. That is because while it is quite easy for people with the technical know how to track Rihanna's movements the operation in Mali involves co-ordinating a vast number of people from multiple nations many of whom can't even read.
Although Rihanna is currently in the US she has today had some good news from the UK with a High Court Judge upholding her complaint against the High Street retail chain "Topshop" over their sale of T-shirts bearing her image. Although I've yet to read the judgement I understand that the Court ruled that the rights to the image were owned by the photographer who lawfully sold them to Topshop. However Topshop's decision to sell the T-shirts bearing the images as "Rihanna Tank-Tops" violated Rihanna's protected brand name making the product an unlawful attempt to pass the product off as one endorsed by Rihanna. As Topshop immediately stopped using the phrase "Rihanna Tank-Tops" after being told to cease and desist this ruling against Topshop seems a little harsh. It also seems like an attempt to drive a wedge between Rihanna and Topshop and force her deeper into the clutches of that problematic other high street retail chain "River Island."
What I'm finding amusing is that the Rihanna ruling comes on a very busy day for the UK's High Court. Also this morning a law firm has been ordered to make a large donation to a soldiers charity after breaching the privacy of "Harry Potter" author J.K Rowling by revealing she had written a crime novel under a pen name. This along with the Rihanna verdict seems like the UK trying to nudge me towards using Rihanna's London law firm for this criminal damage matter. I'm not even aware of who the law firm in question is but I suspect they specialise in corporate and contract law rather then the range of criminal defence and medical malpractice issues I require. Also with Rihanna's business with the firm now complete there's no incentive for me to use them especially as I am highly suspicious of anyone associated with Rihanna's management. The announcement by the Parliamentary Home Affairs select committee that I believe 22 law firms are among those implicated in a phone hacking scandal also seems to be a suggestion that I consider contacting the law firms involved in the News of the World/News International phone hacking scandal.
I though am still not convinced that I require legal representation. Today's ruling by the High Court over the right to die cases underline that it is still most certainly unlawful for a doctor to deliberately kill a patient and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have been instructed to review the guidelines for prosecution. As in my case there is less then 1% chance of conviction I'm confused as to why the matter would proceed to trial.
12:00 on 31/7/13.
Although Rihanna is currently in the US she has today had some good news from the UK with a High Court Judge upholding her complaint against the High Street retail chain "Topshop" over their sale of T-shirts bearing her image. Although I've yet to read the judgement I understand that the Court ruled that the rights to the image were owned by the photographer who lawfully sold them to Topshop. However Topshop's decision to sell the T-shirts bearing the images as "Rihanna Tank-Tops" violated Rihanna's protected brand name making the product an unlawful attempt to pass the product off as one endorsed by Rihanna. As Topshop immediately stopped using the phrase "Rihanna Tank-Tops" after being told to cease and desist this ruling against Topshop seems a little harsh. It also seems like an attempt to drive a wedge between Rihanna and Topshop and force her deeper into the clutches of that problematic other high street retail chain "River Island."
What I'm finding amusing is that the Rihanna ruling comes on a very busy day for the UK's High Court. Also this morning a law firm has been ordered to make a large donation to a soldiers charity after breaching the privacy of "Harry Potter" author J.K Rowling by revealing she had written a crime novel under a pen name. This along with the Rihanna verdict seems like the UK trying to nudge me towards using Rihanna's London law firm for this criminal damage matter. I'm not even aware of who the law firm in question is but I suspect they specialise in corporate and contract law rather then the range of criminal defence and medical malpractice issues I require. Also with Rihanna's business with the firm now complete there's no incentive for me to use them especially as I am highly suspicious of anyone associated with Rihanna's management. The announcement by the Parliamentary Home Affairs select committee that I believe 22 law firms are among those implicated in a phone hacking scandal also seems to be a suggestion that I consider contacting the law firms involved in the News of the World/News International phone hacking scandal.
I though am still not convinced that I require legal representation. Today's ruling by the High Court over the right to die cases underline that it is still most certainly unlawful for a doctor to deliberately kill a patient and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have been instructed to review the guidelines for prosecution. As in my case there is less then 1% chance of conviction I'm confused as to why the matter would proceed to trial.
12:00 on 31/7/13.
Tuesday 30 July 2013
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 1, Day 5.
With the funerals taking place on Sunday (28/7/13) Egypt is largely trying to find a way forward after clashes on Friday/Saturday (26-27/7/13) between the Muslim Brotherhood and most everybody else left 80 dead. The situation has been made much worse by western interference.
On Saturday (27/7/13) the US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a written statement in which he described the events of the previous night to be a pivotal moment for Egypt and urged leaders from across the political spectrum to help the nation step back from the brink. Specifically citing the military's "moral and legal obligation" to respect the right of peaceful protest this was a not particularly coded threat to prevent the Egyptian military from bringing an end to the Muslim Brotherhood's protests. Today the French Foreign Ministry called for Mohamed Morsi's immediate release while the European Unions (EU) spokesperson for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton visited Morsi in prison, met with Muslim Brotherhood leaders and called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process. Rather than being driven by any genuine understanding of the reality of the situation in Egypt these comments all stem from the fact that after the January 25th revolution the US and the EU members states promised the Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar that they would deliver a Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in return for gas and oil. Now the Egyptian people have rejected that government the US and the EU are trying their damnedest to reimpose the Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptian people. This is particularly dangerous because it helps fuel the Brotherhood's delusions of legitimacy. For example less then 24 hours after roughly 1/3rd of the entire Egyptian population took to the streets in support of the military the vice-President of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom & Justice Party Essam al-Erain gave a public address directed at the leader of the military Abdel Fattah El-Sisi claiming that "the Egyptian people have rejected the military coup." In my experience it is impossible to negotiate with people who are that utterly detached from reality.
One area where this western interference has already had a damaging impact on Egypt is the detention of Mohamed Morsi. Clearly acting in response to western complaints about arbitrary detention on Friday (26/7/13) it was announced that Morsi is to face charges including murder over his escape from the Wadi al-Natrun prison in 2011. This could have a destabilising effect on Egypt as a whole because providing you don't look too closely the allegation portrays Morsi as an ally of Hamas and by extension the current Egyptian government as an enemy of Hamas. This is could prove highly inflammatory particularly in terms of the current operation in the Sinai even though in the intervening years it seems clear Hamas' allegiances have shifted. It is also particularly damaging for Morsi personally because the general consensus is that he is guilty of the offence it was just overlooked in the spirit of goodwill that followed the downfall of Mubarak. With Egyptian Courts now being forced to revisit the issue it is highly likely that Morsi will now be convicted and spend the rest of this life in prison. This is also bad for Egypt as a whole because if Morsi was being held merely to prevent him inciting violence his detention could have been used as a way to negotiate the end of the Muslim Brotherhood's protests because once that threat of violence had passed Morsi could have been released.
Away from UK Baroness Ashton's meddling the Egypt's interim government have put forward some sensible suggestions of their own to help bring about the peace and stability needed to allow for a democratic transition. The most controversial of these has been the announcement that the Interior Ministry will resume it's work monitoring extremist political and religious groups. This is controversial because under Mubarak this department was extensively misused in order to suppress all forms of political dissent. However I actually feel that the Interior Ministry has been failing in its duty to the people by not carrying out this work. That's because even in the most democratic nations such as the US there are government departments dedicated to monitoring violent extremists with both religious or political ideologies. So provided the Interior Ministry limits its work to those groups who pose a real risk of violence rather than groups with an ideology the government simply disapproves of I consider this part of Egypt's move towards democracy.
The Interior Ministry has also announced that it will be reviewing the employment of police officers who are also members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Again this strikes me as very sensible because under Morsi there was a concerted effort by the Brotherhood to pack the apparatus of state such as local governorships and the police force with its members. Now with the Brotherhood trying to portray themselves as the victims of a violent coup it is entirely possible that its members within the police and security forces will deliberately attack demonstrators in order to damage the reputation of the government. Finally it has been announced that visitors to Egypt from Yemen will have to obtain visas and security clearance before attempt to travel. Again this strikes me as a sensible temporary precaution. Yemen has a particular problem with a terrorist insurgency and there is a general feeling that Yemen's militants are controlled by Saudi Arabia. Therefore if Saudi Arabia were to attempt to destabilise Egypt one of the main ways they would go about it is by exporting militants from Yemen to Egypt.
Some people have suggested that these new security measure mark a return to Mubarak and his state of emergency laws. However I think that there is a legitimate need to extra, temporary security measures because at present Egypt is pretty much in a state of emergency. In the Sinai alone on Sunday a police officer was wounded in a gun attack on a police station in Arish, a Coptic Christian was kidnapped simply for being a Christian, an RPG attack on local government building injured three and a bomb exploded at Arish's 3rd police station resulting in no injuries. There is also evidence that the violence is spreading beyond the Sinai with 29 being injured in clashes between Brotherhood supporters and local residents in Port Said on Sunday following Brotherhood attacks on a Church, police vehicles and private cars and shops. Also on Sunday in Giza Brotherhood supporters threatened to destroy all of Egypt's power stations unless Morsi was reinstated before they were attacked by local residents. On Monday in Ismailia 18 were injured after the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to march from their protest camp at the Saleheen Mosque to the local security department building only to be attacked by local residents while a bomb was reportedly detonated in an Ismailia district close to the Suez Canal.
Further demonstrating that far from being peaceful protests the Muslim Brotherhood camps are actually centres for serious and violent criminal activity on Saturday the unidentified body of a man was discovered Sunday close to the Brotherhood's protest camp at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city. He had been tortured to death. On Monday a further 11 bodies were discovered all showing similar signs of torture. This is on top to the 10 formal complaints by local residents that had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the Rabea al-Adaweya protest.
The interim President has also announced that the interim Prime Minister has been given the authority to give the military permission to arrest people. Rather then being an attempt to instate a military dictatorship this strikes me as an attempt to move forward with the law and order policy I proposed here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_6.html
Being my idea I obviously fully support this idea. However the need for the military to be able to take action to keep the peace should be obvious following the events on Mosky Street in Cairo on Monday. Here an argument between street vendors and a local shop keeper got out of hand leading to the shop keeper shooting and killing two of the street vendors. Their friends and relatives responded by petrol bombing the shop causing around 13 people to be burned to death. If the military had been able to break this argument up at an early stage by arresting and cautioning those involved for the common law offence of affray this type of incident could have been avoided and people across Egypt would be forced to find more civil ways to resolve their disputes.
21:00 on 30/7/13.
On Saturday (27/7/13) the US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a written statement in which he described the events of the previous night to be a pivotal moment for Egypt and urged leaders from across the political spectrum to help the nation step back from the brink. Specifically citing the military's "moral and legal obligation" to respect the right of peaceful protest this was a not particularly coded threat to prevent the Egyptian military from bringing an end to the Muslim Brotherhood's protests. Today the French Foreign Ministry called for Mohamed Morsi's immediate release while the European Unions (EU) spokesperson for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton visited Morsi in prison, met with Muslim Brotherhood leaders and called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process. Rather than being driven by any genuine understanding of the reality of the situation in Egypt these comments all stem from the fact that after the January 25th revolution the US and the EU members states promised the Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar that they would deliver a Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in return for gas and oil. Now the Egyptian people have rejected that government the US and the EU are trying their damnedest to reimpose the Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptian people. This is particularly dangerous because it helps fuel the Brotherhood's delusions of legitimacy. For example less then 24 hours after roughly 1/3rd of the entire Egyptian population took to the streets in support of the military the vice-President of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom & Justice Party Essam al-Erain gave a public address directed at the leader of the military Abdel Fattah El-Sisi claiming that "the Egyptian people have rejected the military coup." In my experience it is impossible to negotiate with people who are that utterly detached from reality.
One area where this western interference has already had a damaging impact on Egypt is the detention of Mohamed Morsi. Clearly acting in response to western complaints about arbitrary detention on Friday (26/7/13) it was announced that Morsi is to face charges including murder over his escape from the Wadi al-Natrun prison in 2011. This could have a destabilising effect on Egypt as a whole because providing you don't look too closely the allegation portrays Morsi as an ally of Hamas and by extension the current Egyptian government as an enemy of Hamas. This is could prove highly inflammatory particularly in terms of the current operation in the Sinai even though in the intervening years it seems clear Hamas' allegiances have shifted. It is also particularly damaging for Morsi personally because the general consensus is that he is guilty of the offence it was just overlooked in the spirit of goodwill that followed the downfall of Mubarak. With Egyptian Courts now being forced to revisit the issue it is highly likely that Morsi will now be convicted and spend the rest of this life in prison. This is also bad for Egypt as a whole because if Morsi was being held merely to prevent him inciting violence his detention could have been used as a way to negotiate the end of the Muslim Brotherhood's protests because once that threat of violence had passed Morsi could have been released.
Away from UK Baroness Ashton's meddling the Egypt's interim government have put forward some sensible suggestions of their own to help bring about the peace and stability needed to allow for a democratic transition. The most controversial of these has been the announcement that the Interior Ministry will resume it's work monitoring extremist political and religious groups. This is controversial because under Mubarak this department was extensively misused in order to suppress all forms of political dissent. However I actually feel that the Interior Ministry has been failing in its duty to the people by not carrying out this work. That's because even in the most democratic nations such as the US there are government departments dedicated to monitoring violent extremists with both religious or political ideologies. So provided the Interior Ministry limits its work to those groups who pose a real risk of violence rather than groups with an ideology the government simply disapproves of I consider this part of Egypt's move towards democracy.
The Interior Ministry has also announced that it will be reviewing the employment of police officers who are also members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Again this strikes me as very sensible because under Morsi there was a concerted effort by the Brotherhood to pack the apparatus of state such as local governorships and the police force with its members. Now with the Brotherhood trying to portray themselves as the victims of a violent coup it is entirely possible that its members within the police and security forces will deliberately attack demonstrators in order to damage the reputation of the government. Finally it has been announced that visitors to Egypt from Yemen will have to obtain visas and security clearance before attempt to travel. Again this strikes me as a sensible temporary precaution. Yemen has a particular problem with a terrorist insurgency and there is a general feeling that Yemen's militants are controlled by Saudi Arabia. Therefore if Saudi Arabia were to attempt to destabilise Egypt one of the main ways they would go about it is by exporting militants from Yemen to Egypt.
Some people have suggested that these new security measure mark a return to Mubarak and his state of emergency laws. However I think that there is a legitimate need to extra, temporary security measures because at present Egypt is pretty much in a state of emergency. In the Sinai alone on Sunday a police officer was wounded in a gun attack on a police station in Arish, a Coptic Christian was kidnapped simply for being a Christian, an RPG attack on local government building injured three and a bomb exploded at Arish's 3rd police station resulting in no injuries. There is also evidence that the violence is spreading beyond the Sinai with 29 being injured in clashes between Brotherhood supporters and local residents in Port Said on Sunday following Brotherhood attacks on a Church, police vehicles and private cars and shops. Also on Sunday in Giza Brotherhood supporters threatened to destroy all of Egypt's power stations unless Morsi was reinstated before they were attacked by local residents. On Monday in Ismailia 18 were injured after the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to march from their protest camp at the Saleheen Mosque to the local security department building only to be attacked by local residents while a bomb was reportedly detonated in an Ismailia district close to the Suez Canal.
Further demonstrating that far from being peaceful protests the Muslim Brotherhood camps are actually centres for serious and violent criminal activity on Saturday the unidentified body of a man was discovered Sunday close to the Brotherhood's protest camp at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city. He had been tortured to death. On Monday a further 11 bodies were discovered all showing similar signs of torture. This is on top to the 10 formal complaints by local residents that had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the Rabea al-Adaweya protest.
The interim President has also announced that the interim Prime Minister has been given the authority to give the military permission to arrest people. Rather then being an attempt to instate a military dictatorship this strikes me as an attempt to move forward with the law and order policy I proposed here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_6.html
Being my idea I obviously fully support this idea. However the need for the military to be able to take action to keep the peace should be obvious following the events on Mosky Street in Cairo on Monday. Here an argument between street vendors and a local shop keeper got out of hand leading to the shop keeper shooting and killing two of the street vendors. Their friends and relatives responded by petrol bombing the shop causing around 13 people to be burned to death. If the military had been able to break this argument up at an early stage by arresting and cautioning those involved for the common law offence of affray this type of incident could have been avoided and people across Egypt would be forced to find more civil ways to resolve their disputes.
21:00 on 30/7/13.
Tuesday Night. Pub. Back From.
It's Tuesday night and I'm back from the pub. The whole thing was so mellow and uneventful I've pretty much already forgotten I was there. The only thing of note is because they'd run out of beefburgers I tried one of their new on the menu hot-dogs. They've gone with boiled I prefer grilled.
Annoyingly I really do need to catch up on Egypt so have largely been ignoring the news of the day. It seems like a safe thing to do because the big story is that the US has announced that Israel and Fatah will be resuming peace talks. As I mentioned at the time the Washington meeting was agreed this is just the US trying to exert pressure on both parties in order to find out what is going on in a region where the US hasn't really been relevant since the so-called 'Arab Spring.' Rather proving while they're always broke in exchange for all this pressure from the US Fatah have accepted the release of 104 prisoners. Israel are more relaxed because they've sent Zippy, George and Bungle.
The main way that the US has attempted to exert pressure on Fatah and Israel is through the announcement of the verdict of Bradley Manning over the information he passed to Wikileaks. This is a story that can be interpreted in a number of ways. For example many people have suggested that the US diplomatic cables that Manning leaked played a significant role in triggering the 'Arab Spring' although along with Rihanna I think Wikileaks role has been significantly overstated. Then there is also the theory that while Manning and Wikileaks weren't aware of it US intelligence planned and allowed the leak to take place in order to build up Wikileaks anti-US credentials. The idea being that by portraying Wikileaks as anti-US the US' enemies would trust Wikileaks and provide it with lots sensitive information about their nations. This theory holds rather more credibility because the US' recent wave of prosecutions against banks such as Barclays, Standard & Chartered and HSBC were certainly aided by information leaked to Wikileaks.
Also some people have tried using Manning as a metaphor for me but this is weak at best. However the fact that Manning has not been convicted of the charge of aiding the enemy could certainly be interpreted as the US announcing that even it won't be supporting Croydon's claim that it's criminal activity towards me was done in order to prevent terrorism.
19:15 on 30/7/13.
Annoyingly I really do need to catch up on Egypt so have largely been ignoring the news of the day. It seems like a safe thing to do because the big story is that the US has announced that Israel and Fatah will be resuming peace talks. As I mentioned at the time the Washington meeting was agreed this is just the US trying to exert pressure on both parties in order to find out what is going on in a region where the US hasn't really been relevant since the so-called 'Arab Spring.' Rather proving while they're always broke in exchange for all this pressure from the US Fatah have accepted the release of 104 prisoners. Israel are more relaxed because they've sent Zippy, George and Bungle.
The main way that the US has attempted to exert pressure on Fatah and Israel is through the announcement of the verdict of Bradley Manning over the information he passed to Wikileaks. This is a story that can be interpreted in a number of ways. For example many people have suggested that the US diplomatic cables that Manning leaked played a significant role in triggering the 'Arab Spring' although along with Rihanna I think Wikileaks role has been significantly overstated. Then there is also the theory that while Manning and Wikileaks weren't aware of it US intelligence planned and allowed the leak to take place in order to build up Wikileaks anti-US credentials. The idea being that by portraying Wikileaks as anti-US the US' enemies would trust Wikileaks and provide it with lots sensitive information about their nations. This theory holds rather more credibility because the US' recent wave of prosecutions against banks such as Barclays, Standard & Chartered and HSBC were certainly aided by information leaked to Wikileaks.
Also some people have tried using Manning as a metaphor for me but this is weak at best. However the fact that Manning has not been convicted of the charge of aiding the enemy could certainly be interpreted as the US announcing that even it won't be supporting Croydon's claim that it's criminal activity towards me was done in order to prevent terrorism.
19:15 on 30/7/13.
Monday 29 July 2013
Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 4, Day 1.
Right let's try this again.
On Sunday (28/7/13) Rihanna performed the final concert of the European leg of her Diamonds World Tour in Helsinki, Finland. Provided no new dates are added the tour will resume in Macau, China on September 13th (13/9/13). Before that though there is a six week tour break in which Rihanna is more or less free to make up her own schedule.
The original plan was that Rihanna and her core tour party would spend this time holidaying on a yacht on the French Rivera. Obviously during that time she would be joined by friends and family and before the European leg of the tour began there was a lot of speculation that Rihanna would be joined by Chris Brown. There were even rumours that they would be getting married. The choice of location was meant to make the French - who are the key players in the Mali operation - feel they were being given special access to observe Rihanna during this period. In reality though it would be the UK who be granted the main access to the behind the scenes goings on through Cara Delivinge who was expected to join Rihanna for the duration of the holiday. The UK would then use this information to put pressure on Australia ahead of their general election and Rihanna's series of concerts there and in neighbouring New Zealand in September/October. For example Rihanna will be travelling into Australia from the Philippines mimicking the well established route of boat people immigrants who are a major issue within Australian politics. The problem is though that since this plan was drawn up several important things have changed.
The first of these is that the plan for the European leg of the tour simply didn't happen. The original idea was that the disruption caused by the North American leg of the tour would leave everybody in Europe so frustrated at Rihanna they would attempt to lash out against her in revenge. In order to do this they would have to rely on detailed information about her personality and routines. They would have to obtain this information from the UK putting the UK in a strong and central role within the European Union (EU). As things turned out though very few people had any desire to lash out at Rihanna so there was no great conversation between the UK and the EU, Rihanna didn't run into any problems or border crossings/customs posts and by all accounts Rihanna's core tour party irritated and annoyed the other guests at hotels they were staying in rather than it being the other way around. Of course the Americans did try and put a few things on to get the political aspect moving but these were small, simple and failed to gain any real traction. For example Rihanna's trip to Turkey which should have been all about Islamic attitudes to forced marriage, honour killing and Rihanna's claimed role in the 'Arab Spring' was totally drowned out by the Gezi Park/Taksim Square protests. At a festival in Denmark Rihanna appeared on stage wearing something resembling traditional male Arab dress in an effort to promote discussion about the Danish youth's attitudes towards Islam with particular reference to Islamic modesty standards - the wearing of the veil has always been a big issue in norther European nations. In Poland Rihanna tried to spend the day at a public beach and was mobbed by fans in order to promote discussion about former Soviet states near worship of western icons such as the EU. On stage in Norway Rihanna wore an outfit emblazoned with the word "Pussy." This was supposed to be interpreted as Rihanna insulting either me or Chris Brown for not attempting to join her during her tour. I can't speak for Chris Brown but I remain more than happy to get involved. The problem is that Rihanna doesn't seem to want be involved which is a pity.
The second major change was that the governing Australian Labor Party dropped Julia Gillard as their leader. Gillard is/was deeply unpopular amongst average Australian voters meaning that the Labor Party headed by her was facing certain defeat at the upcoming election. The Australian opposition Conservative Party is much more in favour of close ties with the UK with whom it shares a Monarch. Therefore the Conservatives desire to rely on information from the UK in order to harass Rihanna during her visit would be a good way for the UK to test out the Conservative Party and any potential coalition partners committement to remaining part of the UK Commonwealth. With a Labor Party under the leadership of Kevin Rudd the Australian election now seems like being a much closer affair. With the Labor Party unlikely to have any desire to rely on UK information a rabid desire by the Conservatives to lash out at Rihanna could well become a turn off amongst voters and potential coalition partners meaning the Labour Party rather than the Conservative Party end up heading Australia's next government.
The third major change is that Rihanna's tour has not been going well. Although no-one at a governmental level has been making life difficult for her the European leg of the tour has been marked by late appearances and somewhat weak performances which have left fans frustrated. The majority of this frustration has been vented only on the Internet however there were plans for Rihanna fans to sarcastically throw fake USD bills at her during her concerts and at a concert in Manchester, UK on July 16th (16/7/13) Rihanna had crisps and other food stuffs thrown at her by fans frustrated at her late arrival. On July 24th (24/7/13) Rihanna burst into tears on stage during her concert in Lille, France. For discretion's sake I didn't comment on this at the time but seems to be a sign of emotional exhaustion that will be solved by simply allowing Rihanna to de-stress. However this sort of thing is one of the warning signs of impending serious psychological problems such as a nervous breakdown. As such the incident caused major ripples amongst the international diplomatic community which were mainly played out through a series of faults with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Even Qatar who are not famed for respecting human rights and are supposedly having all this violence against Rihanna carried out in their name grounded a 787 for a week to carry out an investigation. However they did conclude that it was only a small, temporary problem and gave permission for the plane to fly again. With there being a general consensus that Rihanna played no role in the 'Arab Spring' and Egypt getting rid of Mohamed Morsi it is now widely viewed that continuing with the campaign against Rihanna would be a public relations disaster for any nation involved.
So as a result the US cancelled Rihanna's yachting holiday by getting the Judge in her case against Berdon LLP to fine her around USD50,000 and ordering her to attend a deposition hearing in the US in mid-August under threat of the case being dismissed entirely putting Rihanna at risk of criminal prosecution for tax evasion. While I've yet to have it confirmed I understand that Rihanna is either currently on route to or has already arrived at her home in Los Angeles, US. With Chris Brown still not having been served with a restraining order preventing him from contacting Rihanna I think the US' intention is to use the speculation about whether the two will meet up to concentrate on putting pressure on the African nations involved in the Mali operation with South Africa being a particular target. What I find amusing is that the US has been trying to convince the UK that it's cancelled Rihanna's holiday as punishment for the UK not doing enough to harass me through this criminal damage case. Sunday's jewellery theft on the French Rivera is obviously a reference to the change of plans. However looking at it closely it seems to be an Israeli millionaire acting privately to bonk the French on the nose for being so greedy.
Personally I just hope that over the coming six weeks Rihanna and her core tour party get plenty of time to rest and relax in LA. I believe Chris Brown is still in Switzerland and I hope he stays there because I for one feel much happier when there is at least an ocean between the two.
17:15 on 29/7/13.
On Sunday (28/7/13) Rihanna performed the final concert of the European leg of her Diamonds World Tour in Helsinki, Finland. Provided no new dates are added the tour will resume in Macau, China on September 13th (13/9/13). Before that though there is a six week tour break in which Rihanna is more or less free to make up her own schedule.
The original plan was that Rihanna and her core tour party would spend this time holidaying on a yacht on the French Rivera. Obviously during that time she would be joined by friends and family and before the European leg of the tour began there was a lot of speculation that Rihanna would be joined by Chris Brown. There were even rumours that they would be getting married. The choice of location was meant to make the French - who are the key players in the Mali operation - feel they were being given special access to observe Rihanna during this period. In reality though it would be the UK who be granted the main access to the behind the scenes goings on through Cara Delivinge who was expected to join Rihanna for the duration of the holiday. The UK would then use this information to put pressure on Australia ahead of their general election and Rihanna's series of concerts there and in neighbouring New Zealand in September/October. For example Rihanna will be travelling into Australia from the Philippines mimicking the well established route of boat people immigrants who are a major issue within Australian politics. The problem is though that since this plan was drawn up several important things have changed.
The first of these is that the plan for the European leg of the tour simply didn't happen. The original idea was that the disruption caused by the North American leg of the tour would leave everybody in Europe so frustrated at Rihanna they would attempt to lash out against her in revenge. In order to do this they would have to rely on detailed information about her personality and routines. They would have to obtain this information from the UK putting the UK in a strong and central role within the European Union (EU). As things turned out though very few people had any desire to lash out at Rihanna so there was no great conversation between the UK and the EU, Rihanna didn't run into any problems or border crossings/customs posts and by all accounts Rihanna's core tour party irritated and annoyed the other guests at hotels they were staying in rather than it being the other way around. Of course the Americans did try and put a few things on to get the political aspect moving but these were small, simple and failed to gain any real traction. For example Rihanna's trip to Turkey which should have been all about Islamic attitudes to forced marriage, honour killing and Rihanna's claimed role in the 'Arab Spring' was totally drowned out by the Gezi Park/Taksim Square protests. At a festival in Denmark Rihanna appeared on stage wearing something resembling traditional male Arab dress in an effort to promote discussion about the Danish youth's attitudes towards Islam with particular reference to Islamic modesty standards - the wearing of the veil has always been a big issue in norther European nations. In Poland Rihanna tried to spend the day at a public beach and was mobbed by fans in order to promote discussion about former Soviet states near worship of western icons such as the EU. On stage in Norway Rihanna wore an outfit emblazoned with the word "Pussy." This was supposed to be interpreted as Rihanna insulting either me or Chris Brown for not attempting to join her during her tour. I can't speak for Chris Brown but I remain more than happy to get involved. The problem is that Rihanna doesn't seem to want be involved which is a pity.
The second major change was that the governing Australian Labor Party dropped Julia Gillard as their leader. Gillard is/was deeply unpopular amongst average Australian voters meaning that the Labor Party headed by her was facing certain defeat at the upcoming election. The Australian opposition Conservative Party is much more in favour of close ties with the UK with whom it shares a Monarch. Therefore the Conservatives desire to rely on information from the UK in order to harass Rihanna during her visit would be a good way for the UK to test out the Conservative Party and any potential coalition partners committement to remaining part of the UK Commonwealth. With a Labor Party under the leadership of Kevin Rudd the Australian election now seems like being a much closer affair. With the Labor Party unlikely to have any desire to rely on UK information a rabid desire by the Conservatives to lash out at Rihanna could well become a turn off amongst voters and potential coalition partners meaning the Labour Party rather than the Conservative Party end up heading Australia's next government.
The third major change is that Rihanna's tour has not been going well. Although no-one at a governmental level has been making life difficult for her the European leg of the tour has been marked by late appearances and somewhat weak performances which have left fans frustrated. The majority of this frustration has been vented only on the Internet however there were plans for Rihanna fans to sarcastically throw fake USD bills at her during her concerts and at a concert in Manchester, UK on July 16th (16/7/13) Rihanna had crisps and other food stuffs thrown at her by fans frustrated at her late arrival. On July 24th (24/7/13) Rihanna burst into tears on stage during her concert in Lille, France. For discretion's sake I didn't comment on this at the time but seems to be a sign of emotional exhaustion that will be solved by simply allowing Rihanna to de-stress. However this sort of thing is one of the warning signs of impending serious psychological problems such as a nervous breakdown. As such the incident caused major ripples amongst the international diplomatic community which were mainly played out through a series of faults with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Even Qatar who are not famed for respecting human rights and are supposedly having all this violence against Rihanna carried out in their name grounded a 787 for a week to carry out an investigation. However they did conclude that it was only a small, temporary problem and gave permission for the plane to fly again. With there being a general consensus that Rihanna played no role in the 'Arab Spring' and Egypt getting rid of Mohamed Morsi it is now widely viewed that continuing with the campaign against Rihanna would be a public relations disaster for any nation involved.
So as a result the US cancelled Rihanna's yachting holiday by getting the Judge in her case against Berdon LLP to fine her around USD50,000 and ordering her to attend a deposition hearing in the US in mid-August under threat of the case being dismissed entirely putting Rihanna at risk of criminal prosecution for tax evasion. While I've yet to have it confirmed I understand that Rihanna is either currently on route to or has already arrived at her home in Los Angeles, US. With Chris Brown still not having been served with a restraining order preventing him from contacting Rihanna I think the US' intention is to use the speculation about whether the two will meet up to concentrate on putting pressure on the African nations involved in the Mali operation with South Africa being a particular target. What I find amusing is that the US has been trying to convince the UK that it's cancelled Rihanna's holiday as punishment for the UK not doing enough to harass me through this criminal damage case. Sunday's jewellery theft on the French Rivera is obviously a reference to the change of plans. However looking at it closely it seems to be an Israeli millionaire acting privately to bonk the French on the nose for being so greedy.
Personally I just hope that over the coming six weeks Rihanna and her core tour party get plenty of time to rest and relax in LA. I believe Chris Brown is still in Switzerland and I hope he stays there because I for one feel much happier when there is at least an ocean between the two.
17:15 on 29/7/13.
Sunday 28 July 2013
Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 3, Day 7.
Although I've yet to watch the videos that will allow me to review the performance as far as I can tell on Sunday (28/7/13) Rihanna performed in Helsinki, Finland marking the end of the European leg of her Diamonds World Tour. I believe her next scheduled concert is not until September 13th (13/9/13) when she will take to the stage in Macau, China. Until then though we have a six and a half week break in which anything could happen.
Of course the original plan was that Rihanna would spend most of these six weeks chilling out on a yacht off the French Riviera where she would obviously be joined by her core tour party. Added to this tour party there would obviously be the British model Cara Delevinge and desperate rumours that Chris Brown could fly in at any moment. I believe at one point a wedding had even been suggested. The intention being that amid all the stress that Chris Brown causes Delevinge would be able to report back to the UK Rihanna's deepest thoughts and fears. Having welcomed in a new Conservative government Australia would then be relied upon to request this detailed information from it's homeland in order to best harass Rihanna during her September/October residency. Unfortunately though in the interim quite a lot of stuff happened not least of which the Australian Labor Party dumped Julia Gillard as leader giving them a reasonable chance of being that largest party after the election. As the Labor Party is already declared as marginally anti-Monarchist and it is unlikely any smaller parties will risk their place in a coalition over an argument about Rihanna this plan looks largely sunk. Then there was some stuff about parts A&B of the plan failing leaving part C non-actionable
As a result what Rihanna and her core tour party chose to do between now and September is anyone's guess. However I gather that the US Judge in the Berdon LLP case is insisting that Rihanna returns to New York, New York on or around mid-August. I strongly suggest she takes that advice.
23:59 on 28/7/13.
Of course the original plan was that Rihanna would spend most of these six weeks chilling out on a yacht off the French Riviera where she would obviously be joined by her core tour party. Added to this tour party there would obviously be the British model Cara Delevinge and desperate rumours that Chris Brown could fly in at any moment. I believe at one point a wedding had even been suggested. The intention being that amid all the stress that Chris Brown causes Delevinge would be able to report back to the UK Rihanna's deepest thoughts and fears. Having welcomed in a new Conservative government Australia would then be relied upon to request this detailed information from it's homeland in order to best harass Rihanna during her September/October residency. Unfortunately though in the interim quite a lot of stuff happened not least of which the Australian Labor Party dumped Julia Gillard as leader giving them a reasonable chance of being that largest party after the election. As the Labor Party is already declared as marginally anti-Monarchist and it is unlikely any smaller parties will risk their place in a coalition over an argument about Rihanna this plan looks largely sunk. Then there was some stuff about parts A&B of the plan failing leaving part C non-actionable
As a result what Rihanna and her core tour party chose to do between now and September is anyone's guess. However I gather that the US Judge in the Berdon LLP case is insisting that Rihanna returns to New York, New York on or around mid-August. I strongly suggest she takes that advice.
23:59 on 28/7/13.
Saturday 27 July 2013
Elections In Mali and Zimbabwe.
As you may have worked out from the CIA's decision to deploy Chris Brown to Switzerland while Rihanna is in neighbouring Germany there are two big elections coming up in Africa this week. The first takes place in Mali on Sunday (29/7/13) and the second takes place in Zimbabwe on Wednesday (31/7/13).
The election is Mali is nothing more than a sick joke. The nation is still essentially in a state of war with the government and electoral commission unable to operate across great swathes of the north country and there are around 500,000 people who have been displaced by fighting within the country meaning they will be unable to vote. On top of that some bright spark has decided that this very poor and disorganised nation must provide each registered voter with an electronic ID card in order to allow them to vote. Rather predictably this system has been beset with problems from the start the main of which being that a vast number of registered voters have simply not being issued with ID cards. Nobody knows exactly how many registered voters have not been issued with an ID card but none of Mali's 300,000 registered 18 year olds will be allowed to vote. Of towns with adult populations over 1000 people 226 will receive no voter ID cards at all and in 406 towns only 0.5% of registered voters will only receive ID cards. This adds up to around 1 million voters who will be denied the right to take part in the election. On top of that you have obvious inconsistencies such as only 39 voter ID's being issued to Malians living in Morocco which is one of the main migration destinations for Malians emigrating. Finally the electoral commissions inability to reach the north of the country along with tensions with the ethnic Tuareg's which has seen election workers kidnapped means that a majority of voters that have not only been registered but also issued with ID cards will be denied the right to vote because no-one has given them their ID cards.
Therefore the intention of the Malian election seems quite simply to cause a disputed result with the majority of those in the north of the country excluded from the election. The hope is that this will cause a north/south split which will reignite tensions between the government based in the south and the Tuareg's based in the north. This means the civil war will start again creating the space for Islamist terrorists to restart their campaign just as the majority French troops leave and the less well trained African United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping force take over putting extreme pressure on the relatively weak African governments taking part.
As such my advice to Mali on it's election is to simply ignore it and its result. That's because regardless of who wins for the foreseeable future the nation is really going to be run by the UN and the French because they're the ones providing the troops.
Wednesday's election in Zimbabwe is going to be slightly more complicated because since the disputed 2005 election the two main parties have split. The ruling ZANU-PF has splintered with the emergence of ZAPU while the MDC has splintered to create the MDC-T which is a vehicle for Morgan Tsvangirai. ZAPU is supposed to represent an alternative for ZANU-PF voters who would rather do without the vendetta the west has against the ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe while the MDC is supposed to represent an alternative for MDC-T voters who could do without Morgan Tsvangirai who is largely seen as both a coward and a western stooge. However the two splinter parties are likely to cancel each other out leaving a close battle between ZANU-PF and the MDC-T.
The problem is that regardless of the actual result the MDC-T's western backers led by the UK intend to use the election as a way to overthrow Mugabe as they've been trying to do ever since Mugabe took Zimbabwe out of the UK Commonwealth. As such they've been spending a lot of money on foreign satellite TV channels to lay the groundwork for claims that ZANU-PF have stolen the election. For example it is around the time the Zimbabwean election result is scheduled to be announced we will discover if Shrien Dewani will appeal to the UK Supreme Court or accept his extradition to South Africa. As it is likely that ZANU-PF will legitimately win the election and Mugabe doesn't have a track record of taking defeat well any dispute over the election is likely to result in widespread violence. This will immediately result in a flood of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa just as South Africa is trying to deal with the situation in Mali.
Therefore I think it would actually be better if ZANU-PF won Zimbabwe's election and for the opposition to respect that outcome regardless. That's because since the disputed 2005 election Zimbabwe has effectively been run by South Africa with both the economy and the political situation gradually improving. Therefore I think it would be better for this slow and gradual improvement to continue under the 89 year old Mugabe rather than having the nation plunged into chaos in an effort to hand the nation over to Tsvangirai who will have a lot of debts to pay amongst his foreign backers.
23:45 on 27/7/13.
The election is Mali is nothing more than a sick joke. The nation is still essentially in a state of war with the government and electoral commission unable to operate across great swathes of the north country and there are around 500,000 people who have been displaced by fighting within the country meaning they will be unable to vote. On top of that some bright spark has decided that this very poor and disorganised nation must provide each registered voter with an electronic ID card in order to allow them to vote. Rather predictably this system has been beset with problems from the start the main of which being that a vast number of registered voters have simply not being issued with ID cards. Nobody knows exactly how many registered voters have not been issued with an ID card but none of Mali's 300,000 registered 18 year olds will be allowed to vote. Of towns with adult populations over 1000 people 226 will receive no voter ID cards at all and in 406 towns only 0.5% of registered voters will only receive ID cards. This adds up to around 1 million voters who will be denied the right to take part in the election. On top of that you have obvious inconsistencies such as only 39 voter ID's being issued to Malians living in Morocco which is one of the main migration destinations for Malians emigrating. Finally the electoral commissions inability to reach the north of the country along with tensions with the ethnic Tuareg's which has seen election workers kidnapped means that a majority of voters that have not only been registered but also issued with ID cards will be denied the right to vote because no-one has given them their ID cards.
Therefore the intention of the Malian election seems quite simply to cause a disputed result with the majority of those in the north of the country excluded from the election. The hope is that this will cause a north/south split which will reignite tensions between the government based in the south and the Tuareg's based in the north. This means the civil war will start again creating the space for Islamist terrorists to restart their campaign just as the majority French troops leave and the less well trained African United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping force take over putting extreme pressure on the relatively weak African governments taking part.
As such my advice to Mali on it's election is to simply ignore it and its result. That's because regardless of who wins for the foreseeable future the nation is really going to be run by the UN and the French because they're the ones providing the troops.
Wednesday's election in Zimbabwe is going to be slightly more complicated because since the disputed 2005 election the two main parties have split. The ruling ZANU-PF has splintered with the emergence of ZAPU while the MDC has splintered to create the MDC-T which is a vehicle for Morgan Tsvangirai. ZAPU is supposed to represent an alternative for ZANU-PF voters who would rather do without the vendetta the west has against the ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe while the MDC is supposed to represent an alternative for MDC-T voters who could do without Morgan Tsvangirai who is largely seen as both a coward and a western stooge. However the two splinter parties are likely to cancel each other out leaving a close battle between ZANU-PF and the MDC-T.
The problem is that regardless of the actual result the MDC-T's western backers led by the UK intend to use the election as a way to overthrow Mugabe as they've been trying to do ever since Mugabe took Zimbabwe out of the UK Commonwealth. As such they've been spending a lot of money on foreign satellite TV channels to lay the groundwork for claims that ZANU-PF have stolen the election. For example it is around the time the Zimbabwean election result is scheduled to be announced we will discover if Shrien Dewani will appeal to the UK Supreme Court or accept his extradition to South Africa. As it is likely that ZANU-PF will legitimately win the election and Mugabe doesn't have a track record of taking defeat well any dispute over the election is likely to result in widespread violence. This will immediately result in a flood of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa just as South Africa is trying to deal with the situation in Mali.
Therefore I think it would actually be better if ZANU-PF won Zimbabwe's election and for the opposition to respect that outcome regardless. That's because since the disputed 2005 election Zimbabwe has effectively been run by South Africa with both the economy and the political situation gradually improving. Therefore I think it would be better for this slow and gradual improvement to continue under the 89 year old Mugabe rather than having the nation plunged into chaos in an effort to hand the nation over to Tsvangirai who will have a lot of debts to pay amongst his foreign backers.
23:45 on 27/7/13.
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 1, Day 2.
Throughout the past week the Muslim Brotherhood have continued their protest camp in Nasr city and held protest marches in Cairo in an attempt to achieve the objectives they set for themselves at last Friday's (19/7/13) "Second Crossing" protests but failed to achieve due to a lack of support. Yesterday they called for a day of "Discernment/Al-Furqan" protest. Marking the 17th day of Ramadan this celebrates the 17th Century "Great Battle of Badr" in which Muslims although outnumbered won a military victory against non-believers. Apart from being a call to violence this was supposed to be the Brotherhood asking Egyptians to choose between good (Islam as the Brotherhood see it) and bad (democracy as the Brotherhood see it).
Friday was also the day that Egypt's military asked people to take to the streets to show support for it's war against terrorism predominately in the Sinai. With nine of Egypt's largest TV networks showing their support for the military by postponing popular drama shows and soap operas in order to encourage people to attend the protests the Egyptian people overwhelmingly chose to support democracy over the Brotherhood. Estimates show that roughly 32 million of Egypt's 80 million population came out in support of the military nationally with 20-25 million of those taking to the streets of Cairo alone. Unfortunately some of those protesting took the military's call as an instruction to attack the Muslim Brotherhood directly. So in Damietta Brotherhood supporters were attacked by local residents while they were awaiting transport to the Nasr city demonstration leaving 10 people injured. In the Shubra suburb of Cairo a Brotherhood protests numbering a few hundred was attacked by local residents again leaving around 10 injured. The worst of the violence though occurred in Egypt's second city Alexandria where pro-democracy and Brotherhood protest marches met sparking of a day of rioting that left 5 dead and 91 injured.
The Brotherhood themselves were far from peaceful though. Not only did they fight back in Alexandria and Shubra in Cairo several members were arrested in possession of weapons including firearms, a group of pro-democracy demonstrators were attacked by armed Brotherhood supporters as they made their way to Tahrir Square. Most provocatively though the Brotherhood protesters decided to storm the International Garden in Nasr city and pledged to occupy it until Morsi is reinstated in a move that infuriated local residents. Also while not directly attributed to the Brotherhood Islamist terrorists in the Sinai carried out gun, RPG and bomb attacks across Sheikh Zuwayed co-ordinated to target police and civilians as they sat down to break fast at Iftar. Fortunately no fatalities or serious injuries have been reported so far.
With public anger towards the Brotherhood demonstration in Nasr city rising Egypt's interim Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim appear on television to reassure people that the Nasr city demonstration would soon cleared in a legal manner following a vast number of complaints from local residents. This was a clear attempt to calm the situation by stopping residents taking matters into their own hands by assuring them that the government would take action soon. Unfortunately the Muslim Brotherhood saw this as an opportunity to once again portray themselves as the oppressed victims of a military dictatorship and started to spin the Interior Ministers comments as a threat.
Just before dawn today Brotherhood supporters decided to march out of Nasr city towards the October 6th bridge and Tahrir Square in an attempt to provoke or attack their opponents. This was too much for local residents and supporters who promptly attacked the Brotherhood march causing a violent confrontation during which both sides exchanged bricks, bottles and gunfire. Eventually the police/military intervened to separate the two factions. The exact numbers killed and injured during the confrontation are not yet known. Not all of those injured sought help at official hospitals so although the Health Ministry's figure of 29 killed and 649 injured is an accurate account of the people it has treated it does not take into account all those injured. The Muslim Brotherhood's estimate of 120 killed and more than 4000 injured is simply a lie intended to portray themselves as victims of a massacre. The figure that most people consider to be accurate is 70 dead and around 1500 injured. The one thing that's known for sure is that 51 of those injured were members of the police/military including two who are in a critical condition after being shot in the head.
Obviously today most of Egypt is in shock following the incident with some blaming the military and some blaming the Brotherhood. The one thing that most people agree on though is that the violence has to stop. That is everyone of course expect the Muslim Brotherhood who have today already attempted to storm the Al-Azhar University in a clear attempt to provoke another confrontation with the military/police. The one thing that is clear to me though is that something has to be done to bring the Muslim Brotherhood's Nasr city protest to an end.
I think the best way to achieve this is for the Brotherhood to agree to move their protest to somewhere that is less disruptive. Primarily that is because while they do not have the right to commit acts of violence or disrupt the day to day running of the city I think that the Brotherhood do have a right to protest. Beyond that while the Brotherhood's demonstration is comparatively tiny it still numbers in the tens of thousands. Arresting and imprisoning that many people is going to be a logistical nightmare not to mention that internationally it will lead to a lot of criticism for arbitrary detention and domestically will help to fuel the Brotherhood's propaganda that they are being oppressed.
Therefore I think it would be better to move the demonstration to a public square or park where the Brotherhood can protest for as long as they like without blocking roads and disrupting the lives of local residents. If these protests were taking place in London, UK I would suggest using Hyde Park but I don't have to local knowledge to suggest somewhere similar in Cairo. That said if the Brotherhood refuse to compromise by moving to the new location they will have to be removed from Nasr city by force and if they choose to fight back some of them may have to be killed.
17:40 on 27/7/13.
Friday was also the day that Egypt's military asked people to take to the streets to show support for it's war against terrorism predominately in the Sinai. With nine of Egypt's largest TV networks showing their support for the military by postponing popular drama shows and soap operas in order to encourage people to attend the protests the Egyptian people overwhelmingly chose to support democracy over the Brotherhood. Estimates show that roughly 32 million of Egypt's 80 million population came out in support of the military nationally with 20-25 million of those taking to the streets of Cairo alone. Unfortunately some of those protesting took the military's call as an instruction to attack the Muslim Brotherhood directly. So in Damietta Brotherhood supporters were attacked by local residents while they were awaiting transport to the Nasr city demonstration leaving 10 people injured. In the Shubra suburb of Cairo a Brotherhood protests numbering a few hundred was attacked by local residents again leaving around 10 injured. The worst of the violence though occurred in Egypt's second city Alexandria where pro-democracy and Brotherhood protest marches met sparking of a day of rioting that left 5 dead and 91 injured.
The Brotherhood themselves were far from peaceful though. Not only did they fight back in Alexandria and Shubra in Cairo several members were arrested in possession of weapons including firearms, a group of pro-democracy demonstrators were attacked by armed Brotherhood supporters as they made their way to Tahrir Square. Most provocatively though the Brotherhood protesters decided to storm the International Garden in Nasr city and pledged to occupy it until Morsi is reinstated in a move that infuriated local residents. Also while not directly attributed to the Brotherhood Islamist terrorists in the Sinai carried out gun, RPG and bomb attacks across Sheikh Zuwayed co-ordinated to target police and civilians as they sat down to break fast at Iftar. Fortunately no fatalities or serious injuries have been reported so far.
With public anger towards the Brotherhood demonstration in Nasr city rising Egypt's interim Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim appear on television to reassure people that the Nasr city demonstration would soon cleared in a legal manner following a vast number of complaints from local residents. This was a clear attempt to calm the situation by stopping residents taking matters into their own hands by assuring them that the government would take action soon. Unfortunately the Muslim Brotherhood saw this as an opportunity to once again portray themselves as the oppressed victims of a military dictatorship and started to spin the Interior Ministers comments as a threat.
Just before dawn today Brotherhood supporters decided to march out of Nasr city towards the October 6th bridge and Tahrir Square in an attempt to provoke or attack their opponents. This was too much for local residents and supporters who promptly attacked the Brotherhood march causing a violent confrontation during which both sides exchanged bricks, bottles and gunfire. Eventually the police/military intervened to separate the two factions. The exact numbers killed and injured during the confrontation are not yet known. Not all of those injured sought help at official hospitals so although the Health Ministry's figure of 29 killed and 649 injured is an accurate account of the people it has treated it does not take into account all those injured. The Muslim Brotherhood's estimate of 120 killed and more than 4000 injured is simply a lie intended to portray themselves as victims of a massacre. The figure that most people consider to be accurate is 70 dead and around 1500 injured. The one thing that's known for sure is that 51 of those injured were members of the police/military including two who are in a critical condition after being shot in the head.
Obviously today most of Egypt is in shock following the incident with some blaming the military and some blaming the Brotherhood. The one thing that most people agree on though is that the violence has to stop. That is everyone of course expect the Muslim Brotherhood who have today already attempted to storm the Al-Azhar University in a clear attempt to provoke another confrontation with the military/police. The one thing that is clear to me though is that something has to be done to bring the Muslim Brotherhood's Nasr city protest to an end.
I think the best way to achieve this is for the Brotherhood to agree to move their protest to somewhere that is less disruptive. Primarily that is because while they do not have the right to commit acts of violence or disrupt the day to day running of the city I think that the Brotherhood do have a right to protest. Beyond that while the Brotherhood's demonstration is comparatively tiny it still numbers in the tens of thousands. Arresting and imprisoning that many people is going to be a logistical nightmare not to mention that internationally it will lead to a lot of criticism for arbitrary detention and domestically will help to fuel the Brotherhood's propaganda that they are being oppressed.
Therefore I think it would be better to move the demonstration to a public square or park where the Brotherhood can protest for as long as they like without blocking roads and disrupting the lives of local residents. If these protests were taking place in London, UK I would suggest using Hyde Park but I don't have to local knowledge to suggest somewhere similar in Cairo. That said if the Brotherhood refuse to compromise by moving to the new location they will have to be removed from Nasr city by force and if they choose to fight back some of them may have to be killed.
17:40 on 27/7/13.
Thursday 25 July 2013
Quick Someone Get a Fork.
I think Sarastro's done.
As arranged on Tuesday (23/7/13) today I returned to the Croydon custody centre in relation to the criminal damage allegations against. As pre-discussed with the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the case 'Sarastro' it was simply a matter of being charged with no arrest, search, detention or interview. A representative of the independent appropriate adult service was present though.
The charge is simple criminal damage contrary to Section 1 subsection 1 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act. The estimated value of the damage is GBP313.37 which if is an accurate estimate of the cost of replacing two double glazed window units I certainly want the name of the Notting Hill Housing Trusts (NHHT) contractor. This is important because the Section 1.1 offence is what is known as an either way offence. That means it can either be tried at a Crown Court or the lesser Magistrates Court which can only hand down a maximum sentence of 6 months imprisonment. What normally determines which Court tries the case is the value of the damage caused with GBP5000 being the normal cut-off. Therefore it appears very much as if the NHHT and Sarastro have colluded to underestimate the value of the damage caused in order to make sure that the case is kept in Croydon Magistrate Court which is demonstrably biased in their favour.
During the charging process I listed my father as a vulnerable person who would be deprived of care during my absence and had recorded the fact that the OIC had been furnished with copies of documents demonstrating that the criteria of lawful excuse as listed in Section 2 of the act have been fulfilled. However I did not push the issue because his choices are his responsibility not mine. I also made the custody sergeant and the OIC aware of the fact that in order to prosecute the case Croydon Magistrates Court will have to rule that it is either incompetent or unfairly biased in favour of the NHHT rendering it unable to hear the case. The police decided to ignore this and issued a summons for me to appear at Croydon Magistrates Court on August 23rd (23/8/13) at 09:30 (local). In the meantime I have been placed back on police bail with the same restrictions about contacting named individuals. The named individuals are also supposed to expect a visit from the OIC to remind them that they are also forbidden from contacting me or committing criminal offences against me or my property. Much to the annoyance of the appropriate adult by telling the custody sergeant I intend to represent myself I was finally able to obtain the DVDR of my original interview. I may try and upload it to YouTube later.
Before the NHHT and Croydon Magistrates Court start cracking open the champagne I should point out that as anyone who watches "Law & Order UK" knows the people are represented by two bodies in the criminal justice system. The police who investigate crime and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who prosecute offenders. The decision to charge me has been taken by the police without the involvement of the CPS therefore before it can proceed to trial the charging decision will have to be reviewed by the CPS. The CPS was set up in 1986 in response to miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven, the Bridgewater Four and pretty much every case handled by West Yorkshire Police during the 1970's and 1980's. The CPS' specific purpose is to take the decision whether to prosecute or not out of the hands of corrupt local police officers with grudges.
Therefore I fully expect that in the next seven days I will receive a letter from the CPS informing me that the police's charging decision has been overruled and no further action is to be taken against me. After all if the case is to proceed it will proceed all the way to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or until the correct, lawful conclusion is reached. However if the CPS continue with the prosecution I may possibly instruct a solicitor but it hardly takes a genius to file a motion to dismiss.
16:20 on 25/7/13.
As arranged on Tuesday (23/7/13) today I returned to the Croydon custody centre in relation to the criminal damage allegations against. As pre-discussed with the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the case 'Sarastro' it was simply a matter of being charged with no arrest, search, detention or interview. A representative of the independent appropriate adult service was present though.
The charge is simple criminal damage contrary to Section 1 subsection 1 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act. The estimated value of the damage is GBP313.37 which if is an accurate estimate of the cost of replacing two double glazed window units I certainly want the name of the Notting Hill Housing Trusts (NHHT) contractor. This is important because the Section 1.1 offence is what is known as an either way offence. That means it can either be tried at a Crown Court or the lesser Magistrates Court which can only hand down a maximum sentence of 6 months imprisonment. What normally determines which Court tries the case is the value of the damage caused with GBP5000 being the normal cut-off. Therefore it appears very much as if the NHHT and Sarastro have colluded to underestimate the value of the damage caused in order to make sure that the case is kept in Croydon Magistrate Court which is demonstrably biased in their favour.
During the charging process I listed my father as a vulnerable person who would be deprived of care during my absence and had recorded the fact that the OIC had been furnished with copies of documents demonstrating that the criteria of lawful excuse as listed in Section 2 of the act have been fulfilled. However I did not push the issue because his choices are his responsibility not mine. I also made the custody sergeant and the OIC aware of the fact that in order to prosecute the case Croydon Magistrates Court will have to rule that it is either incompetent or unfairly biased in favour of the NHHT rendering it unable to hear the case. The police decided to ignore this and issued a summons for me to appear at Croydon Magistrates Court on August 23rd (23/8/13) at 09:30 (local). In the meantime I have been placed back on police bail with the same restrictions about contacting named individuals. The named individuals are also supposed to expect a visit from the OIC to remind them that they are also forbidden from contacting me or committing criminal offences against me or my property. Much to the annoyance of the appropriate adult by telling the custody sergeant I intend to represent myself I was finally able to obtain the DVDR of my original interview. I may try and upload it to YouTube later.
Before the NHHT and Croydon Magistrates Court start cracking open the champagne I should point out that as anyone who watches "Law & Order UK" knows the people are represented by two bodies in the criminal justice system. The police who investigate crime and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who prosecute offenders. The decision to charge me has been taken by the police without the involvement of the CPS therefore before it can proceed to trial the charging decision will have to be reviewed by the CPS. The CPS was set up in 1986 in response to miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven, the Bridgewater Four and pretty much every case handled by West Yorkshire Police during the 1970's and 1980's. The CPS' specific purpose is to take the decision whether to prosecute or not out of the hands of corrupt local police officers with grudges.
Therefore I fully expect that in the next seven days I will receive a letter from the CPS informing me that the police's charging decision has been overruled and no further action is to be taken against me. After all if the case is to proceed it will proceed all the way to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or until the correct, lawful conclusion is reached. However if the CPS continue with the prosecution I may possibly instruct a solicitor but it hardly takes a genius to file a motion to dismiss.
16:20 on 25/7/13.
Wednesday 24 July 2013
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 5, Day 1.
On Friday (19/7/13) the Egyptian military launched a large scale operation to tackle Islamist terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula. As I've already mentioned the early stages of the operation involves setting up check-points and gathering intelligence rather then physically fighting the terrorists. However this has not stopped the terrorists attacking the military/police and since the start of the operation their attacks have increased significantly.
On Friday itself three missiles were fired into a residential house in Arish killing three civilians. Three soldiers were wounded in a gun attack on a police position in Arish. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack at a check-point in Reyesa. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack on a check-point in al-Karmy. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack in Baghdad in central Sinai. Most dramatically a child was wounded in a gun attack on a convoy carrying Major General Ahmed Wasfy the commander of the Second Field Army in what is being considered a targeted assassination attempt.
On Saturday (20/7/13) five police officers were killed on separate gun attacks on police stations and check-points across the Sinai. Also 17 soldiers were killed and 30 injured in a traffic collision close to Beheira. There is no suggestion that this was anything other than a road accident however the military will have felt the loss and the damage it does to morale.
On Monday (22/7/13) five police officers were wounded in gun attacks on multiple check-points in and around Arish. Six soldiers were wounded in an attack on their camp in Rafah.
On Tuesday (23/7/13) one police officer was killed in an attack on a check-point in Arish and one soldier was wounded in an attack on a police station also in Arish. There was also significant rioting between Morsi supporters and revolutionaries in both Arish and nearby Masaeed.
Today so far two soldiers have been killed in an attack on a check-point in Arish, a police station in Arish came under attack by Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) fortunately resulting in no injuries and five terrorists were killed by their own car bomb in an attack on a police training facility which resulted in no other injuries. Most worryingly the violence seems to be spreading outside of the Sinai with a TNT bomb detonated in a sewer close to a police station in Mansoura killing one police officer and injuring 28 others.
So in the past six days the military/police have had 26 of their number killed and 76 wounded in terrorist attacks and road accidents. Added to this Egypt's regional neighbours have been increasing the pressure on the Egyptian military with Qatar who were big supporters of Morsi's government complaining about Morsi's continued detention and expressing concern about the deaths of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Also the Al-Ahram channel has been circulating a false story about Morsi being detained for 15 days in relation to allegations that he was spying for Hamas. This piece of propaganda was intended to strengthen Morsi in the eyes of the Egyptian people by linking him to Hamas and weaken the Egyptian military by linking them to Israel. The story is entirely false and Al-Ahram's editor has since been arrested and bailed over allegations of attempting to incite violence. The US has delayed its supply of 4 F-16 jets to Egypt in order to pay lip-service to the Gulf states.
On the more international level the European Union (EU) on Monday issued a statement calling on Egypt to hold fresh elections and release all political prisoners including Morsi. This was actually a very soft statement that avoided using the term coup and was really just the EU fulfilling its commitment to democracy. However it is the sort of statement that will be twisted by Morsi supporters to fit their own agenda and was hardly a source of comfort and support for Egypt. Similarly the African Union (AU) which due to the long history of damaging coups on the continent has to take a hard line has continued to suspend Egypt's membership. However the Ethiopian Prime Minister appears to have accepted that the AU's description of events in Egypt as a coup was based on false information indicating that Egypt's suspension is in the process of being lifted.
Against this back-drop the head of the Egyptian military and First Deputy Prime Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on Egyptians to take to the streets this Friday (26/7/13) to show their support for the military and its fight against terrorism. Secular and revolutionary groups such as Tamarod and the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) have supported El-Sisi's call and urged their supporters onto the streets. Islamist parties such as Al-Nour, the Muslim Brotherhood and Watan have rejected El-Sisi's call and labelled it either an attempt to incite violence or civil war. It is clearly neither of these things. Having been getting hit hard from seemingly all directions over the past week the Egyptian military simply needs to be reassured that it still has the support of the Egyptian people.
Therefore while I think Egypt really needs to start moving away from the politics of the street towards the politics of the ballot box I fully support Friday's demonstration and urge Egyptians to turn up in support.
20:30 on 24/7/13.
On Friday itself three missiles were fired into a residential house in Arish killing three civilians. Three soldiers were wounded in a gun attack on a police position in Arish. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack at a check-point in Reyesa. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack on a check-point in al-Karmy. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack in Baghdad in central Sinai. Most dramatically a child was wounded in a gun attack on a convoy carrying Major General Ahmed Wasfy the commander of the Second Field Army in what is being considered a targeted assassination attempt.
On Saturday (20/7/13) five police officers were killed on separate gun attacks on police stations and check-points across the Sinai. Also 17 soldiers were killed and 30 injured in a traffic collision close to Beheira. There is no suggestion that this was anything other than a road accident however the military will have felt the loss and the damage it does to morale.
On Monday (22/7/13) five police officers were wounded in gun attacks on multiple check-points in and around Arish. Six soldiers were wounded in an attack on their camp in Rafah.
On Tuesday (23/7/13) one police officer was killed in an attack on a check-point in Arish and one soldier was wounded in an attack on a police station also in Arish. There was also significant rioting between Morsi supporters and revolutionaries in both Arish and nearby Masaeed.
Today so far two soldiers have been killed in an attack on a check-point in Arish, a police station in Arish came under attack by Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) fortunately resulting in no injuries and five terrorists were killed by their own car bomb in an attack on a police training facility which resulted in no other injuries. Most worryingly the violence seems to be spreading outside of the Sinai with a TNT bomb detonated in a sewer close to a police station in Mansoura killing one police officer and injuring 28 others.
So in the past six days the military/police have had 26 of their number killed and 76 wounded in terrorist attacks and road accidents. Added to this Egypt's regional neighbours have been increasing the pressure on the Egyptian military with Qatar who were big supporters of Morsi's government complaining about Morsi's continued detention and expressing concern about the deaths of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Also the Al-Ahram channel has been circulating a false story about Morsi being detained for 15 days in relation to allegations that he was spying for Hamas. This piece of propaganda was intended to strengthen Morsi in the eyes of the Egyptian people by linking him to Hamas and weaken the Egyptian military by linking them to Israel. The story is entirely false and Al-Ahram's editor has since been arrested and bailed over allegations of attempting to incite violence. The US has delayed its supply of 4 F-16 jets to Egypt in order to pay lip-service to the Gulf states.
On the more international level the European Union (EU) on Monday issued a statement calling on Egypt to hold fresh elections and release all political prisoners including Morsi. This was actually a very soft statement that avoided using the term coup and was really just the EU fulfilling its commitment to democracy. However it is the sort of statement that will be twisted by Morsi supporters to fit their own agenda and was hardly a source of comfort and support for Egypt. Similarly the African Union (AU) which due to the long history of damaging coups on the continent has to take a hard line has continued to suspend Egypt's membership. However the Ethiopian Prime Minister appears to have accepted that the AU's description of events in Egypt as a coup was based on false information indicating that Egypt's suspension is in the process of being lifted.
Against this back-drop the head of the Egyptian military and First Deputy Prime Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on Egyptians to take to the streets this Friday (26/7/13) to show their support for the military and its fight against terrorism. Secular and revolutionary groups such as Tamarod and the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) have supported El-Sisi's call and urged their supporters onto the streets. Islamist parties such as Al-Nour, the Muslim Brotherhood and Watan have rejected El-Sisi's call and labelled it either an attempt to incite violence or civil war. It is clearly neither of these things. Having been getting hit hard from seemingly all directions over the past week the Egyptian military simply needs to be reassured that it still has the support of the Egyptian people.
Therefore while I think Egypt really needs to start moving away from the politics of the street towards the politics of the ballot box I fully support Friday's demonstration and urge Egyptians to turn up in support.
20:30 on 24/7/13.
Tuesday 23 July 2013
Sorry Did I Miss Something.
As those of you who follow me on Twitter may know I've spent the day down in Brighton visiting that friend who spent most of last summer building a deck in his back garden. As that deck is now finished save for the barbecue and the sun was shining we spent most of the afternoon sitting on that deck drinking beer discussing how best to finish off the barbecue. Personally I suggested knocking it down to build a fire-pit over which we could spit-roast prime hog. However that might require a little bit more research. We of course also discussed his book-keeping/accountancy efforts in support of his small business. I for one am predicting a very taxing tax season.
In what I can only interpret as an effort to ruin my rather pleasant day the Officer In Charge (OIC) my case known by the codeword "Sarastro" took the opportunity for call me to arrange for me to come into Croydon custody centre to resolve my case. We agreed that by "resolve" he meant come in at 15:00 (local) on Thursday (25/7/13) to be charged with criminal damage contrary to (S) section 1.1 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act. Crucially he does not want to interview me again. This is clearly an attempt to make sure what I failed to mention when questioned can be used to infer guilt should I rely on it on Court. That is quite easily explained away by the fact that the female Police And Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984 Inspector insisted that my father sat in on the interview as my "Appropriate Adult" to exert social pressure and I quote; "Stop him telling funny stories." After immediately finishing the conversation I Tweeted that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will drop the case the moment Croydon police hand it to them.
This was quickly followed by the news that a man had been charged with the murder of Police Constable Keith Blakelock in the riots on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, London, UK in 1985. This is a very long running saga in the UK with a mentally deficient black man Winston Silcott being framed by the police and sent to prison only to be freed on appeal in 1991 following a long campaign. The story was recently revived after something I said prior to US President George W Bush's post-Iraq invasion visit to London in autumn 2003. I am not going to expand on that any further but the people who were there will remember. Therefore the CPS announcing that they have sufficient evidence to charge in this case could be the UK indicating that it will pervert the course of justice in this case in order to punish me for my involvement in the Iraq war. It could also be the CPS announcing that they've now got enough evidence to charge certain people with attempting to pervert the course of justice. Either way I think I need to find a lawyer. Well actually what I need is a para-legal to play the evidence disclosure game and a barrister to provide the theatrics. Sorry if that leaves me unable to provide information in the current debate over Legal Aid in the UK Parliament but this is one of the areas where I really don't qualify as "typical."
Anyway while I was sitting on that deck in the sunshine drinking beer it certainly appears that the US and the UK have been having a right ding dong of an argument. If you chose to ignore the 9 months preparation work that the Duchess of Cambridge has been putting in it certainly looks like the US started it on Monday (22/7/13) with their crash of a South-West airlines Boeing 737 at La Guardia airport in New York State. The aircraft landed gear up on its nose after its front nose gear failed. "Nose Gear" could of course be a reference to Cocaine. "Gear Up" could be a reference to arming oneself as if preparing for war.
The main story of the day though was the wait for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to emerge cradling their new son for the world to see. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's "new baby" could be a reference to me because not only have I met Prince William and Prince Harry I've actually met them on numerous occasions specifically over the period where their parents Prince Charles and Lady Diana were divorcing. Therefore I have forever burned into my memory an image of a scared, roughly 10 year old Prince Harry hiding behind his older brother's leg looking for emotional support. However the wait for the baby to emerge was also intended to be a reference to this child I supposedly fathered after raping a woman in roughly 2007. The intention was to promote discussion over whether Croydon would also be bringing up that alleged offence in Court. If they intend to do that I would say that they will need a very loyal Monarch because generally Courts bound by the Rome Statute tend to take a dim view of using vulnerable women as live HIV test subjects.
The two teenage girls who went missing only to be found dead in the UK's river Wear were supposed to be a confusing reference to any number of teenage girls I may pose a threat to because I'm a paedophile/I've got AIDS/I'm a rapist/I'm a psychopath (delete as appropriate). It also touched on the "Child Not Bride" campaign against child marriage that is mainly aimed at developing nations with my full support. The UN report on Rwanda's funding of the March 23rd (M23) rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was a United Nations (UN) attempt to get the US to make it clear that they no longer endorse the behaviour of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). The conviction in Florida, US for two Brits over a 'Boiler Room' fraud scam was the US and the UK agreeing that yes someone has certainly been defrauded over recent years.
The UK Monarchy's Tweet about the "Boston Stump" was intended to be interpreted as a sick joke meant to fire up the UK's para-Olympians as the competed in Lyon, France. However in reality it was intended to put pressure on Massachusetts state police during the disciplinary hearing over the officer who released the pictures of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with a snipers red dot on his forehead. I believe the officer was put on restricted duties. I agree with this light punishment because let's just say that having taken the Boston (political) stump I appear to have found some support. Or to put it another way; FBI SWAT team = intimidating. Croydon borough CID - not so much.
As for Egypt's Independent you may need to tell me twice but you don't need to tell me a third time. The military's announcement that they'd captured a Sinai militant in possession of a military uniform could have been a very clunky way of reminding the Egyptian public that during Morsi's rule there were a great number of Muslim Bortherhood members who picked up military and police uniforms. Therefore the fact that an attacker was wearing a military uniform does not automatically mean they are a member of the military. Either that or someone has kicked Egypt really hard because the issue of stolen military uniforms resonates all the way from Afghanistan, Syria and Libya through to Mali and the DRC.
23:59 on 23/7/13.
In what I can only interpret as an effort to ruin my rather pleasant day the Officer In Charge (OIC) my case known by the codeword "Sarastro" took the opportunity for call me to arrange for me to come into Croydon custody centre to resolve my case. We agreed that by "resolve" he meant come in at 15:00 (local) on Thursday (25/7/13) to be charged with criminal damage contrary to (S) section 1.1 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act. Crucially he does not want to interview me again. This is clearly an attempt to make sure what I failed to mention when questioned can be used to infer guilt should I rely on it on Court. That is quite easily explained away by the fact that the female Police And Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984 Inspector insisted that my father sat in on the interview as my "Appropriate Adult" to exert social pressure and I quote; "Stop him telling funny stories." After immediately finishing the conversation I Tweeted that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will drop the case the moment Croydon police hand it to them.
This was quickly followed by the news that a man had been charged with the murder of Police Constable Keith Blakelock in the riots on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, London, UK in 1985. This is a very long running saga in the UK with a mentally deficient black man Winston Silcott being framed by the police and sent to prison only to be freed on appeal in 1991 following a long campaign. The story was recently revived after something I said prior to US President George W Bush's post-Iraq invasion visit to London in autumn 2003. I am not going to expand on that any further but the people who were there will remember. Therefore the CPS announcing that they have sufficient evidence to charge in this case could be the UK indicating that it will pervert the course of justice in this case in order to punish me for my involvement in the Iraq war. It could also be the CPS announcing that they've now got enough evidence to charge certain people with attempting to pervert the course of justice. Either way I think I need to find a lawyer. Well actually what I need is a para-legal to play the evidence disclosure game and a barrister to provide the theatrics. Sorry if that leaves me unable to provide information in the current debate over Legal Aid in the UK Parliament but this is one of the areas where I really don't qualify as "typical."
Anyway while I was sitting on that deck in the sunshine drinking beer it certainly appears that the US and the UK have been having a right ding dong of an argument. If you chose to ignore the 9 months preparation work that the Duchess of Cambridge has been putting in it certainly looks like the US started it on Monday (22/7/13) with their crash of a South-West airlines Boeing 737 at La Guardia airport in New York State. The aircraft landed gear up on its nose after its front nose gear failed. "Nose Gear" could of course be a reference to Cocaine. "Gear Up" could be a reference to arming oneself as if preparing for war.
The main story of the day though was the wait for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to emerge cradling their new son for the world to see. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's "new baby" could be a reference to me because not only have I met Prince William and Prince Harry I've actually met them on numerous occasions specifically over the period where their parents Prince Charles and Lady Diana were divorcing. Therefore I have forever burned into my memory an image of a scared, roughly 10 year old Prince Harry hiding behind his older brother's leg looking for emotional support. However the wait for the baby to emerge was also intended to be a reference to this child I supposedly fathered after raping a woman in roughly 2007. The intention was to promote discussion over whether Croydon would also be bringing up that alleged offence in Court. If they intend to do that I would say that they will need a very loyal Monarch because generally Courts bound by the Rome Statute tend to take a dim view of using vulnerable women as live HIV test subjects.
The two teenage girls who went missing only to be found dead in the UK's river Wear were supposed to be a confusing reference to any number of teenage girls I may pose a threat to because I'm a paedophile/I've got AIDS/I'm a rapist/I'm a psychopath (delete as appropriate). It also touched on the "Child Not Bride" campaign against child marriage that is mainly aimed at developing nations with my full support. The UN report on Rwanda's funding of the March 23rd (M23) rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was a United Nations (UN) attempt to get the US to make it clear that they no longer endorse the behaviour of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). The conviction in Florida, US for two Brits over a 'Boiler Room' fraud scam was the US and the UK agreeing that yes someone has certainly been defrauded over recent years.
The UK Monarchy's Tweet about the "Boston Stump" was intended to be interpreted as a sick joke meant to fire up the UK's para-Olympians as the competed in Lyon, France. However in reality it was intended to put pressure on Massachusetts state police during the disciplinary hearing over the officer who released the pictures of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with a snipers red dot on his forehead. I believe the officer was put on restricted duties. I agree with this light punishment because let's just say that having taken the Boston (political) stump I appear to have found some support. Or to put it another way; FBI SWAT team = intimidating. Croydon borough CID - not so much.
As for Egypt's Independent you may need to tell me twice but you don't need to tell me a third time. The military's announcement that they'd captured a Sinai militant in possession of a military uniform could have been a very clunky way of reminding the Egyptian public that during Morsi's rule there were a great number of Muslim Bortherhood members who picked up military and police uniforms. Therefore the fact that an attacker was wearing a military uniform does not automatically mean they are a member of the military. Either that or someone has kicked Egypt really hard because the issue of stolen military uniforms resonates all the way from Afghanistan, Syria and Libya through to Mali and the DRC.
23:59 on 23/7/13.
Monday 22 July 2013
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 4, Day 6.
Having been unable to attract the number of protesters needed to achieve their aim of blocking roads and marching on multiple Embassies on Friday's (19/7/13) Second Crossing day of protest the Muslim Brotherhood now seem intent of using the limited of supporters they do have to visit all their targets over a week of protest. So at around midday local time today a group of Brotherhood supporters blocked the main Cairo to Alexandria road. After around seven hours they were peacefully removed by the military/police.
The Brotherhood's main objective for the day though seemed to be to reassert themselves as the government of Egypt and through that add legitimacy to their protest. The main part of this was to assemble the 140 or so Brotherhood members that Morsi appointed to the dissolved Shura Council at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city for what they termed and extraordinary session. No details of what was discussed at this totally illegitimate meeting of former council members have been made public. This was followed by a press conference by the Muslim Brotherhood founded and dominated Engineers Syndicate calling for the release and reinstatement of Mohamed Morsi. The main purpose of the press conference though was to give a platform to members of the Morsi family including son Osama Morsi and daughter Shaimaa Morsi. They used that platform to accuse Egypt's military of kidnapping their father and announce that they are taking legal steps both within Egypt and internationally to secure his release and reinstatement. Although they didn't announce specifically what those legal measures are I think they are unlikely to work because Mohamed Morsi is quite reasonably being detained to prevent him inciting violence. The proof that he will incite violence is the Brotherhood's continuing demonstrations and their refusal to accept that he is no longer the President of Egypt. Therefore he will not be released until the Brotherhood end their demonstrations and accept the democratic process.
After the press conference a group of Brotherhood protesters attempted to march on the US Embassy in Cairo. The route they chose took them very close to Tahrir Square in what seems a clear attempt to provoke and intimidate the revolutionaries. Sadly the revolutionaries appear to have risen to this provocation leading to clashes involving stones being thrown and shotguns being fired. The police fired tear gas in an effort to separate the two groups but so far one person has been killed by bird shot fired by the protesters and 26 people have been injured.
I don't want to get too distracted by the Brotherhoods demonstrations and the violence they have caused though because I think it is long past time for me to comment more fully on Egypt's new interim government of national unity. I of course started talking about this focusing on the interim Prime Minister, the interim First Deputy Prime Minister and the two interim Deputy Prime Ministers here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_18.html
Obviously it will take far too long for me to comment on every appointment individually and a lot of them are simply qualified people quietly getting on with their jobs. For example you have Abdel-Aziz Fadel as the Minister for Civil Aviation. Having joined the Egyptian Air Force in 1972 as an aircraft maintenance engineer Fadel went on to get a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering and rose to the position of vice-president of safety and quality before moving into the civilian sector with Egypt Air. Therefore he is clearly knowledgeable in all aspects of aircraft design and operation and is more than qualified to cope with the technical aspects of things like the Boeing 777 crash in San Francisco and the ongoing 787 Dreamliner saga. His long military service may come as a worry to some who will claim it as evidence of a military takeover. However I think it is much more benign merely reflecting the fact that under Mubarak the military - especially the Air Force - were given priority in terms of education and funding so if you want to look for the most educated and talented people in Egypt today you really have to look towards people who served in the military.
As I said in my previous post on the subject a major theme of the new interim cabinet has been the reversal of Morsi era appointments with Asharf El-Araby returning to Planning and Atef Helmy returning to Communication and Information Technology. Therefore Ahmed Imam at Electricity, Hisham Zaazou at Tourism, Mohamed Ibrahim at Interior and Reda Hafez at Military Production stand out simply by having bucked that trend. However they all seem to achieved this by being apolitical ministers rather than Morsi cronies. For example Air Marshall Hafez is a long standing military man while the resignation of Zaazou over Morsi's appointment to the Governorship of Luxor helped bring about the June 30th revolution.
Another major theme of the interim government has been the conscious effort to make sure women are included. So we have Dorreya Sharaf El-Din at Information. Sharaf El-Din has worked extensively behind the scenes at the Egyptian Television and Radio Union and has appeared on-screen on both the state broadcaster and on the private Dream channel. She has also served as junior minister in the Information Ministry heading up the satellite channels division. As a result Sharaf El-Din knows the industry inside and out including the censorship dirty tricks that Mubarak used to employ and the negative effect they had on broadcasters. There is also Laila Rashed Iskandar at Environment and Maha El-Rabat at Health. One woman who I'm disappointed not to see in the interim government is Ines Abdel-Dayem who was offered the position of Minister of Culture but refused. This is unfortunate because while it seems insignificant Culture and cultural exchanges have long been one of the important behind the scenes ways that government communicate with each other. Being a classical flutist who trained in France and a former head of the Cairo Opera House Adbel-Dayem strikes as being more than qualified to deal with whatever things like Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour could throw at her. Therefore I hope she will be on hand to assist Mohamed Saber Arab as the history professor takes on the role.
Another Ministry that seems insignificant but is actually very important on the diplomatic level is the Ministry of Antiquities. For example Egypt's cultural heritage is world famous and a major tourist attraction. Also today's discovery of a Sphinx belonging to Mycerinus in northern Israel seems much like an attempt to open a discussion between Israel and Egypt in the wake of Morsi's ouster. Being a professor of antiquities and a former minister of antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim seems well qualified for the role although he has been severely criticised by fellow archaeologists and Egyptologists including many of his own employees. However the criticism from his employees seems to stem mainly from his abilities as a personnel manager rather then from his knowledge of the subject. This is of course something civil servants at the ministry and other members of the cabinet can help him with. The criticism from other archaeologists seems to stem mainly from his ministry's failure to prevent the looting and destruction of artefact's following the fall of Mubarak. Rather than being a particular fault of the minister this seems to be more a part of the general collapse of law and order in the post-Mubarak period and something he should co-ordinate closely with his namesake at the Interior Ministry to resolve.
The biggest spilt within the interim government reflects the biggest choice that Egypt faces at the moment - whether to continue with the outdated and failing centrally controlled economic model of the Mubarak era including subsidies for food and fuel or to reform to embrace the free market economic model recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
As the current economic model is so clearly failing it is hard to find any member of the interim government who will endorse it publicly. However I am concerned by any member who has extensive experience serving under the Mubarak government such as Adel Labib at Local Development, Ayman Abu-Hadid at Agriculture and Sherif Ismail at Petroleum. This is not because of anything that they've specifically said or done on the issue it's just that having been involved in one way or working for so long they may find it difficult to adapt to a new way of doing things. I am also slightly concerned about government members who are either serving or former members of the military and Reda Hafez at Military Production in particular because under Mubarak the military were heavily involved in the economy and they may be resistant to giving up that privileged position. The only minister who has gone on the record to express a desire to keep the economy as it is has been Osma Selah the minister for Investment who has stated that he is confident that foreign investment will return to Egypt once the political situation has settled. This to me indicates that he doesn't quite understand the underlying economic problems and the urgent need for reform.
There is though a much larger faction within the government that understands the need for reform led by the interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi who is an economist by training and the Finance Minister Ahmed Galal who is not only an economist who spent 18 years working for the World Bank but is an expert on privatisation and the regulation of markets and monopolies. They seem supported by the Minister for Planning and International Co-operation Ziad Bahaa El-Din who worked under Mubarak to set-up free trade zones, Ashraf El-Araby the Minister for Planning who has worked extensively negotiating with the IMF and Ahmed El-Borai the Minister for Social Solidarity who helped get Egypt off the International Labour Organisations short-term blacklist by arguing that Egyptian workers should be allowed to set up independent rather than state run trade unions. They should also be able to count on support from Laila Iskandar the Minister for the Environment and Kamal Abu-Eita the Minister for Manpower. Although Iskandar's background is in social enterprises she represents the sort of independent entrepreneurship that Egypt needs to embrace if it is to succeed economically. As the President of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions Abu-Eita embodies the independent trade union movement that El-Borai espouses and Egypt needs to embrace in order for both economic success and for democracy to flourish as I discussed in my objections to Article 53 of the constitution.
This conflict over the economic path that Egypt will take means that the man with the toughest job in the new government is Mohamed Abu Sahdi. As the Minister for Supply it is Abu Sahdi who will be responsible for distributing subsidised food and fuel. If the rest of the government decide to do away with or scale back food and fuel subsidies it will be Abu Sahdi who has to implement the plan and justify it to the public. Fortunately Abu Sahdi is a former police general so should be well equipped to deal with any protests that follow cuts to subsidies and despite what some members of the government suggest Egypt will need to cut subsidies because the aid money from the Gulf states won't last for ever. The general economic consensus is that the fuel subsidy will have to be scrapped or at least significantly restricted. That is because it is the difference between what fuel costs on the open market and what Egyptian consumers are paying that is absolutely destroying Egypt's foreign currency reserves and the fuel subsidy disproportionally helps the middle classes who can afford to pay the market rate for fuel.
20:55 on 22/7/13.
The Brotherhood's main objective for the day though seemed to be to reassert themselves as the government of Egypt and through that add legitimacy to their protest. The main part of this was to assemble the 140 or so Brotherhood members that Morsi appointed to the dissolved Shura Council at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city for what they termed and extraordinary session. No details of what was discussed at this totally illegitimate meeting of former council members have been made public. This was followed by a press conference by the Muslim Brotherhood founded and dominated Engineers Syndicate calling for the release and reinstatement of Mohamed Morsi. The main purpose of the press conference though was to give a platform to members of the Morsi family including son Osama Morsi and daughter Shaimaa Morsi. They used that platform to accuse Egypt's military of kidnapping their father and announce that they are taking legal steps both within Egypt and internationally to secure his release and reinstatement. Although they didn't announce specifically what those legal measures are I think they are unlikely to work because Mohamed Morsi is quite reasonably being detained to prevent him inciting violence. The proof that he will incite violence is the Brotherhood's continuing demonstrations and their refusal to accept that he is no longer the President of Egypt. Therefore he will not be released until the Brotherhood end their demonstrations and accept the democratic process.
After the press conference a group of Brotherhood protesters attempted to march on the US Embassy in Cairo. The route they chose took them very close to Tahrir Square in what seems a clear attempt to provoke and intimidate the revolutionaries. Sadly the revolutionaries appear to have risen to this provocation leading to clashes involving stones being thrown and shotguns being fired. The police fired tear gas in an effort to separate the two groups but so far one person has been killed by bird shot fired by the protesters and 26 people have been injured.
I don't want to get too distracted by the Brotherhoods demonstrations and the violence they have caused though because I think it is long past time for me to comment more fully on Egypt's new interim government of national unity. I of course started talking about this focusing on the interim Prime Minister, the interim First Deputy Prime Minister and the two interim Deputy Prime Ministers here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_18.html
Obviously it will take far too long for me to comment on every appointment individually and a lot of them are simply qualified people quietly getting on with their jobs. For example you have Abdel-Aziz Fadel as the Minister for Civil Aviation. Having joined the Egyptian Air Force in 1972 as an aircraft maintenance engineer Fadel went on to get a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering and rose to the position of vice-president of safety and quality before moving into the civilian sector with Egypt Air. Therefore he is clearly knowledgeable in all aspects of aircraft design and operation and is more than qualified to cope with the technical aspects of things like the Boeing 777 crash in San Francisco and the ongoing 787 Dreamliner saga. His long military service may come as a worry to some who will claim it as evidence of a military takeover. However I think it is much more benign merely reflecting the fact that under Mubarak the military - especially the Air Force - were given priority in terms of education and funding so if you want to look for the most educated and talented people in Egypt today you really have to look towards people who served in the military.
As I said in my previous post on the subject a major theme of the new interim cabinet has been the reversal of Morsi era appointments with Asharf El-Araby returning to Planning and Atef Helmy returning to Communication and Information Technology. Therefore Ahmed Imam at Electricity, Hisham Zaazou at Tourism, Mohamed Ibrahim at Interior and Reda Hafez at Military Production stand out simply by having bucked that trend. However they all seem to achieved this by being apolitical ministers rather than Morsi cronies. For example Air Marshall Hafez is a long standing military man while the resignation of Zaazou over Morsi's appointment to the Governorship of Luxor helped bring about the June 30th revolution.
Another major theme of the interim government has been the conscious effort to make sure women are included. So we have Dorreya Sharaf El-Din at Information. Sharaf El-Din has worked extensively behind the scenes at the Egyptian Television and Radio Union and has appeared on-screen on both the state broadcaster and on the private Dream channel. She has also served as junior minister in the Information Ministry heading up the satellite channels division. As a result Sharaf El-Din knows the industry inside and out including the censorship dirty tricks that Mubarak used to employ and the negative effect they had on broadcasters. There is also Laila Rashed Iskandar at Environment and Maha El-Rabat at Health. One woman who I'm disappointed not to see in the interim government is Ines Abdel-Dayem who was offered the position of Minister of Culture but refused. This is unfortunate because while it seems insignificant Culture and cultural exchanges have long been one of the important behind the scenes ways that government communicate with each other. Being a classical flutist who trained in France and a former head of the Cairo Opera House Adbel-Dayem strikes as being more than qualified to deal with whatever things like Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour could throw at her. Therefore I hope she will be on hand to assist Mohamed Saber Arab as the history professor takes on the role.
Another Ministry that seems insignificant but is actually very important on the diplomatic level is the Ministry of Antiquities. For example Egypt's cultural heritage is world famous and a major tourist attraction. Also today's discovery of a Sphinx belonging to Mycerinus in northern Israel seems much like an attempt to open a discussion between Israel and Egypt in the wake of Morsi's ouster. Being a professor of antiquities and a former minister of antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim seems well qualified for the role although he has been severely criticised by fellow archaeologists and Egyptologists including many of his own employees. However the criticism from his employees seems to stem mainly from his abilities as a personnel manager rather then from his knowledge of the subject. This is of course something civil servants at the ministry and other members of the cabinet can help him with. The criticism from other archaeologists seems to stem mainly from his ministry's failure to prevent the looting and destruction of artefact's following the fall of Mubarak. Rather than being a particular fault of the minister this seems to be more a part of the general collapse of law and order in the post-Mubarak period and something he should co-ordinate closely with his namesake at the Interior Ministry to resolve.
The biggest spilt within the interim government reflects the biggest choice that Egypt faces at the moment - whether to continue with the outdated and failing centrally controlled economic model of the Mubarak era including subsidies for food and fuel or to reform to embrace the free market economic model recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
As the current economic model is so clearly failing it is hard to find any member of the interim government who will endorse it publicly. However I am concerned by any member who has extensive experience serving under the Mubarak government such as Adel Labib at Local Development, Ayman Abu-Hadid at Agriculture and Sherif Ismail at Petroleum. This is not because of anything that they've specifically said or done on the issue it's just that having been involved in one way or working for so long they may find it difficult to adapt to a new way of doing things. I am also slightly concerned about government members who are either serving or former members of the military and Reda Hafez at Military Production in particular because under Mubarak the military were heavily involved in the economy and they may be resistant to giving up that privileged position. The only minister who has gone on the record to express a desire to keep the economy as it is has been Osma Selah the minister for Investment who has stated that he is confident that foreign investment will return to Egypt once the political situation has settled. This to me indicates that he doesn't quite understand the underlying economic problems and the urgent need for reform.
There is though a much larger faction within the government that understands the need for reform led by the interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi who is an economist by training and the Finance Minister Ahmed Galal who is not only an economist who spent 18 years working for the World Bank but is an expert on privatisation and the regulation of markets and monopolies. They seem supported by the Minister for Planning and International Co-operation Ziad Bahaa El-Din who worked under Mubarak to set-up free trade zones, Ashraf El-Araby the Minister for Planning who has worked extensively negotiating with the IMF and Ahmed El-Borai the Minister for Social Solidarity who helped get Egypt off the International Labour Organisations short-term blacklist by arguing that Egyptian workers should be allowed to set up independent rather than state run trade unions. They should also be able to count on support from Laila Iskandar the Minister for the Environment and Kamal Abu-Eita the Minister for Manpower. Although Iskandar's background is in social enterprises she represents the sort of independent entrepreneurship that Egypt needs to embrace if it is to succeed economically. As the President of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions Abu-Eita embodies the independent trade union movement that El-Borai espouses and Egypt needs to embrace in order for both economic success and for democracy to flourish as I discussed in my objections to Article 53 of the constitution.
This conflict over the economic path that Egypt will take means that the man with the toughest job in the new government is Mohamed Abu Sahdi. As the Minister for Supply it is Abu Sahdi who will be responsible for distributing subsidised food and fuel. If the rest of the government decide to do away with or scale back food and fuel subsidies it will be Abu Sahdi who has to implement the plan and justify it to the public. Fortunately Abu Sahdi is a former police general so should be well equipped to deal with any protests that follow cuts to subsidies and despite what some members of the government suggest Egypt will need to cut subsidies because the aid money from the Gulf states won't last for ever. The general economic consensus is that the fuel subsidy will have to be scrapped or at least significantly restricted. That is because it is the difference between what fuel costs on the open market and what Egyptian consumers are paying that is absolutely destroying Egypt's foreign currency reserves and the fuel subsidy disproportionally helps the middle classes who can afford to pay the market rate for fuel.
20:55 on 22/7/13.
Cameron To Rape Nation.
Today the UK Prime Minister David Cameron has unveiled a range of measures to further restrict the freedom of the Internet. However rather than being honest about what he is doing Cameron is instead trying disguise his actions as a moral crusade to protect the nations children from online pornography particularly child pornography. As you may have guessed by now I am very opposed to these new measures.
Although child pornography is rightly illegal and measures should be taken to stop people producing it and distributing it as with the proposed gun control measures in the US following the Newtown massacre David Cameron's proposals bear little connection to the problem they claim to be solving. For maximum emotional impact Cameron has recruited the parents of April Jones and Tia Sharp who were both abducted and murdered by men who had accessed child pornography online. The argument being that we need to restrict the freedom of the Internet in order to prevent similar such murders. While I have my own opinions about the true motivation behind the murders of both April Jones and Tia Sharp if you take them at face value the April Jones case was an example of a stranger abduction and murder. The number of these taking place in the UK has remained constant at a yearly average of 5 per year every year since the 1970's. As Internet use didn't become widespread until the mid-1990's it is fair to say that online access to child pornography has no impact whatsoever on this type of crime being committed. The Tia Sharp case was an example of abduction by a friend/relative. According to figures from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) this type of crime peaked in 2004/5 at 1035 and has been falling steadily every year since to the point it had nearly halved to 561. Therefore there seems to be absolutely no connection between that type of crime and the availability of child pornography online. Uncomfortably you could actually begin to make the argument that the increased availability of online child pornography has actually reduced the risk of child abduction by giving paedophiles another outlet for their unpleasant compulsions.
The second issue is that even if you disregard the evidence David Cameron's proposals are all aimed at big Internet search engines such as Google and Bing which have very little to do with the distribution of child pornography. Believe it or not firms like Google are not the Internet and aren't even Internet Service Providers (ISP) like Sky broadband, Virgin media, Talk Talk etc. Instead the simply compile a list of what is on the Internet like the index in a book and they most certainly don't list everything that is out there. Along with drug dealing, weapons trafficking and terrorism the majority of online child pornography is distributed through something known as the Dark Web. This operates much more like a fax machine service. That is to say I type in the address of your computer and my computer connects to your computer and we can share information between the two machines. To do this you don't need Google or Bing and you don't even need an ISP like Virgin media. All you need is a computer and a telephone line. Therefore increased restrictions on companies like Google and ISP's will have absolutely no impact on the Dark Web. Of course by the time you've built up the contacts to operate in the Dark Web you will already be very heavily involved in child pornography. There is an argument that peer to peer file sharing sites such as Napster (the original), Bit-Torrent, Pirate Bay, Megaupload etc provide a gateway for people with a cursory interest in child pornography to become involved in the Dark Web. However these sites are already illegal and totally independent of companies like Google. Therefore putting more restrictions on the legal part of the Internet will do nothing to help get these sites that are often based in nations with weak legal systems and frequently change their identity get shut-down.
The main thing that David Cameron wants companies like Google to do is create a blacklist of search terms that will not yield results but while instead get the user reported to the authorities for further investigation. As I had to type the term "Child Rape" into Google in order to find the statistics needed to write this post the first problem this creates should be obvious - It makes it much more difficult for people to access information about the issue. If people are unable to access information about the issue it becomes much more difficult to have an informed discussion about the issue. If we can't have an informed discussion about the issue it becomes much harder to solve the problem. The second problem this blacklist creates is that it adds to the precedent that the government is allowed to dictate what terms people can and can't search for on the Internet. We have already seen this with the government restricting access to websites that promote terrorism therefore it is not hard to imagine us slipping towards a world where you're not allowed to search for terms like "David Cameron and Lynton Crosby."
The final big proposal is to get ISP's to block all websites that contain 'Adult Content' including legal adult pornography along with mainstream age restricted films and music videos. In order to access this type of content the contract holder has to contact the ISP in order to have the block lifted. This actually something I have practical experience of because O2 who provide Internet services to my Blackberry already operate this way.
This first big problem I've encountered is that in order to get the block lifted you need to prove your age using a credit card. I don't have a credit card so I can't get the block lifted. The second major problem is that the block in absolutely no way inhibits my ability to look at pornography because the majority of porn sites aren't registered with the ISP meaning the ISP has no idea they contain pornography. However the block does seriously inhibit my ability to access news and analysis sites like the one my brother writes for because they are registered with the ISP as containing 'Adult Content' such as discussion about child pornography on the Internet. The Femen activists are a particular problem because I can access literally millions of pictures of topless women on my Blackberry but I often can't access new stories about particular topless women who have accosted the Russian President.
The ISP block is also clearly laying the groundwork for the end of net neutrality by allowing ISP's to block access to websites. The next step is that ISP's will block access to websites they don't have an agreement with. So for example if you use Sky Broadband you will only be able to access websites run by Sky or if you use Virgin Media you will only be able to access websites run by Virgin.
Therefore I think the current system whereby parents who rightly want to restrict their children's access to the Internet can opt into a block when they sign up with an ISP is the better solution to the problem.
14:30 on 22/7/13.
Although child pornography is rightly illegal and measures should be taken to stop people producing it and distributing it as with the proposed gun control measures in the US following the Newtown massacre David Cameron's proposals bear little connection to the problem they claim to be solving. For maximum emotional impact Cameron has recruited the parents of April Jones and Tia Sharp who were both abducted and murdered by men who had accessed child pornography online. The argument being that we need to restrict the freedom of the Internet in order to prevent similar such murders. While I have my own opinions about the true motivation behind the murders of both April Jones and Tia Sharp if you take them at face value the April Jones case was an example of a stranger abduction and murder. The number of these taking place in the UK has remained constant at a yearly average of 5 per year every year since the 1970's. As Internet use didn't become widespread until the mid-1990's it is fair to say that online access to child pornography has no impact whatsoever on this type of crime being committed. The Tia Sharp case was an example of abduction by a friend/relative. According to figures from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) this type of crime peaked in 2004/5 at 1035 and has been falling steadily every year since to the point it had nearly halved to 561. Therefore there seems to be absolutely no connection between that type of crime and the availability of child pornography online. Uncomfortably you could actually begin to make the argument that the increased availability of online child pornography has actually reduced the risk of child abduction by giving paedophiles another outlet for their unpleasant compulsions.
The second issue is that even if you disregard the evidence David Cameron's proposals are all aimed at big Internet search engines such as Google and Bing which have very little to do with the distribution of child pornography. Believe it or not firms like Google are not the Internet and aren't even Internet Service Providers (ISP) like Sky broadband, Virgin media, Talk Talk etc. Instead the simply compile a list of what is on the Internet like the index in a book and they most certainly don't list everything that is out there. Along with drug dealing, weapons trafficking and terrorism the majority of online child pornography is distributed through something known as the Dark Web. This operates much more like a fax machine service. That is to say I type in the address of your computer and my computer connects to your computer and we can share information between the two machines. To do this you don't need Google or Bing and you don't even need an ISP like Virgin media. All you need is a computer and a telephone line. Therefore increased restrictions on companies like Google and ISP's will have absolutely no impact on the Dark Web. Of course by the time you've built up the contacts to operate in the Dark Web you will already be very heavily involved in child pornography. There is an argument that peer to peer file sharing sites such as Napster (the original), Bit-Torrent, Pirate Bay, Megaupload etc provide a gateway for people with a cursory interest in child pornography to become involved in the Dark Web. However these sites are already illegal and totally independent of companies like Google. Therefore putting more restrictions on the legal part of the Internet will do nothing to help get these sites that are often based in nations with weak legal systems and frequently change their identity get shut-down.
The main thing that David Cameron wants companies like Google to do is create a blacklist of search terms that will not yield results but while instead get the user reported to the authorities for further investigation. As I had to type the term "Child Rape" into Google in order to find the statistics needed to write this post the first problem this creates should be obvious - It makes it much more difficult for people to access information about the issue. If people are unable to access information about the issue it becomes much more difficult to have an informed discussion about the issue. If we can't have an informed discussion about the issue it becomes much harder to solve the problem. The second problem this blacklist creates is that it adds to the precedent that the government is allowed to dictate what terms people can and can't search for on the Internet. We have already seen this with the government restricting access to websites that promote terrorism therefore it is not hard to imagine us slipping towards a world where you're not allowed to search for terms like "David Cameron and Lynton Crosby."
The final big proposal is to get ISP's to block all websites that contain 'Adult Content' including legal adult pornography along with mainstream age restricted films and music videos. In order to access this type of content the contract holder has to contact the ISP in order to have the block lifted. This actually something I have practical experience of because O2 who provide Internet services to my Blackberry already operate this way.
This first big problem I've encountered is that in order to get the block lifted you need to prove your age using a credit card. I don't have a credit card so I can't get the block lifted. The second major problem is that the block in absolutely no way inhibits my ability to look at pornography because the majority of porn sites aren't registered with the ISP meaning the ISP has no idea they contain pornography. However the block does seriously inhibit my ability to access news and analysis sites like the one my brother writes for because they are registered with the ISP as containing 'Adult Content' such as discussion about child pornography on the Internet. The Femen activists are a particular problem because I can access literally millions of pictures of topless women on my Blackberry but I often can't access new stories about particular topless women who have accosted the Russian President.
The ISP block is also clearly laying the groundwork for the end of net neutrality by allowing ISP's to block access to websites. The next step is that ISP's will block access to websites they don't have an agreement with. So for example if you use Sky Broadband you will only be able to access websites run by Sky or if you use Virgin Media you will only be able to access websites run by Virgin.
Therefore I think the current system whereby parents who rightly want to restrict their children's access to the Internet can opt into a block when they sign up with an ISP is the better solution to the problem.
14:30 on 22/7/13.
Saturday 20 July 2013
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 4, Day 4.
I am still working on my analysis of Egypt's new interim government of national unity. Turning into something of a mammoth task this is now not likely to be ready until tomorrow, Sunday (21/7/13).
In the meantime though yesterday (19/7/13) the Muslim Brotherhood held their "The Second Crossing" day of protest amid much tension, heightened security and the fear of serious violence. In the end though it turned out to be something of a damp squib. The main reason for this is that according to international sources (the only available sources) the Brotherhood's national call out only managed to attract a maximum of 20,000 demonstrators to Cairo. As a result they weren't able to march on their designated targets of government and military buildings and international Embassies or block roads or railway lines in large enough numbers to cause the security forces any major problems.
There were though some small incidents of violence. The first of these occurred at the al-Azhar Mosque before midday prayers and before the official start of the Brotherhood's demonstrations. Brotherhood protesters gathered in the yard of the Mosque calling for the US to support Mohamed Morsi and condemn what they consider to be a coup. Local residents then attacked the Brotherhood demonstrators with stones and bottles forcing them out of the Mosque. Security forces intervened to keep the two groups separate amid reports of limited gunfire although there have been no reports of death of serious injury. The second incident occurred when Brotherhood protesters marched on the Presidential Palace. Fearing they were getting to close to the buildings perimeter the army fired tear-gas and the demonstrators dispersed. Again no fatalities or serious injuries have been reported.
A much more serious incident occurred in the city of Mansoura which is around 120km (75miles) north of Cairo on the Nile delta. What appears to have happened is that an all female protest under the banner of "Women Against the Coup Movement" were marching towards the Agriculture Directorate building when they were attacked by men armed with knives/swords, clubs and according to some witnesses firearms. In the ensuing chaos at three women were killed and at least one remains in a critical condition in hospital. Egypt's public prosecutor has launched an immediate investigation into the deaths and I fully support that investigation.
In the meantime though the Muslim Brotherhood have claimed that this attack was carried out by members of Mubarak's now disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) aided by members of the military. Therefore it is entirely possible that the Brotherhood have moved on from provoking the military into attacking their demonstrations to simply attacking their own demonstrations in order to portray themselves as victims of oppression. However it is also possible that this is a sign of how deeply unpopular the Muslim Brotherhood and their protests have become amongst Egypt's general population with people now taking matters into their own hands to limit the disruption to everyday life that the Brotherhood are causing. Quite apart from the fact that I think killing someone for expressing a political view is entirely wrong I think that members of the public should refrain from attacking Brotherhood demonstrators because it is exactly the sort of thing that will garner them sympathy and support helping to drag the protests and the disruption they cause out for much longer.
Also on Friday the Egyptian military began it's big operation against terrorists in the Sinai. However so far nothing much of note has happened. So I should explain that while this is a large operation and there will be fatalities the military's intention is not simply to kill terrorists. Instead they intend to separate them from the civilian population, capture their supplies and cut-off their re-supply routes. Therefore most of the early part of the operation is going to involve setting up check-points and gathering intelligence so when the military does finally come to confront the terrorists they will be able to do so in a way that minimises the risk of civilian casualties. Apart from counter-balancing the Brotherhood's "Second Crossing" protest the military operation appears to have been begun on the anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel in order to put the issue of the peace-treaty that war led to on the agenda for US Secretary of State John Kerry's meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
Late on Friday evening Kerry announced that those meetings had resulted in the resumption of peace talks between the unelected and Saudi backed Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority and Israel to be held in Washington, US at an unspecified point in the future. Apart from playing to the domestic US audience to make it look like the administration is still a player in the middle-east the US' main aim was to get both parties to Washington so the US can try and get a better understanding of what it is going on in a region where the US hasn't been relevant since the Libya war. Both Israel and Fatah's main motivation seems to be to strengthen Fatah's standing at the expense of the elected Hamas party. Although it is not the Egyptian military's intent Israel especially is hoping the security crack-down in the Sinai will help it achieve that end.
Finally in what is actually something of a side-note on Friday the UK suspended licenses for the export of radio and communication equipment along with spare parts for heavy machine guns and tanks to Egypt on the grounds they may be used against protesters. However the UK is continuing to allow the export of equipment such as assault rifles, combat shotguns and acoustic riot control devices (stun grenades) which are much more likely to be used against protesters. Therefore the suspension of these licenses is a clear attempt by the UK to put pressure on the Egyptian military in order to discourage them from stabilising the security situation in the country. The really depressing bit about this is that the Liberal Democrat Business Minister Vince Cable no doubt genuinely thought that by suspending these licenses he was showing solidarity for the people of Gaza by discouraging the Sinai operation.
16:30 on 20/7/13.
In the meantime though yesterday (19/7/13) the Muslim Brotherhood held their "The Second Crossing" day of protest amid much tension, heightened security and the fear of serious violence. In the end though it turned out to be something of a damp squib. The main reason for this is that according to international sources (the only available sources) the Brotherhood's national call out only managed to attract a maximum of 20,000 demonstrators to Cairo. As a result they weren't able to march on their designated targets of government and military buildings and international Embassies or block roads or railway lines in large enough numbers to cause the security forces any major problems.
There were though some small incidents of violence. The first of these occurred at the al-Azhar Mosque before midday prayers and before the official start of the Brotherhood's demonstrations. Brotherhood protesters gathered in the yard of the Mosque calling for the US to support Mohamed Morsi and condemn what they consider to be a coup. Local residents then attacked the Brotherhood demonstrators with stones and bottles forcing them out of the Mosque. Security forces intervened to keep the two groups separate amid reports of limited gunfire although there have been no reports of death of serious injury. The second incident occurred when Brotherhood protesters marched on the Presidential Palace. Fearing they were getting to close to the buildings perimeter the army fired tear-gas and the demonstrators dispersed. Again no fatalities or serious injuries have been reported.
A much more serious incident occurred in the city of Mansoura which is around 120km (75miles) north of Cairo on the Nile delta. What appears to have happened is that an all female protest under the banner of "Women Against the Coup Movement" were marching towards the Agriculture Directorate building when they were attacked by men armed with knives/swords, clubs and according to some witnesses firearms. In the ensuing chaos at three women were killed and at least one remains in a critical condition in hospital. Egypt's public prosecutor has launched an immediate investigation into the deaths and I fully support that investigation.
In the meantime though the Muslim Brotherhood have claimed that this attack was carried out by members of Mubarak's now disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) aided by members of the military. Therefore it is entirely possible that the Brotherhood have moved on from provoking the military into attacking their demonstrations to simply attacking their own demonstrations in order to portray themselves as victims of oppression. However it is also possible that this is a sign of how deeply unpopular the Muslim Brotherhood and their protests have become amongst Egypt's general population with people now taking matters into their own hands to limit the disruption to everyday life that the Brotherhood are causing. Quite apart from the fact that I think killing someone for expressing a political view is entirely wrong I think that members of the public should refrain from attacking Brotherhood demonstrators because it is exactly the sort of thing that will garner them sympathy and support helping to drag the protests and the disruption they cause out for much longer.
Also on Friday the Egyptian military began it's big operation against terrorists in the Sinai. However so far nothing much of note has happened. So I should explain that while this is a large operation and there will be fatalities the military's intention is not simply to kill terrorists. Instead they intend to separate them from the civilian population, capture their supplies and cut-off their re-supply routes. Therefore most of the early part of the operation is going to involve setting up check-points and gathering intelligence so when the military does finally come to confront the terrorists they will be able to do so in a way that minimises the risk of civilian casualties. Apart from counter-balancing the Brotherhood's "Second Crossing" protest the military operation appears to have been begun on the anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel in order to put the issue of the peace-treaty that war led to on the agenda for US Secretary of State John Kerry's meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
Late on Friday evening Kerry announced that those meetings had resulted in the resumption of peace talks between the unelected and Saudi backed Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority and Israel to be held in Washington, US at an unspecified point in the future. Apart from playing to the domestic US audience to make it look like the administration is still a player in the middle-east the US' main aim was to get both parties to Washington so the US can try and get a better understanding of what it is going on in a region where the US hasn't been relevant since the Libya war. Both Israel and Fatah's main motivation seems to be to strengthen Fatah's standing at the expense of the elected Hamas party. Although it is not the Egyptian military's intent Israel especially is hoping the security crack-down in the Sinai will help it achieve that end.
Finally in what is actually something of a side-note on Friday the UK suspended licenses for the export of radio and communication equipment along with spare parts for heavy machine guns and tanks to Egypt on the grounds they may be used against protesters. However the UK is continuing to allow the export of equipment such as assault rifles, combat shotguns and acoustic riot control devices (stun grenades) which are much more likely to be used against protesters. Therefore the suspension of these licenses is a clear attempt by the UK to put pressure on the Egyptian military in order to discourage them from stabilising the security situation in the country. The really depressing bit about this is that the Liberal Democrat Business Minister Vince Cable no doubt genuinely thought that by suspending these licenses he was showing solidarity for the people of Gaza by discouraging the Sinai operation.
16:30 on 20/7/13.
Thursday 18 July 2013
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 4, Day 2.
On Tuesday (16/7/13) Egypt's interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi unveiled the nations interim government of national unity a day ahead of schedule. This interim government contains 33 separate ministries with ministers and deputies set up to address all the complex issues involved in running a country of around 80 million people. As a result it is going to take me until at least Saturday (20/7/13) to fully read up on all the new appointments, their briefs and produce a full analysis.
However in the meantime it's clear that the main theme of the interim government is the appointment of people technically competent of running their respective departments. So for example Ahmed Iman has retained his post as Minister for Electricity because he is an engineer who specialises in electricity production and has spent his professional career working for various electricity production companies such as the Aswan high dam power plant. The other main feature of the interim government has been the reversal of Morsi era appointments taking key ministries out of the control of the Muslim Brotherhood and putting them back in the hands of members of the initial interim government. So for example Asharf El-Araby has gone back to Planning, Ayman Abu Hadid has returned to Agriculture and Atef Helmy has returned to Communication and Information Technology.
The big appointments though are the three deputy Prime Ministers;
The other main feature of the interim government is that while it retains some Morsi era appointments such as Ahmed Iman at Electricity and includes people like Kamal Abu-Eita who was elected to Parliament in 2011 on the Freedom & Justice Party's list it contains no Islamists from either the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Nour. Far from being an attempt to purge Islamists from Egyptian political life this is simply a case of both the Brotherhood and Al-Nour being offered government positions and them simply refusing to take them.
The reason that the Brotherhood and Al-Nour refused to take up the government posts they were offered is also quite obvious. Rather than participating in the democratic process the Islamists instead intend to disrupt it and day to day life in Egypt as much as possible and try and use the fact they're not in the interim government as a way to recruit new members. To that end the Brotherhood intend to use Friday's anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel to stage a day of protests they are dubbing "The Second Crossing." According to a leaflet circulated by the Brotherhood the protest will start at 15:00 (local time) and will see protesters attempt to block roads and railway lines and march on government buildings, military buildings and Embassies of nations they accuse of supporting what they call a coup. The intention is obviously to provoke a violent confrontation with the military and revolutionaries which the Brotherhood will then claim is evidence of them being oppressed.
The Egyptian military are taking precautions such as deploying extra troops and armoured vehicles to key locations and to Tahrir Square to protect revolutionaries. Although the military have made it clear that they will tolerate all forms of peaceful protest they will have response teams on stand-by to intervene to prevent violence and to clear blocked roads. It will be interesting to see what sort of numbers the Muslim Brotherhood will be able to bring out in protest because by all accounts even local residents in their Nasr city stronghold are getting sick of them and staging peaceful counter-protests calling on them to leave. Rather typically the Brotherhood are claiming that these residents are in fact violent thugs paid by the military to crush the protests. To my mind that just further illustrates how utterly deluded the Muslim Brotherhood are about the level of public support they have amongst the Egyptian people.
With terrorist attacks against police and military personnel now being a daily occurrence in the Sinai the Egyptian military have also announced that on Friday they will begin a very large operation involving the second field army, parachute regiments, the navy and the airforce to shut-down terror groups operating in the area. This has prompted objections from the Hamas government in Gaza who accuse the operation of being politically motivated against them. As far as I'm concerned this is not the case. The problem the Egyptian military have is that there are heavily armed groups attacking them in the Sinai while Islamists across the nation are threatening to start a civil war. There is also evidence that the armed groups in the Sinai are supplying weapons to the Islamists to help them with their civil war. Therefore the Egyptian military needs to go into the Sinai to shut-down these armed groups and cut their supply lines in order to hold the nation together. Any impact this operation has on the people of Gaza is purely coincidental although one that Israel is more than happy to see happen. Therefore it is really up to Hamas to protect themselves by making sure their smuggling routes aren't being used to smuggle weapons and fighters into Egypt to do battle with the Egyptian military because that is a battle Hamas will lose.
Also while I've been writing this Egypt's interim President Mansour has been scheduled to make a televised declaration on the committee that is being set up to rewrite the constitution. I'm not even sure that this address has taken place so am completely unable to comment on it. However it is already clear that the Muslim Brotherhood will reject the proposal out of hand while the revolutionary Tamarod movement have called for protests demanding the the constitution is scrapped and completely re-written. I will obviously deal with this in more detail when I know what has been proposed but I personally feel that there are large sections of the constitution that are well thought through and perfectly valid. However there are equally large sections that need to be re-written or scrapped entirely. The objections I raised at the time are of course all still valid and can be read here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/egypts-draft-constitution.html
19:55 on 18/7/13.
However in the meantime it's clear that the main theme of the interim government is the appointment of people technically competent of running their respective departments. So for example Ahmed Iman has retained his post as Minister for Electricity because he is an engineer who specialises in electricity production and has spent his professional career working for various electricity production companies such as the Aswan high dam power plant. The other main feature of the interim government has been the reversal of Morsi era appointments taking key ministries out of the control of the Muslim Brotherhood and putting them back in the hands of members of the initial interim government. So for example Asharf El-Araby has gone back to Planning, Ayman Abu Hadid has returned to Agriculture and Atef Helmy has returned to Communication and Information Technology.
The big appointments though are the three deputy Prime Ministers;
- Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi - Probably the most controversial of the appointments the head of Egypt's military takes on the role of first Deputy Prime Minister and the role of Defence Minister. The appointment at defence is pretty obvious because the military are the technical experts in defence matters. The appointment to First Deputy Prime Minister reflects the role that the military will play in keeping Egypt running day to day during the transition - especially in the area of security. By making El-Sissi First Deputy this actually increases the accountability of the military to the interim government because it brings him into Cabinet meetings which allows other ministers to question him about and raise any potential problems with the way the military are going about their task.
- Hossam Eissa - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Higher Education. A professor of law Eissa is clearly well experienced in the issues surrounding higher education. However it is his experience as a legal consultant to organisations is Egypt, Algeria and Japan as well as to international bodies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) that means he is also well experienced in the legal and political issues involved in building a democratic society. The fact that he was educated in France along with his international work means that he is known on the global stage and is able to bring fresh thinking to help solve Egypt's problems. He was also a founding member of Mohammed El-Baradei's secular Al Dostour party but left following a split. The exact reasons for this split is one of the areas I will have to research further.
- Ziad Bahaa El-Din - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Planning and International Co-Operation. A founding member of the secular Social Democrat Party (SDP) El-Din was of course suggest for the post of interim Prime Minister but his appointment was blocked by the Salafist Al-Nour party. With Bachelor degrees in both law and economics and a PHD in financial law El-Din obviously very knowledgeable in the areas of economics and law. As a result he has spent much of his career in the civil service working as a legal adviser to the Economics Ministry and as Chairman of the Investment and Free Trade Authority. That last posting means that El-Din is well positioned to conduct negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to introduce reforms needed to rescue Egypt from Greek levels trade deficits and foreign currency shortfalls. Making Al-Nour's decision to block his appointment as Prime Minister harder to explain El-Din was of course actually elected as a member of Parliament in the 2011 election.
The other main feature of the interim government is that while it retains some Morsi era appointments such as Ahmed Iman at Electricity and includes people like Kamal Abu-Eita who was elected to Parliament in 2011 on the Freedom & Justice Party's list it contains no Islamists from either the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Nour. Far from being an attempt to purge Islamists from Egyptian political life this is simply a case of both the Brotherhood and Al-Nour being offered government positions and them simply refusing to take them.
The reason that the Brotherhood and Al-Nour refused to take up the government posts they were offered is also quite obvious. Rather than participating in the democratic process the Islamists instead intend to disrupt it and day to day life in Egypt as much as possible and try and use the fact they're not in the interim government as a way to recruit new members. To that end the Brotherhood intend to use Friday's anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel to stage a day of protests they are dubbing "The Second Crossing." According to a leaflet circulated by the Brotherhood the protest will start at 15:00 (local time) and will see protesters attempt to block roads and railway lines and march on government buildings, military buildings and Embassies of nations they accuse of supporting what they call a coup. The intention is obviously to provoke a violent confrontation with the military and revolutionaries which the Brotherhood will then claim is evidence of them being oppressed.
The Egyptian military are taking precautions such as deploying extra troops and armoured vehicles to key locations and to Tahrir Square to protect revolutionaries. Although the military have made it clear that they will tolerate all forms of peaceful protest they will have response teams on stand-by to intervene to prevent violence and to clear blocked roads. It will be interesting to see what sort of numbers the Muslim Brotherhood will be able to bring out in protest because by all accounts even local residents in their Nasr city stronghold are getting sick of them and staging peaceful counter-protests calling on them to leave. Rather typically the Brotherhood are claiming that these residents are in fact violent thugs paid by the military to crush the protests. To my mind that just further illustrates how utterly deluded the Muslim Brotherhood are about the level of public support they have amongst the Egyptian people.
With terrorist attacks against police and military personnel now being a daily occurrence in the Sinai the Egyptian military have also announced that on Friday they will begin a very large operation involving the second field army, parachute regiments, the navy and the airforce to shut-down terror groups operating in the area. This has prompted objections from the Hamas government in Gaza who accuse the operation of being politically motivated against them. As far as I'm concerned this is not the case. The problem the Egyptian military have is that there are heavily armed groups attacking them in the Sinai while Islamists across the nation are threatening to start a civil war. There is also evidence that the armed groups in the Sinai are supplying weapons to the Islamists to help them with their civil war. Therefore the Egyptian military needs to go into the Sinai to shut-down these armed groups and cut their supply lines in order to hold the nation together. Any impact this operation has on the people of Gaza is purely coincidental although one that Israel is more than happy to see happen. Therefore it is really up to Hamas to protect themselves by making sure their smuggling routes aren't being used to smuggle weapons and fighters into Egypt to do battle with the Egyptian military because that is a battle Hamas will lose.
Also while I've been writing this Egypt's interim President Mansour has been scheduled to make a televised declaration on the committee that is being set up to rewrite the constitution. I'm not even sure that this address has taken place so am completely unable to comment on it. However it is already clear that the Muslim Brotherhood will reject the proposal out of hand while the revolutionary Tamarod movement have called for protests demanding the the constitution is scrapped and completely re-written. I will obviously deal with this in more detail when I know what has been proposed but I personally feel that there are large sections of the constitution that are well thought through and perfectly valid. However there are equally large sections that need to be re-written or scrapped entirely. The objections I raised at the time are of course all still valid and can be read here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/egypts-draft-constitution.html
19:55 on 18/7/13.
Tuesday 16 July 2013
It's Tuesday Night So I'm Back From the Pub.
However before I tell about how there are no obvious problems or the interesting sociological phenomenon in which an ethnically diverse crowd seems to be forcing a group of predominately one colour into a smaller space outside the pub door I must start by commenting on something that happened yesterday.
On Monday (15/7/13) the serious case review into murdered Croydon School girl Tia Sharp's contact with educational and social services prior to her death was published. Needless to say the authorities once again cleared themselves of any wrong doing although they did note an unacceptable tolerance amongst staff to marijuana use. As New Addington is very close to the border this was technically a review into the conduct of Merton borough council. However the reports publication was supposed to be intended to be seen as Croydon borough council very publicly disavowing the actions of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). This rather neatly brings me on to the events of this evening.
As I was sitting at this computer at around 17:00 writing up my previous post on Egypt the charming young lady living at 50 Beechwood Avenue decided to propel a metal rake head at my rear ground floor window with no effect. As she had a clear line of sight between the rake head, the window and my head I would say this was a clear attempt at criminal damage with reckless disregard for life contrary to S1.2 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act or even attempted murder contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. Therefore this gives both Croydon borough council and Croydon borough police a clear opportunity to demonstrate that they are no longer conspiring to protect the NHHT.
You see I will now be confirming my Thursday (18/7/13) meeting with the Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT). I fully expect that they will be accompanied by a representative of Croydon Council who will be prepared to begin eviction and closure proceedings against 50 Beechwood Avenue and other NHHT addresses as supported by the arrest, charge and conviction of the occupants of 50 Beechwood Avenue.
Of course if the SNT are still clinging to the belief that Thursday's meeting could be used as a way to ambush me with the NHHT's legally baseless allegation of criminal damage I should point out that I today telephoned Sarastro and am awaiting him to indicate what his next move is. Therefore any officer who attempts to arrest me should expect to be brought up on an attempted kidnapping charge.
19:22 on 16/7/13.
Edited at around 14:00 on 18/7/13 to add;
I've just had that meeting with the SNT but I'm prevented from going into too much detail. That's because we've moved from friendly off the record chats with Police Community Support Officers (PSCOS) to the start of a criminal investigation conducted by police officers into both the current occupants and the property owner. Obviously intimidation of witnesses is an issue but the next step seems to be to speak of other local residents about any suspicious, nuisance or intimidatory behaviour.
On Monday (15/7/13) the serious case review into murdered Croydon School girl Tia Sharp's contact with educational and social services prior to her death was published. Needless to say the authorities once again cleared themselves of any wrong doing although they did note an unacceptable tolerance amongst staff to marijuana use. As New Addington is very close to the border this was technically a review into the conduct of Merton borough council. However the reports publication was supposed to be intended to be seen as Croydon borough council very publicly disavowing the actions of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). This rather neatly brings me on to the events of this evening.
As I was sitting at this computer at around 17:00 writing up my previous post on Egypt the charming young lady living at 50 Beechwood Avenue decided to propel a metal rake head at my rear ground floor window with no effect. As she had a clear line of sight between the rake head, the window and my head I would say this was a clear attempt at criminal damage with reckless disregard for life contrary to S1.2 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act or even attempted murder contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. Therefore this gives both Croydon borough council and Croydon borough police a clear opportunity to demonstrate that they are no longer conspiring to protect the NHHT.
You see I will now be confirming my Thursday (18/7/13) meeting with the Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT). I fully expect that they will be accompanied by a representative of Croydon Council who will be prepared to begin eviction and closure proceedings against 50 Beechwood Avenue and other NHHT addresses as supported by the arrest, charge and conviction of the occupants of 50 Beechwood Avenue.
Of course if the SNT are still clinging to the belief that Thursday's meeting could be used as a way to ambush me with the NHHT's legally baseless allegation of criminal damage I should point out that I today telephoned Sarastro and am awaiting him to indicate what his next move is. Therefore any officer who attempts to arrest me should expect to be brought up on an attempted kidnapping charge.
19:22 on 16/7/13.
Edited at around 14:00 on 18/7/13 to add;
I've just had that meeting with the SNT but I'm prevented from going into too much detail. That's because we've moved from friendly off the record chats with Police Community Support Officers (PSCOS) to the start of a criminal investigation conducted by police officers into both the current occupants and the property owner. Obviously intimidation of witnesses is an issue but the next step seems to be to speak of other local residents about any suspicious, nuisance or intimidatory behaviour.
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 3, Day 7.
Yesterday (15/7/13) the Muslim Brotherhood held their largest day of protest since their "Day of Rejection" on July 5th (5/7/13) sparked nationwide violence that left a minimum of 36 people dead. The Brotherhood's plan was to bring over 1 million protesters to the streets of Cairo in order to shut down traffic across the city and attack the Embassies of nations who they accuse of supporting the ouster of Mohamed Morsi.
Fortunately the Brotherhood were only able to muster a maximum of 250,000 protesters but were able to block the October 6th bridge and Ramses Square which is one of Cairo's busiest road junctions. There were also static protests in Nasr city and Giza which is a south-western suburb of Cairo. The army and the police obviously moved into clear the October 6th bridge and the streets around Ramses Square leading to clashes in which tear gas was fired and two people were killed. In Giza more serious clashes broke out between Morsi supporters, revolutionaries and the security forces in which seven people were killed. Over all the night of violence left 7 dead, 250 injured and 400 people arrested.
In response to the violence the Tamarod movement has announced its intention to disband because it sees the time for street protests to be over so the political process can take over. Perhaps more importantly the Al-Azhar Mosque - Egypt's most powerful - has issued a statement prohibiting Muslims from attacking members of the Egyptian military and police. Hopefully the Muslim Brotherhood will heed this call because their actions now represent a clear threat to the safety and security of the Egyptian nation so will be met with a swift and strong response from the military should they continue.
Nowhere is the disruption that the Brotherhood's continuing protests are having on Egyptian society then in the announcement Sunday (14/7/13) that the nation's football premier league season is to be cancelled. This makes me a little nervous because I would much prefer to see the Ultras going to football matches rather then protesting against military rule in Tahrir Square as they did after the fall of Mubarak. Unfortunately though I don't see any other solution because the Interior Ministry simply don't have the resources to police the Muslim Brotherhood protests and football matches. In fact they barely have the resources to police the Brotherhood's protests.
The most serious threat to Egypt's security and stability though continues to come from the Sinai region where serious armed attacks take place on often a more than daily basis. Between July 5th (5/7/13) and July 12th (12/7/13) there were 27 separate attacks that left 12 people dead including 1 Coptic Christian who was beheaded seemingly simply for being a Christian. On Sunday (14/7/13) 3 people were killed and 16 injured when Islamists fired a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) at a police patrol but missed hitting a bus carrying cement factory workers back to Al-Arish. On the same day 1 adult and 1 child were killed when Islamist gunmen opened fire on a police station that was under construction again near Al-Arish. Today there was another gun attack on a police station in Sheikh Zuwayed although no casualties have been reported. Faced with this level of violence the Egyptian military have been fighting back hard. Since operations began around July 6th (6/7/13) they have reportedly killed 37 militants. On Monday (15/7/13) they captured and destroyed 23 smugglers undergound fuel tanks and today intercepted a shipment of Grad rockets and other military equipment on route from Suez to Cairo.
Things have got so bad that today Israel gave the Egyptian military permission to deploy to full battalions of troops to Sinai to tackle the militants head on. Although I fully appreciate that militants in the Sinai need to be smashed this worries me. That's because I understand that a lot of the work the smugglers who are linked to the Islamist terrorists do involves helping break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Therefore by provoking the Egyptian military into a confrontation the Islamists are running the risk that the smuggling routes that support the people of Gaza will also be dismantled. This is no doubt one of the reasons why Israel is so keen to allow Egyptian troops into the Sinai.
Elsewhere the government in Turkey have once again decried Morsi's ouster as a military coup and said that it still considers Morsi to be Egypt's President. Therefore I should explain that Turkey is a nation with a long history of a secular military overthrowing Islamist governments. With Turkey's current Islamist government coming under increasing domestic pressure over things like Gezi Park it is obviously going to object loudly to any secular military overthrowing an Islamist government anywhere in the world.
On the domestic political level while I've been writing this interim President Mansour has just unveiled his interim government of national unity However details are yet to emerge so I will have to take a while to compare it to the rumours I've been hearing and give a fuller reaction later.
17:30 16/7/13.
Fortunately the Brotherhood were only able to muster a maximum of 250,000 protesters but were able to block the October 6th bridge and Ramses Square which is one of Cairo's busiest road junctions. There were also static protests in Nasr city and Giza which is a south-western suburb of Cairo. The army and the police obviously moved into clear the October 6th bridge and the streets around Ramses Square leading to clashes in which tear gas was fired and two people were killed. In Giza more serious clashes broke out between Morsi supporters, revolutionaries and the security forces in which seven people were killed. Over all the night of violence left 7 dead, 250 injured and 400 people arrested.
In response to the violence the Tamarod movement has announced its intention to disband because it sees the time for street protests to be over so the political process can take over. Perhaps more importantly the Al-Azhar Mosque - Egypt's most powerful - has issued a statement prohibiting Muslims from attacking members of the Egyptian military and police. Hopefully the Muslim Brotherhood will heed this call because their actions now represent a clear threat to the safety and security of the Egyptian nation so will be met with a swift and strong response from the military should they continue.
Nowhere is the disruption that the Brotherhood's continuing protests are having on Egyptian society then in the announcement Sunday (14/7/13) that the nation's football premier league season is to be cancelled. This makes me a little nervous because I would much prefer to see the Ultras going to football matches rather then protesting against military rule in Tahrir Square as they did after the fall of Mubarak. Unfortunately though I don't see any other solution because the Interior Ministry simply don't have the resources to police the Muslim Brotherhood protests and football matches. In fact they barely have the resources to police the Brotherhood's protests.
The most serious threat to Egypt's security and stability though continues to come from the Sinai region where serious armed attacks take place on often a more than daily basis. Between July 5th (5/7/13) and July 12th (12/7/13) there were 27 separate attacks that left 12 people dead including 1 Coptic Christian who was beheaded seemingly simply for being a Christian. On Sunday (14/7/13) 3 people were killed and 16 injured when Islamists fired a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) at a police patrol but missed hitting a bus carrying cement factory workers back to Al-Arish. On the same day 1 adult and 1 child were killed when Islamist gunmen opened fire on a police station that was under construction again near Al-Arish. Today there was another gun attack on a police station in Sheikh Zuwayed although no casualties have been reported. Faced with this level of violence the Egyptian military have been fighting back hard. Since operations began around July 6th (6/7/13) they have reportedly killed 37 militants. On Monday (15/7/13) they captured and destroyed 23 smugglers undergound fuel tanks and today intercepted a shipment of Grad rockets and other military equipment on route from Suez to Cairo.
Things have got so bad that today Israel gave the Egyptian military permission to deploy to full battalions of troops to Sinai to tackle the militants head on. Although I fully appreciate that militants in the Sinai need to be smashed this worries me. That's because I understand that a lot of the work the smugglers who are linked to the Islamist terrorists do involves helping break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Therefore by provoking the Egyptian military into a confrontation the Islamists are running the risk that the smuggling routes that support the people of Gaza will also be dismantled. This is no doubt one of the reasons why Israel is so keen to allow Egyptian troops into the Sinai.
Elsewhere the government in Turkey have once again decried Morsi's ouster as a military coup and said that it still considers Morsi to be Egypt's President. Therefore I should explain that Turkey is a nation with a long history of a secular military overthrowing Islamist governments. With Turkey's current Islamist government coming under increasing domestic pressure over things like Gezi Park it is obviously going to object loudly to any secular military overthrowing an Islamist government anywhere in the world.
On the domestic political level while I've been writing this interim President Mansour has just unveiled his interim government of national unity However details are yet to emerge so I will have to take a while to compare it to the rumours I've been hearing and give a fuller reaction later.
17:30 16/7/13.
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