The Scientific Institute in Cairo has been burned. It was the second oldest such institute outside Europe, after the one in Philadelphia. Some 200,000 rare books and manuscripts are abruptly gone. The military government of Egypt allegedly stationed snipers atop the building, who fired on demonstrators, putting the Scientific Institute in the crossfire of Egypt’s […]
Tomgram: Nick Turse, The Life and Death of American Drones
The drone had been in the air for close to five hours before its mission crew realized that something was wrong…
Iraq on the Brink: Court Forbids VP al-Hashimi from Leaving Country
The Iraqi equivalent of the supreme court issued an order Monday forbidding Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi from leaving Iraq, according to al-Hayat writing in Arabic. The order came on the heels of the issuance of a warrant against him, accusing the Sunni Arab politician of involvement in a bomb plot in the Green Zone aimed […]
Egyptian Protesters Demand Military Step Down in Wake of Blue Bra Beating
Demonstrations and clashes continued in downtown Cairo for the third day on Sunday, as protesters rallied against the police crackdown on Saturday, which entailed use of live ammunition and left 10 dead of 500 wounded. They demanded that the Egyptian military immediately step down, and continued to reject the appointment of a Mubarak-era prime minister, […]
Iraq’s al-Maliki Seeks Arrest of Sunni VP as Terrorist, Parliament in Uproar
Only a couple days after US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared the Iraq War over and turned the last US base in Iraq over to the Iraqi military, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has struck against a Sunni Arab vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi. Iraqi police have issued an arrest warrant for Hashimi, a member […]
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One year on– Mohamed Bouazizi’s Sacrifice
Aljazeera English on the one-year anniversary of the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia– an act of despair that sparked the Arab upheavals of 2011: In Sidi Bouzid today, people were outting up banners in his honor. See also the retrospective by AFP: Russia Today also covers the anniversary and continued Tunisian […]
Obama/ Maliki Conflicts on the Future of Iraq
Al-Sharq al-Awsat carried an article on December 15 about the behind the scenes conflicts between US President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. My guess is that a Maliki staffer leaked these conflicts. The piece was translated by the USG Open Source Center and I’m using their rendering when quoting in English below. […]
No War Crimes Trial for Bush/Cheney, While Chirac Convicted on minor Fraud
The United States is now officially more corrupt than the Old World. Former French president Jacques Chirac has been found guilty of corruption when he was mayor of Paris in the early 1990s (he allegedly paid his own party workers for jobs that did not exist). He was given a two-year suspended sentence. George W. […]
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