Arab World

The Egyptian military’s ultimatum to the Muslim Brotherhood President Muhammad Morsi and his left, liberal & centrist political opposition to find a compromise by 4 pm Wednesday Egyptian time was disregarded by both sides, but most spectacularly by Morsi himself. The country was plunged into crisis when some 3 million demonstrators against Morsi came out […]

Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi’s support in his own government began crumbling on Monday. Ten independent members of the Egyptian upper house or senate (Majlis al-Shura) resigned, ahead of 6 cabinet members in the Morsi government (including the minister of foreign affairs, who announced his resignation on Monday). The resignations come in the wake of Sunday’s […]

Egypt is in for a hard week. To take the edge off let’s enjoy Mina Nabil Ramzy’s slide show of nostalgia for Egypt in simpler times, set to the French/Egyptian singer Dalida’s 1979 hit, “Helwa Ya Baladi” (Egypt My Beautiful Country).

My column is out at Truthdig, “How Egypt’s Michelle Bachmann became President and Plunged the country into Chaos”. Excerpt: “Despite Egypt’s sagging economy, Morsi did not make stimulating it his first priority, and instead tried to please the International Monetary Fund with austerity policies, rather on the model of the Mariano Rajoy government in Spain. […]

Tens of thousands of leftist, liberal and centrist protesters gathered in Tahrir Square on Friday for “The Last Warning” aimed at President Muhammad Morsi of the Brotherhood. Morsi has ruled Egypt for the past year, after winning the presidential election in June of 2012. He has made a series of arrogant and polarizing policy decisions […]

Egypt is beset today with dueling large protests for and against President Muhammad Morsi. In some places, as in Alexandria, they turned violent, and in the provinces a number of headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood have been occupied or burned. I’ll do a summary tonight. Channel 4 News has raw video of clashes