Lies, damn lies, and BBC captions

Misleading through captions at the Beeb: Blogger arrests hit record high.

The article features prominently a photo of a Chinese soldier, and take a look at the caption:

Elections in China, Pakistan and the US could prompt more arrests

If you take the time to read the actual WIA report you will find that Egypt, China and Iran accounted for more than half of all arrests. This color chart (pdf file) shows two arrests in the US for "other", which the report doesn't clarify at all.(*)

But hey, there's going to be an election here in the USA, so the study, and the Beeb, have no problem jumping to conclussions, all the while assuming a pattern similar to Egypt's, where you get to do 4 years of hell for insulting Islam:

Countries are enforcing greater Internet regulation, which will only increase with the elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the United States this year. Assuming a pattern similar to Egypt's occurs, the number of political blogger arrests has nowhere to go but up. With already four incidents in January and February, we expect the number of arrests in 2008 will exceed that of 2007.

Yes, folks, you read it here: an American election is regarded in the same category as elections in corrupt and/or authoritarian China, Pakistan and Iran, and is therefore cause to believe that bloggers will be arrested in the same pattern as in Egypt.

Jumping to conclusions in leaps and bounds, for sure.

(*) Michelle Malkin found that

The first blogger arrested in America was Daniel Aljughaifi, "for terrorism". Yep. As in training with Al Qaeda. I'm pretty cool with his getting arrested.

Second? Jack McClellan. They give the reason for that as "For posting pictures of little girls, being a pedophile". Great! Enjoy prison!

Third is a little more complicated, but not too much. Josh Wolf, "For videotaping a burning police car." Yeah, not quite. He was arrested for refusing to turn over his video of a burning police car >b>to a grand jury in a criminal investigation.

Not exactly what one would call a pattern similar to Egypt's, isn't it?



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A Note from the French Lunatic Asylum, and more in the afternoon roundup

A Note from the French Lunatic Asylum

Richard Landes has a translation of an article from the French weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur up at Augean Stables. Because I am unfamiliar with the naval-gazing world of the French Elite (they invented the word!), at first I thought that "Nouvel Observateur" must be some kind of French Idiom for Lunatic Asylum. The thing is such a monument to un-self conscious self-deification and denial of reality that it reads most readily as either parody or the ravings of the insane. If you read it sentence by sentence and really listen to what they are implying, it really sounds as if it was written by a group of loonies- some who think they are Napoleons, Louis XIV, a few Richelieus and a Robespierre or two- sitting around in the day room of a French mental hospital. I searched some of the names of the signatories and to my surprise, most of them appear to be out on the streets and without psychiatric "paperwork". So, I guess, it turns out that we were meant to take it seriously.

Go read the whole post, and make sure to read Circling the Wagons around Charles: Le Nouvel Obs calls for Solidarity with their colleague under attack
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Getting by with a little help... from your friends:


Mary Katherine Ham has Obama on your shoulder
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New blog Versailles Beat has a great post on Dr Oscar Elias Biscet
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Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows
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Via Ace, the Amazon Wish list for the men and women recovering at the Walter Reed Medical Center.
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The menu at the World Hunger Meeting: Your UN Dollars Fighting Hunger!
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Egypt Uncovers 'Missing' Pyramid, unfortunately most of it was gone.

Speaking of archeology, Machu Picchu got looted by a German guy before Bingham got there. Too bad Klaus Kinsky is dead - Herzog could have made a great movie with Kinsky playing Berns the raider. Or will Indy get the prequel?



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Cairo: Happy Hour cancelled at the Grand Hyatt

EGYPT GRAND HYATT BANS ALCOHOL, BOTTLES THREW [sic] IN THE NILE

No more alcohol in the British pub at the Cairo Grand Hyatt, where zealous employees last week threw in the Nile alcohol worth almost a million euro.

That's $1.7 million worth of good booze.

Interstingly, the article also mentions

"This is a Saudi interference in Egypt's economy and private affairs if they strictly apply religious traditions then they ought to move away from entertainment tourism which contradicts religious beliefs in many ways," said the source.

(h/t the Baron)


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Hamas brings down the wall

At the London Times, Exclusive: Hamas 'spent months cutting through Gaza wall in secret operation'

a Hamas border guard interviewed by The Times at the border today admitted that the Islamist group was responsible and had been involved for months in slicing through the heavy metal wall using oxy-acetylene cutting torches.

That meant that when the explosive charges were set off in 17 different locations after midnight last night the 40ft wall came tumbling down, leaving it lying like a broken concertina down the middle of no-man's land as an estimated 350,000 Gazans flooded into Egypt.
...
Asked whether he had reported it to the government, he replied: "It was the government that was doing this. Who would I report it to?"

The people who got through went shopping,

Thousands of people were herding back cows, sheep and even camels from Egypt into the Gaza strip. Others brought back motorbikes while many women lugged back cans of olive oil and men could be seen weighed down with jerry-cans full of fuel.
...
Some staggered back into Gaza carrying televisions, and others sported brand-new mobile phones. In Gaza City, prices of cigarettes - which had skyrocketed during the total blockade of the past week - fell by 70 per cent in a few hours.

Flopping Aces has the history of the wall.

The BBC plays the world's smallest violin: Egypt 'won't force Gazans back'

Egypt has said it will not use force to send back Palestinians who crossed from the Gaza Strip in large numbers after parts of the border were breached.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said the border would be closed again when all the Palestinians had returned.

Tens of thousands have surged in to buy food and other supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade - aimed at stopping rocket attacks from Gaza.

An Israeli blockade - but the wall is/was at the Gaza-Egypt border. Would the Beeb think of asking the Arab countries in the region why do they prevent their fellow Arabs from moving freely across borders?

Israeli Cool:

It looks like yesterday’s clashes between Gazan women and Egyptian border guards were staged specifically for the purpose of doing this pre-planned operation in such a way that Egypt would be unwilling to interfere.

And it seems probable that everything we've seen over the past few days - Hamas closing bakeries, shutting the fuel plant, perhaps even the rocket barrages themselves last week - were all meant to play to world opinion, create a fake "crisis", all ultimately to force Egypt to open Rafah, something that Hamas has been trying to do for months.

Would it ever occur to the Beeb and others - never mind to the Gazans, too - that perhaps living in peace with their neighbors, Israel and Egypt, could be a solution to their shortages and needs?

Indeed, ShrinkWrapped sees possibilities,

The possibilities are intriguing. Gaza can now integrate its economy with Egypt and start to build structures. If Tom Barnett, et al, are correct this will inevitably moderate their behavior. If, as is more likely (consider the Scorpion and the Frog), Hamas provokes a larger war with Israel, Gaza citizens will have an exit and can become real refugees, not the faux refugees they have been since 1948. In such a circumstance, the strictures that have been imposed on Israel by the human shields that Hamas has wielded so effectively, will loosen with results that have the potential to surprise many and change the dynamics of the confrontation in unforeseeable ways.

This could well be the start of very significant shifts in the Israeli-Palestinian dynamics; time will tell.

Let's hope.


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Sarko pushes for French naval base in Abu Dhabi, sells nuclear power

Sarko's been trying hard to re-establish France as a power in the Middle East, and has plans for a French naval base in Abu Dhabi.

First, there are the nuclear deals with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Libya, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco:
Sarkozy Pushes Nuclear Energy in Mideast

Currently the world's most aggressive salesman for nuclear power, Sarkozy has visited multiple Muslim states in the last six weeks -- including the globe's biggest oil producers -- to peddle French nuclear technology or make multibillion-dollar deals.

"Why should Arab countries be deprived of the energy of the future?"

Why indeed, when they have the mullahs breathing down their necks? Especially if companies that develop and build the nuclear power plants are owned primarily by the French government?

Sarko's nuclear proliferation plans don't stop with a vision of a Mediterranean cooperation council (whatever that may mean),

Argentina, Chile, Vietnam and Indonesia also are reportedly discussing the possibility of buying French-designed reactors.

May I indulge in a little speculation? Let's say that Hugo persuades the FARC to release French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt. Woudln't Venezuela be included in this group?

But I digress.

As part of Sarko's Middle East vision, he's signed a deal with Abu Dhabi for a permanent French naval base:

This projects France into the complex politics of the Gulf, identifying it even more closely with Gulf Arab countries which have expressed concern about the future policies of Iran.

President Sarkozy appears willing to accept that this exposes France to the risks involved in such a sensitive area, highlighted by the confrontation between Iranian speedboats and US naval ships recently. There is also a dispute between Abu Dhabi and Iran over three small islands in the Strait of Hormuz. The president said the base was agreed at the request of the Emirates.

That's in addition to the two nuclear power reactors that the French will build in Abu Dhabi.

Nuclear proliferation, and military expansion, a la francaise.

Never mind a mild whiff of realpolitik

The French base agreement coincides with a major visit to the region by President Bush, during which he has criticised Iran.

France might be seen as aligning itself more openly with the US, which maintains its own large base in Bahrain for the Fifth Fleet and which has also been selling arms to Gulf countries.

Speculation welcome in the comments section.


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The debate over FGM, on TV

MEMRI has a video clip of a debate between two Egyptian Islamic scholars that was broadcast on Al-Arabiya TV on February 12, 2007. One of them, Sheikh Mahmoud Ashur, who is a member of Al-Azhar's Islamic ResearchAcademy (or Islamic Research Council), specifically states (emphasis added),

Female circumcision is not part of Islam. Rather, it is a traditional custom. Under no circumstances should we follow this custom, because it leaves a deep wound in the souls of these girls, which has a psychological, emotional, and social impact on their lives. Female circumcision does a lot of damage. This damage is harmful, and it shatters the girl's soul. Therefore, it is absolutely forbidden to perform this custom. No person should do this, because it is harmful and causes damage.

Read the transcript here.

(h/t Sigmund, Carl and Alfred)

More on 22 yr old blooger Abdel Kareem's conviction

After I posted about Abdel Kareem's conviction, a commenter named Ahmad wrote,

Hello, could you help me promote this freedom video as much as you can, if you agree to its contents, of course. It’s about Egypt’s real nature and the accelerating imprisonment of freedom fighters in general, and bloggers like Kareem and many others under severe threats from the Egyptian Government.

Many thanks, Ahmad

Here is the link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbEM6soTHOA

Here's the video:

About.com has how to help Abdel Kareem, including the following,

Reporters Without Borders states that Egypt is bucking to host a stage of the United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum in 2009 (ironically, the country is on the group's list of 13 Internet enemies). Lobby against Egypt's inclusion in this event by contacting Nitin Desai, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Adviser for Internet Governance, at igf@unog.ch. (Mailing address and phone/fax numbers here.)

Read more about it from Sandmonkey

Here's the link to the Free Kareem.org website, which is down at the moment

Special thanks to Siggy for his help.

Cross-posted at MNM

Internet free speech, and today's items

Dissent Crushed: Abdel Kareem, Egypt's Free Speech Martyr

The consequences of the verdict and sentence are grave, both for Abdel Kareem and the for the Egyptian blogosphere in general.

If Abdel Kareem’s appeals are unsuccessful, he will have to spend the next four years in prison, where he could very likely get killed by an over-enthusiastic believer. His other option is to spend the next four years in solitary confinement, which won’t probably bode well for his mental health. Dead or crazy, those are his options now.

As far as the blogosphere, the implications are equally dangerous. This verdict sets a legal precedent for prosecuting someone for what they write on the Internet, on charges that are not easily defined or defended against. This could be used to prosecute any blogger the government feels like punishing, and serves a huge blow to freedom of speech in Egypt.

---------------------------------------------------Iran Moving Aggressively in Latin America. I'll post more on the subject next week.
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Former ACLU Chapter President Arrested for Child Pornography
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Juan Williams and Dr. Krauthammer on Hillary:

CK:...Hillary has been running for 20 years. Her husband that gave the keynote address at the convention in 1988, and remember when Bill ran, he said you buy one, you get one free. So she and her husband have been in the business of the presidency, organizing, laying the groundwork, for twenty years. Here she is, all of a sudden, this guy comes out of nowhere on the back of one book, two years in the Senate, and a media swoon, and she's asking herself how is this possible, and she's, you know, her coronation is interrupted, and her strategy has to be to challenge this guy over and over again, on whatever it is, as a way to knock him off his course. Either he fights back and then he ends up in the gutter with her, and he loses his sheen, or he runs away, and everybody says he’s weak, he doesn’t have the stomach and the fight to be a president. So it's going to happen over and over again. This is round one, it's a fifteen rounder.

HH: Juan, do you agree with that analysis?

JW: Yeah, I think that's pretty wise. I mean, the difficulty here is I think Obama wants to rise above the static. He just doesn’t have the money, he doesn't have the organization, he doesn't have Bill Clinton and all of the people who have benefited from Clinton’s time in the White House, he doesn’t have all the political consultants who are on the payroll. So what Obama has got to do at this point is rely on momentum, and say that he is part of a new kind of American, and especially Democratic Party politics that's not the politics of polarization, that he is simply looking to pull people together, and he wants, he has the capacity to capture the middle of the American electorate in the general election, and assure the Democrats a win. So if he gets involved in the dirty, you know, trading dirt with Hillary Clinton, that's not to his advantage. And Geffen this week, now some people might say Geffen did that without Obama's permission, but when he starts saying, when Geffen starts talking about the Clintons a liars, when he starts talking about Hillary as overscripted, overproduced, inauthentic, a lot of people think oh, is that Obama? And then Hillary's people say Obama's got to apologize. Obama's got to return the money. Obama says no, it wasn't me. I'm not returning anything. That's not to Obama's advantage, although I think if you look back over the last week or so, it's Hillary who's taken the shots here. I think Hillary has been damaged. I don't know that it was so wise for her to elevate that Maureen Dowd column to the kind of height that she did by responding to it so angrily.

Neo-Neocon has some Thoughts on Hillary and other female heads of state

Hillary's iron has been shown more in the cause of getting first her husband and then herself elected, at least so far. And she's tainted by the brush of her own possible corruption as well as Bill Clinton's moral failings, and her own compromises in service of his career and the preservation of their marriage.

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Today's video: A world without America: