authoritarianism in MENA

rime Ministe

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday he favors a presidential system for Turkey and may bring up the issue if he wins general elections next year, Anatolia news agency reported. "After 2011... a presidential system may again come to Turkey's agenda... If the people give us their blessing, this can be discussed in the framework of a brand new constitution," Anatolia quoted Erdogan as saying. Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) has already drafted a set of constitutional amendments curbing the powers of key judicial bodies, overriding opposition criticism that it is seeking to tighten its grip on power.

Often accused of having authoritarian ambitions, Erdogan declined to say whether he would consider running for the top post if a presidential system was installed. "I cannot say anything about myself at the moment. If the people approve a presidential system... then what comes next will be a different matter," he was quoted as saying. A presidential system, he argued, will allow Turkey "to gain a faster pace of development."

High Commissioner Navi Pillay said countries in the region need to address the issues of abuse against foreign workers and improve women's rights.

Al-Arabiyah news

Underground music with Arabic lyrics

Ruba Saqr sings her self-composed folk songs as authentically as her vocal improvisations inspired by Islamic mysticism.

this talent is not mine, it's a gift from God, or rather an amaneh one is entrusted with.

adio interview with me on Watan FM (Jordan) a few months ago. The interview talks about alternative Arabic music, commercial waves and the general media strategies in the Arab World and how they prefer to support morally deteriorating forms of so-called art on the expense of productive and creative forms of self expression.

Ghobadi has managed to smuggle a DVD of No One Knows About Persian Cats into Iran. He is urging supporters to copy and distribute it for free, and tells people to spend their money on the musicians still living in Iran.

Muslim clerics are quick to point out that the virginity issue is not about religion. "We should remember that when people wait for the virgin's blood to be spilled on the sheet, these are all cultural traditions," says Syrian cleric, Sheikh Mohamad Habash. "This is not related to Shariah law." Christian communities in the Middle East are often just as firm in their belief that women should be virgins when they marry. Arab writer and social commentator, Sana Al Khayat believes the whole issue has much to with the notion of "control". "If she's a virgin, she doesn't have any way of comparing [her husband to other men]. If she's been with other men, then she has experience. Having experience makes women stronger."

The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins. "We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them.

"The Revolutionary Guards are smiling at the idea of new sanctions against Iran," said a Western executive who represents one of the world's largest oil companies. "Sanctions against the industry or preventing foreign companies from selling gasoline to Iran will mean more money, power and influence for the Guards," he said.

Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Guard has vastly increased its business activities. Working through its construction-sector arm, the Guard operates Tehran's international airport, builds the nation's highways and constructs communications systems. It also manages Iran's weapons-manufacturing business, including its controversial missile program. Iran's leaders view the Guard's involvement in the oil industry as normal and say the elite military branch is merely helping to develop a nation under sanctions. The Guard's construction arm acts as a commercial company, but it is unclear how its revenue is handled. Commanders say the Guard's income is transferred to the national treasury, but no public records detail the amounts.

The Guard, whose Khatam ol-Anbia arm is the biggest construction contractor in the country, publicly boasts of its growing experience in huge oil projects. "Today, the Revolutionary Guards are proud to have such knowledge and capability that we can easily replace big foreign companies like Total and Shell in taking over big projects at Asalouyeh," senior commander Yadollah Javani told the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency last weekend. Western analysts say that on major projects, however, the Guard typically subcontracts the most complex work to foreign companies, most of them now from China.

Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,”

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,”

Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact. Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

for many guardsmen, they have become the establishment they grew up to despise

Ahmadinejad has moved to retire guardsmen, many with years of experience, and replace them with cadres of young, ideologically committed and loyal recruits. Empowered and imbued with an almost immature enthusiasm for confrontation, these new recruits are simply accentuating the existing tensions, as the old guard, bloodied by war and professionalised by experience, look on with disdain at the naivety of their successors.

Decades of repression have ensured that the opposition is quiescent in Egypt and virtually inaudible in Saudi Arabia. But they have also made these countries vulnerable to violent disruption. Transition in autocracies often means instability.

the closed political systems of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the uncertainties of dynastic power-mongering and the corruption inherent in patronage-ridden autocracies still often leads to plotting at the top and frustration that could spill over into anger at the bottom. That becomes more likely as the internet, mobile phones and easier travel make people far less easy to control.

What the Arabs need most, in a hurry, is the rule of law, independent courts, freeish media, women’s and workers’ rights, a market that is not confined to the ruler’s friends, and a professional civil service and education system that are not in hock to the government, whether under a king or a republic. In other words, they need to nurture civil society and robust institutions.

if history gives cause for optimism regarding the opposition’s prospects for success, it also gives cause for caution. Their primary goals achieved, the coalitions leading the past century’s three reform movements quickly crumbled, riven by conflicting objectives and ideologies. After the Constitutionalists ousted the shah’s prime minister and convened a parliament, they quickly found themselves pitted against clergy advocating an Islamic state. By 1911, Russian troops had shelled and disbanded the parliament, leading clerics had been executed, and Iran was controlled by the Russians in the north and the British in the south. Two years after coming to power, the coalition led by the National Front was similarly fractured, and communist partisans were the strongest force in the streets. A U.S.- and British-organized coup soon ousted Mossadeq. And finally, in the months after the Islamic republic was established, Khomeini’s Iran plunged into bloody violence between competing factions. The regime likely only survived due to the unifying effect of the war with Iraq in 1980. The international community should not worry that the Green Movement is doomed, but it should harbor no illusions that its success would inevitably lead to peace and democracy in the long term. Indeed, the United States and its allies should be considering not only how best to support the democratic aspirations of Iranians but also how to prepare for the real possibility of instability in Iran should the opposition prevail.

Globally, one in 10 Internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. Often young and digitally savvy, these users spread information independently of governments and beyond manipulation by cultural and religious elites. The researchers found that day-to-day civic discourse, not cyber terrorism, is the most important political aspect of the Internet in Muslim countries, and that the Internet is helping societies get better at running elections, providing civic services and exposing corruption. Researching their topic, Howard and his team determined that "The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy" would be the first book to move beyond potential and hypothetical relationships between the spread of communication technology, such as mobile phones and the Internet, and empirical evidence about democratic outcomes.

Saudi Arabia's telecom regulator has shut down three websites that were violating a government decree limiting the issuance of religious edicts to the country's most senior group of clerics

Western diplomats said the vote would also embolden Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. His Justice and Development Party has sought to make Turkey a player in regional diplomacy as a European bridge to other Muslim countries.