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Ed Webb

Under Sisi, firms owned by Egypt's military have flourished - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...egypt-economy-military

Egypt economy military KSA UAE Saudi US USA

shared by Ed Webb on 19 May 18 - No Cached
  • Maadi is one of dozens of military-owned companies that have flourished since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former armed forces chief, became president in 2014, a year after leading the military in ousting Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
  • In interviews conducted over the course of a year, the chairmen of nine military-owned firms described how their businesses are expanding and discussed their plans for future growth. Figures from the Ministry of Military Production - one of three main bodies that oversee military firms - show that revenues at its firms are rising sharply. The ministry’s figures and the chairmen’s accounts give rare insight into the way the military is growing in economic influence.
  • Some Egyptian businessmen and foreign investors say they are unsettled by the military’s push into civilian activities and complain about tax and other advantages granted to military-owned firms
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  • In 2016, the military and other security institutions were given exemptions in a new value-added tax (VAT) law enacted as part of IMF-inspired reforms. The law states that the military does not have to pay VAT on goods, equipment, machinery, services and raw materials needed for the purposes of armament, defense and national security.The Ministry of Defense has the right to decide which goods and services qualify. Civilian businessmen complain that this can leave the system open to abuse. Receipts for a cup of coffee at private sector hotels, for example, add 14 percent VAT. Receipts at military hotels do not. Employees at the military-owned Al-Masah Hotel in Cairo told Reuters that no VAT was charged when renting venues for weddings and conferences.
  • The Ministry of Military Production is projecting that operating revenues from its 20 firms will reach 15 billion Egyptian pounds in 2018/2019, five times higher than in 2013/2014, according to a ministry chart. The ministry does not disclose what happens to the revenues. The chairmen of two of the firms said profits go to the ministry or are reinvested in the business.
  • “I don’t want to be a local shop. I want to be a company that has the capacity to export and compete internationally.”
  • Egypt’s military, the biggest in the Arab world, has advantages.It enjoys financial support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, staunch supporters of Sisi since he toppled the group they see as a threat to the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood. Western powers see Cairo as a bulwark against Islamist militancy. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually from the United States alone.
  • Among projects the Ministry of Military Production announced in 2017 was a plan to plant 20 million palm trees with an Emirati company and build a factory to make sugar from their dates. It agreed with a Saudi company to jointly manufacture elevators. The military inaugurated the Middle East’s biggest fish farm on the Nile Delta east of Alexandria.
  • The Ministry of Military Production signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s GCL Group last week to build a solar panel factory worth up to $2 billion. The military has taken over much of the construction of intercity roads from the Ministry of Transport and now controls the toll stations along most major highways.
  • Economists and investors say reforms tied to a $12 billion three-year IMF program signed in Nov. 2016 should lay the ground for economic expansion. But foreign investors are still shying away from Egypt, apart from those focusing on the more resilient energy sector. Non-oil foreign direct investment fell to about $3 billion in 2017 from $4.7 billion in 2016, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank statistics.  
  • foreign investors were reluctant to invest in sectors where the military is expanding or in one they might enter, worried that competing against the military with its special privileges could expose their investment to risk. If an investor had a business dispute with the military, the commercial officer said, there was no point in taking it to arbitration. “You just leave the country,” he said.
  • The chairmen of two military engineering companies, Abu Zaabal Engineering Industries Co and Helwan Engineering Industries Co, said in recent years it had become much easier to access financing through the Ministry of Military Production.
  • In 2015, the defense minister issued a decree exempting nearly 600 hotels, resorts and other properties owned by the military from real estate taxes
  • Military companies receive an exemption from import tariffs under a 1986 law and from income taxes under a 2005 law. Cargoes sent to military companies do not have to be inspected.
  • At bustling Cairo squares, people line up to buy subsidized meat and other food handed out from trucks sponsored by the military. Sisi said he had instructed the military to enter the market “to supply more chicken to push down prices.”Some disagree with such measures on the grounds the military’s mission is to protect the country from external threats.“We have reached a point where they are competing even with street vendors,”
Ed Webb

Ministry neither confirms nor denies second Northern Iraq pipeline - Today's Zaman, you... - 0 views

www.todayszaman.com/...nd-northern-iraq-pipeline.html

Turkey Iraq oil energy pipelines

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • As Iraq's northern Kurdistan region signaled plans to build a second new oil export pipeline to Turkey, the claim brought neither confirmation nor denial from the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.
  • The construction of the first pipeline to Turkey is complete, and the pipeline is now being tested in preparation for the start of commercial shipments in the first quarter of 2014, according to ministry officials. Energy-dependent Turkey has quietly built up a large commercial presence in Northern Iraq, and its courting of Iraqi Kurds in order to form a closer energy partnership has infuriated Baghdad, which claims sole authority over Iraqi oil
Ed Webb

The Deportation of Omar Shakir: The Israeli Supreme Court and the BDS Movement - Lawfare - 0 views

www.lawfareblog.com/supreme-court-and-bds-movement

Israel Palestine israelpalestine BDS sanctions boycott settlements law EU

shared by Ed Webb on 30 Nov 19 - Cached
  • Two judgments handed down just days apart—one by the Israeli Supreme Court and the other by the European Court of Justice—highlight a growing jurisprudential divide between Israeli and international courts on the status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank
  • On Nov. 12, the European Court of Justice ruled that Israeli food products from the West Bank and Golan Heights must be explicitly labeled as coming from “Israeli settlements,” rather than from Israel itself. The ruling, which cited European Union regulations designed to allow consumers to make informed choices about their food purchases, held that since international humanitarian law limits Israeli jurisdiction in these territories to that of an “occupying power,” it would be misleading to represent such products as being “from Israel.”
  • stakes of the long-anticipated Israeli Supreme Court judgment in Human Rights Watch v. Interior Minister, handed down just a week earlier. In its judgment, the court upheld a government decision to expel Human Rights Watch’s (HRW’s) Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir, from the country, based on a law barring entry by foreigners who promote boycotts of Israel or its West Bank settlements. The case marked the first time the court was called upon to rule on the law’s application to boycott-related activities directed primarily at the settlements, rather than at Israel itself.
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  • In 2015, in Avneri v. The Knesset, a divided court upheld most of the 2011 law, striking down a provision providing for punitive damages in civil tort cases and construing the law narrowly in order to limit liability to instances where there is a proven causal link to concrete damage. (For more on Avneri, see here and here.) Most significantly for our purposes, a majority of justices in Avneri upheld the law’s contentious provision (which applies equally to the 2017 amendment), equating settlement boycotts to boycotts against Israel as a whole.
  • A boycott directed at an individual company due to its specific behavior, by contrast (for example, because it engaged in discrimination or in some other problematic activity), would not risk running afoul of the law.
  • If actively promoting HRW’s stance on settlements is enough to demonstrate ongoing promotion of boycotts, any new employee could face similar consequences. Israeli employees of HRW, too, could face civil or administrative ramifications simply for implementing HRW’s stated policy of calling on businesses “to stop operating in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of their duty to avoid complicity in human rights abuses.”
  • Several amici from both sides of the political spectrum, including NGO Monitor, Shurat HaDin and Amnesty International, submitted briefs to the court. A group of former foreign service officials also joined the proceedings as amici, arguing that removing Shakir would cause substantial and lasting damage to Israel’s image as an open and democratic society.
  • The appellants, for their part, challenged the constitutionality of the 2017 amendment, arguing that even though foreigners don’t have a right to enter the country, they should not be denied a visa or fear deportation for expressing unpopular views. Mainly, they claimed, the law violates the free speech and equality rights of Israelis (and Palestinians), whose ability to engage freely with foreigners the government doesn’t agree with is limited by the law. They also argued that Shakir’s activities—particularly those undertaken on behalf of HRW—shouldn’t be considered boycott activities, since they were motivated by a desire to combat specific human rights violations and to encourage private corporations to respect their human rights obligations under international law
  • While once again acknowledging that the law doesn’t apply to boycotts targeting specific behaviors, the court stated: An individual who negates the very legitimacy of the State of Israel or its control of the Area, and seeks to undermine it through a boycott, is [included in the law], even if he disguises his position with the rhetoric of human rights or international law. The test is a substantive one, and the words the de-legitimization campaign wraps itself in do not grant it immunity.
  • Back in 2016, when HRW first requested a foreign expert visa for Shakir, an American citizen, the Foreign Ministry objected on the grounds that HRW itself was biased against Israel, “falsely waving the flag of human rights” in the service of “Palestinian propaganda.” Shortly thereafter, the ministry withdrew its objection, citing political and diplomatic considerations, and the Interior Ministry granted Shakir his visa. An administrative petition by the right-leaning organization Shurat HaDin, among others, led to an additional reversal, and the visa was revoked. The new decision was based on a memorandum issued by the Strategic Affairs Ministry (charged in Israel with heading up the fight against BDS), which argued that the problem was Shakir himself—who had called in the past for boycotts of Israel and the settlements—rather than HRW
  • In Human Rights Watch, the court clarified that what is at stake is also, potentially, the “delegitimization of Israel and of its policy” (emphasis added).
  • the boycott laws, coupled with the court’s continued acquiescence to the law’s conflation of Israel with Israeli settlements, threaten to impair the ability of citizens and noncitizens alike to engage in free discourse on one of the most difficult issues facing the country. They risk undermining the ability of human rights groups to defend human rights and promote respect for international law when their positions and interpretations of the law do not align with those of the Israeli government. They also threaten to further erode the all-important distinction in a democracy between delegitimization of the country itself and criticism of government policy
  • a growing disconnect between the discourse on settlements in Israel (and now, perhaps, the United States) and abroad
Ed Webb

'She just vanished': Ethiopian domestic workers abused in Lebanon | Conflict | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...an-domestic-workers-in-lebanon

Lebanon Ethiopia Ghana migrants abuse rights workers labor labour

shared by Ed Webb on 04 Aug 21 - No Cached
  • Aster left Ethiopia in search of work. But after a Lebanese family hired her as a live-in housekeeper in 2014, she found herself cut off from the outside world and labouring without pay. Aster’s family, unable to contact her, feared she was dead.
  • Driven by Ethiopia’s rising living costs and unemployment, hundreds of thousands have gone to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait. But what many find, activists and domestic workers say, is a cycle of exploitation and modern-day slavery that is hard to escape.
  • Rights groups have long documented cases like Aster’s, finding “consistent patterns of abuse” under Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries’ “kafala” or sponsorship system. The system links a migrant domestic worker’s legal status to the contractual relationship with her employer.
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  • In Lebanon, where as many as 400,000 Ethiopians live, migrant workers are also excluded from the protections of the country’s labour laws – putting their lives and livelihood at risk of abuse and exploitation.
  • Local traffickers in Ethiopia work in tandem with recruitment agencies in Beirut. Ethiopian traffickers are known to have charged up to $500 to facilitate the travel of recruits to Lebanon, where domestic workers make on average $150 a month.
  • Some Lebanese employers force their domestic workers to put in extremely long hours, deny them days off, withhold pay, confiscate their passports to prevent them from leaving, and severely restrict their movement and communication
  • Following reports of abuse, Ethiopia, in 2008, banned its citizens from travelling to Lebanon for work. But the ban has never been properly enforced and the numbers of women migrating to Lebanon for work swelled in subsequent years.
  • “I kept asking ‘when are you going to pay my sister?’ She would say that after six months, Meskerem would receive the accumulated pay,” Tsedale told Al Jazeera by phone from Beirut. In March of 2015, with Meskerem yet to see a penny for more than two years of work, an exasperated Tsedale reached an agreement with her sister’s employer: Meskerem would be paid by the end of the month or she’d be permitted to leave. But when Tsedale went to visit her sister towards the end of March, she found an empty apartment.
  • Meseret started working for a Lebanese family as a domestic worker shortly after arriving in the city of Jounieh in February 2011. Things started off well, Emebet said. Her daughter received her salary and sent money home. But a little over a year after departing Ethiopia, she was suddenly unable to reach Meseret by phone and the monthly remittances stopped coming in. “I don’t know why she suddenly stopped calling,” Emebet said. “She just vanished.” Meseret’s parents made the trip to Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, a two-hour bus ride away in Addis Ababa on at least two occasions to plead for help in locating their daughter. “They took our names and opened a file for her. We hoped they might provide answers.” But none came
  • “This is Lebanon”, a Canada-based domestic worker rights organisation that works to locate and free women who have been abused under the kafala system
  • “Since 2017, we’ve looked into over 6,000 complaints of various types of abuse,” Uprety told Al Jazeera. “Many are resolved through negotiations, in particular when it’s cases related to unpaid salaries. We escalate things only when abusers refuse to cooperate.”
  • The group helped free Filipina domestic worker Halima Ubpah. According to This is Lebanon, Ubpah was confined without pay in the home of a family with close connections to Lebanon’s political elite for 10 years.
  • This is Lebanon caseworkers studied the files of both Meskerem and Meseret for most of 2019. A few weeks after Al Jazeera visited the Emebet’s home, the group called Meseret’s Lebanese employer, Dr May Saadeh, a single mother of three daughters. This is Lebanon activists told Saadeh they would post Meseret’s story to the group’s Facebook page if she did not release the Ethiopian woman. Saadeh gave Meseret some cash and booked her a flight back to Ethiopia. Within days, Meseret was free. By September 2019, Meseret arrived back home.
  • “Out of nowhere, she suddenly told me that I would be going home. I wasn’t allowed to use a phone for seven years. That day, she handed me the phone and said, ‘call your mother, tell her you will see her soon’.”
  • Meseret boarded a late-night flight back to her homeland, with nothing but the clothes on her back and the cash she was handed. She had no luggage and was still owed seven years worth of pay, more than $12,000.
  • When she was taken by her employer to renew her residency papers, Meseret pleaded with officers at the Ethiopian consulate in Beirut for help. But they turned her away, she said. Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, as well as an official Meseret said she spoke to at the consulate did not respond to requests for comment. Saadeh also did not respond to Al Jazeera’s repeated requests for comment.
  • Meskerem boarded a plane and returned to Ethiopia as part of a group of formerly imprisoned domestic workers whose one-way tickets were covered by donations from members of the large Ethiopian community in Lebanon. Meskerem was a free woman again, but returned to Ethiopia last June, terribly scarred by her ordeal. Emaciated, drained, Meskerem had also lost most of her teeth.
  • After months of recuperating, Meskerem gradually opened up about her time in Lebanon, and spoke of the physical and mental abuse endured, the lack of food and how she was locked in at all times and forbidden contact with the outside world
  • “Aster is happy in our home, she is like one of my daughters,” Oula Keyrouz told Al Jazeera by phone. “I don’t understand what the family in Ethiopia wants because we don’t speak their language. But we treat her well.” But Aster told Al Jazeera that she has endured years of abuse, in particular at the hands of Oula’s husband Michel, allegations Oula denied. Aster explained that years ago Michel nearly strangled her with a belt, as punishment for an ill-fated escape attempt.
  • Oula Keyrouz admitted that Aster was owed six years worth of pay, totalling thousands of dollars. “We keep her money for her in a safe. She will take all of it when she returns to her country one day.” When asked when that might be, Oula Keyrouz said that “because of the dollar crisis in Lebanon,” the family couldn’t afford to send Aster home.
  • On June 17, 2020, a taxi pulled up to the Keyrouz family home. Aster, who had made coffee for Oula Keyrouz, walked outside, pretending to be taking out the trash. Instead, she stepped into the waiting vehicle, never to be seen again by the family that had stripped her of her dignity for six years. She was dropped outside the Ethiopian consulate, where members of a community group who had called the taxi, paid the fare and took her in. “It was like being freed from prison,” Aster later said.
  • Aster was part of a group of 90 Ethiopian domestic workers who were repatriated in September, with the help of Egna Legna Besidet, a Beirut-based nonprofit organisation.
  • Aster successfully escaped the Keyrouz home, but like Meseret and Meskerem, she returned from Lebanon empty-handed after years of toiling without pay.
  • Oula Keyrouz admits Aster is still owed six years of wages, but denies her family mistreated Aster, saying she has pictures she took of Aster enjoying herself in the family home. “I saw her like a daughter to me, like another one of my children.”
  • When asked about the three women’s cases, Lebanese Labour Ministry official Marlene Atallah said her office was aware of such cases and was working on preventive measures. “We have set up a committee at the ministry tasked with dealing with complaints from domestic workers,” Atallah explained. “There is now an emergency hotline number workers can call in case of violations. We have also begun giving orientation sessions for domestic workers to learn how to bring their cases to Lebanese courts.” But Lebanese courts have rarely sentenced abusive employers to jail time, and any kind of justice is often out of reach for migrant workers.
  • authorities estimate that at least two domestic workers die weekly on average. These are mainly deaths by suicide or from botched escape attempts.
  • the deaths of most migrant workers in Lebanon are rarely looked into.
Ed Webb

More than 2,000 Saudis fighting for militant groups abroad: Interior ministry | Middle ... - 1 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...d-interior-ministry-1005500059

KSA Saudi Syria Tunisia Morocco ISIS terrorism

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • n an interview with pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said 2,093 Saudi militants are fighting with “terrorist organisations” in different conflict zones.Syria is the top destination for Saudi militants, according to al-Turki, with 1,540 Saudis fighting there. Other militants have joined groups in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, al-Turki said.
  • al-Turki played down the appeal of the Islamic State in Saudi Arabia. "According to our statistics, Saudis in the Islamic State are fewer than what most of us would imagine," he said. He added that Moroccan and Tunisian IS militants are greater in numbers than Saudis.
  • More than 5,000 Tunisians are fighting for militant groups abroad, mainly in Iraq, Syria or Libya, according to a UN working group on mercenaries.On Friday evening, Tunisia’s Interior Minister Hedi Majdoub told parliament 800 Tunisian nationals who had fought for such organisations abroad have returned to the country.
Sana Usman

Foreign office rejects the allegations about Hafiz Saeed & Al-Zawahri - 0 views

www.newsspeedchannel.eu/ut-hafiz-saeed-al-zawahri.html

Ministry of affairs Hafiz Saeed and Aiyman Al-Zawahri Pakistan's foreign U.S. Secretary State Miss Hillary Clinton 2008 Mumbai massacre attacks Muhammad Minister Office spokesman Moazzam Khan Speaking in Kolkata Hilary Jamaat-ud-Dawah Islamic Jehadi group

shared by Sana Usman on 07 May 12 - No Cached
  • Sana Usman on 07 May 12
     
    Ministry of Foreign affairs rejects the allegations about Hafiz Saeed and Aiyman Al-Zawahri, Pakistan's foreign office today answered U.S. Secretary of State Miss Hillary Clinton's comments that it had not ended enough against the 2008 Mumbai massacre attacks organizer Hafiz Saeed saying if there any indication against him should be communal with Pakistan so that it can be examined by the courts.
Sana Usman

Iran threatened Google to take legal action - 0 views

www.newsspeedchannel.eu/ogle-to-take-legal-action.html

Iran's Foreign Ministry legal action against search engine giant Google Persian Gulf Maps Iran and Arab states Iranian state television soft war the nation spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast global oil gas provisions Saudi Arabia Kuwait Qatar Bahrain United

shared by Sana Usman on 18 May 12 - No Cached
  • Sana Usman on 18 May 12
     
    Iran's Foreign Ministry threatened to take legal action against search engine giant Google for sinking the name Persian Gulf from its Google Maps and parting the channel between Iran and Arab states unnamed Iranian state television reported.
Ed Webb

EU human rights envoy denied access to prisoners - Daily News Egypt - 0 views

www.dailynewsegypt.com/...-envoy-denied-access-prisoners

Egypt EU rights prisoners

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • EU Special Representative was turned away days after Ministry of Interior issued a statement welcoming prison visits from human rights representatives
  • Amid mounting allegations of torture inside prisons and places of detention, the Ministry of Interior issued a statement Tuesday welcoming requests from NGOs wishing to visit prisons.The ministry denies any wrong doing.
  • Lambrinidis met with Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Tuesday to discuss torture and detention conditions. He also addressed the “overpowering police response to protests” and the arrests of peaceful political activists, journalists and human rights defenders.
Ed Webb

Is war about to break out in the Horn of Africa? Will the West even notice? - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...rica-will-the-west-even-notice

US USA Russia Turkey Egypt Sudan Ethiopia Eritrea UAE nilebasin water conflict diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 16 Jan 18 - Cached
  • Now an actual conflict over H2O may be boiling, but no one in Washington has put down Michael Wolff’s book long enough to notice. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia may come to blows — with the help of Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project
  • The Nile is so important that, setting aside terrorism and internal stability, Egypt’s most significant security concerns lay largely to the south and are directly related to the unimpeded flow of the river’s waters
  • When GERD is completed, it will reduce Egypt’s share of Nile water by 22 billion cubic meters per year, devastating Egyptian agriculture and hydroelectric production, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources. This is obviously of critical concern to Egypt’s leaders, but they have not been able to reach a diplomatic solution to the problem. The country has been preoccupied with internal developments since the uprising in 2011 that pushed President Hosni Mubarak from power. In addition, the issue of the Ethiopian dam has been managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is not as influential as it once was, especially in comparison to the Ministry of Defense and the General Intelligence Directorate. There was an effort to resolve the problem in 2015, with Sudan acting as a broker between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that failed.
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  • The Sudanese recently welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Khartoum, where he signed a number of security-cooperation agreements, including a provision to allow the Turks to administer Suakin Island, located at a strategic point in the Red Sea between Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia. The island used to be home to an Ottoman naval base, and the Egyptians fear the Turks plan to renovate the island and establish a permanent military presence there.
  • Qatar also upgraded its security relations with Sudan
  • tension between Cairo and Khartoum over the Hala’ib and Shalateen disputed zones, which are located on the border between Egypt and Sudan but administered by the Egyptians
  • Egyptians deployed a helicopter carrier in the Red Sea and sent troops to an Emirati base in Eritrea. This in turn angered the Ethiopians. Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 and the two countries fought a border war in the late 1990s that killed an estimated 80,000 people. In 2016 they briefly clashed again, killing hundreds more. In response to the presence of Egyptian troops in Eritrea, the Ethiopians not only rejected a Cairo proposal to cut Khartoum out of negotiations over GERD, but Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn hosted the Sudanese defense minister and vowed to speed up dam construction. All the while the Sudanese deployed thousands of troops to its border with Eritrea
  • It is not hard to imagine how all this escalates into warfare. We are not dealing with the best militaries in the world, which reduces the margin for error and miscalculation. It is also a potential conflict that involves a number of important American allies against each other. Turkey, a NATO ally, and Qatar, which hosts the largest American military base outside the United States, have aligned themselves with Sudan and by extension with Ethiopia, another American ally. On the other side we have Egypt, a longtime partner of the United States in the Middle East, and Eritrea. The United Arab Emirates, a critical player in the Persian Gulf and beyond, would also likely be involved given its ties to Egypt and Eritrea.
Ed Webb

Egypt offers patriotism courses to expats - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...ourses-patriotism-history.html

Egypt propaganda expats migrants education

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Aug 19 - Cached
  • Egypt’s Immigration Minister Nabila Makram said Aug. 1 that she seeks to help young Egyptians living abroad not to be intellectually influenced by thoughts against their homeland
  • the ministry will be offering free courses on national security for Egyptian academics and students at Egyptian embassies abroad. These courses aim to introduce young Egyptians to the development projects the Egyptian state is undertaking as part of its 2030 vision and to improve the image they have of their homeland.
  • She said that the ministry is focusing on and interested in young Egyptians ages between 20 and late 30s as well as students abroad. She noted that these young Egyptians play a major role in refuting false news and rumors about the Egyptian state, and added that they play a role in raising awareness among their peers about the achievements and national projects of the Egyptian state.
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  • the objective is to introduce concepts of national security and protect young people abroad from the dangers of being intellectually influenced
Ed Webb

UN allowing Assad government to take lead in rebuilding Aleppo | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...lead-in-rebuilding-aleppo.html

Syria war Aleppo UN aid development

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Nov 17 - Cached
  • Matching up the planning documents with U.N. press releases issued throughout 2017 reveals that such projects as school refurbishment, health center repairs and new community centers in Aleppo fall almost exclusively within the priority areas of the city outlined by the government. 
  • Aleppo’s historic Old City has been separated from the broader humanitarian planning process, and is under the supervision of a so-called “National Higher Steering Committee for the Restoration of the Old City of Aleppo.” The most recent meeting of that committee, publicized on Nov. 2 by the Syria Trust for Development, a non-government organization associated with Syria's first lady, Asma Assad, was hosted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Asma Assad, and the charity she founded, are longtime partners of the U.N. in Syria. They are undertaking a large amount of relief and development work throughout the country using U.N. funds. The Old City reconstruction plan is led by the Syrian Government's Ministry of Culture, and works closely with the Ministry for Public Works and Housing, and the Ministry for Tourism, as well as UNESCO and the UNDP, along with other government bodies and NGOs. The Old Aleppo program is similar in design to that used in the rehabilitation of the Old City portions of Homs, a city south of Aleppo, which began in 2015 and continues today. There, too, the neighborhoods chosen for rebuilding appeared to prioritize the government's plans for the city, rather than any form of neutrality. 
  • The executive director of the Washington-based Syria Institute, Valerie Szybala, charges that “the U.N. agencies engaging in reconstruction work in areas like eastern Aleppo are -- at least publicly -- maintaining a willful ignorance, putting on blinders to the fact that the Syrian regime is taking very real steps to prevent many civilians from returning to their homes,"
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  • A “new class of war profiteers are the new power network Damascus is using to dominate Aleppo today, and the regime intends to use this network in ruling post-conflict Syria,”
Ed Webb

Israelis want to know: Where has all the butter gone? - Green Prophet | Impact News for... - 0 views

www.greenprophet.com/...-where-has-all-the-butter-gone

Israel food security agriculture trade China UK Britain

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Nov 19 - Cached
  • “The fact that Israel’s largest food company is owned by the Chinese government will lead to a situation where the company implements policies that serve the interests of China [and not Israel],” he said in an interview with Ynet. “For China, Tnuva isn’t just a food company,” Halevi added. “China is doing everything it can to involve itself in Israeli research and development. The Chinese are very creative and flexible. If we do not wake up in time we will find that they will take over not only our food, but our academia. We must organize in order to defend Israeli assets, which are part of our national security conception.”
  • “A Tnuva spokesperson said that the only cause for the butter shortage is a shortage in milk-derived fat, due to the limited milk production quota set by the government.  Tnuva’s stock of milk fat, which it uses for butter and cream production, began running out in December last year, which could explain its decision to cut butter production in early 2019. In order to meet the demand for butter, Israel must increase milk quotas, several people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity told Calcalist. The industry requested 60 million liters of milk a year be added to its quota to allow it to extract more fat to use for butter production, the people said.”
  • Until recently, imported butter bore a heavy tax (from 126-140% for table butter and 144-160% for industrial butter), which importers were reluctant to pay because the government forbade selling it for more than the regulation price of NIS 3.94 per 100 grams.  Many importers simply declined to bring butter in.
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  • there are currently hundreds of containers of imported foods, and butter among them, sitting in Haifa and Ashdod ports. Due to the High Holidays that occurred in September and October, the containers have not been inspected by the Ministry of Health, and so have not been released
  • The Economy and Industry ministries recommend getting rid of  tariffs on imported butter and opening the Israeli market to competition. But under Israel’s current interim government,  policy changes are unlikely to be made any time soon. In the meantime, the Agriculture and Economy ministries cite unequal distribution of import quotas and blame each other for it.  
  • why not allow Israeli farmers to increase milk production, thus allowing Tnuva to obtain the milk fat needed to make it?
Ed Webb

Tunisian Government Reacts to US Ambassador's Comments Regarding Persepolis Trial : Tun... - 0 views

www.tunisia-live.net/...nts-regarding-persepolis-trial

Tunisia censorship diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  • The Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs response stated that the ambassador’s declarations represent an “interference in the internal affairs of the Tunisian judiciary,” and asserted that the Tunisian government conforms to international norms and respects the independence of the judiciary in forming its own conclusion.   The Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reiterated its commitment to strengthening relations with the United States, but also stressed that bilateral relations should be built on mutual understanding and respect of the sovereignty of the two countries.
Ed Webb

Israel's army and schools work hand in hand, say teachers - 2 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...nd-hand-say-teachers-201601890

Israel military schools teachers education politics propagdanda IDF nationalism racism history memory

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • officers from a military intelligence unit called Telem design much of the Arabic language curriculum
  • “The military are part and parcel of the education system. The goal of Arabic teaching is to educate the children to be useful components in the military system, to train them to become intelligence officers.”
  • Mendel said Arabic was taught “without sentiment”, an aim established in the state’s earliest years.“The fear was that, if students had a good relationship with the language and saw Arabs as potential friends, they might cross over to the other side and they would be of no use to the Israeli security system. That was the reason the field of Arabic studies was made free of Arabs.”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • many fear that the situation will only get worse under the new education minister, Naftali Bennett, who heads Jewish Home, the settler movement’s far-right party
  • Nearly 300 schools have been encouraged to join an IDF-education ministry programme called “Path of Values”, whose official goal is to “strengthen the ties and cooperation between schools and the army”.
  • “Militarism is in every aspect of our society, so it is not surprising it is prominent in schools too,” said Amit Shilo, an activist with New Profile, an organisation opposed to the influence of the army on Israeli public life.“We are taught violence is the first and best solution to every problem, and that it is the way to solve our conflict with our neighbours.”
  • Each school is now graded annually by the education ministry not only on its academic excellence but also on the draft rate among pupils and the percentages qualifying for elite units, especially in combat or intelligence roles.
  • Zeev Dagani, head teacher of a leading Tel Aviv school who opted out of the programme at its launch in 2010, faced death threats and was called before a parliamentary committee to explain his actions.
  • Adam Verete, a Jewish philosophy teacher at a school in Tivon, near Haifa, was sacked last year after he hosted a class debate on whether the IDF could justifiably claim to be the world’s most moral army.
  • Revital, an Arabic language teacher, said the army’s lesson plans were popular with pupils. “I don’t approve of them, but the students like them. They celebrate and laugh when they kill the terrorists.”Revital said she had been disciplined for speaking her mind in class and was now much more cautious.“You end up hesitating before saying anything that isn’t what everyone else is saying. I find myself hesitating a lot more than I did 20 years ago. There is a lot more fascism and racism around in the wider society,” she said.
  • “You have to watch yourself because the pupils are getting more nationalistic, more religious all the time. The society, the media and the education system are all moving to the right.”A 2010 survey found that 56 per cent of Jewish pupils believed their fellow Palestinian citizens should be stripped of the vote, and 21 per cent thought it was legitimate to call out “Death to the Arabs”.
Ed Webb

Israel rebuffs Turkish demand for raid apology - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...israel.turkey.no.apology

Turkey Israel gaza flotilla diplomacy Palestine

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Turkey would "cut off relations" with Israel unless "they either apologize or accept an international commission and its report." "(The) Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off," Davutoglu told Hurriyet early Sunday in an interview on his plane returning from Kyrgyzstan,
  • Foreign Ministry later claimed the minister had been misquoted, saying he actually said that without an apology or inquiry, "it will not be possible for our relationship to improve."
  • the foreign ministers of Spain, France and Italy will visit Gaza this month
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Zapatero made the comment at a news conference in Madrid with visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said the Zapatero aide. But the French Foreign Ministry said the visit had not been confirmed. Italy did not immediately respond to CNN requests for confirmation.
  • Turkey had not yet reached the point of cutting off relations with Israel but made it clear that even a full apology would not itself repair damaged relations. The point of an apology would be to lead to compensation for those who died and to the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, government
Ed Webb

Syria Comment » Archives » "Bush White House Wanted to Destroy the Syrian Sta... - 0 views

www.joshualandis.com/blog

US USA Cheney Blair Syria Lebanon Iraq analysis

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Ed Webb on 05 Sep 10
     
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Ed Webb

Education Ministry bans use of text book that offers Palestinian narrative - Haaretz Da... - 2 views

www.haaretz.com/...palestinian-narrative-1.315838

education Israel Palestine israelpalestine textbooks history censorship

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 27 Sep 10
     
    Qn for discussion: What is there to fear? Why do both the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority seek to control the history curriculum so tightly?
  • Kate Musgrave on 27 Sep 10
     
    *noting in the mean time: a.Ha'aretz's earlier article: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/swedish-mayors-head-to-negev-to-promote-coexistence-program-1.306622 and b.just for fun, the Sha'ar Hanegev community website (most obvious connection to current situation: "security" section and the very last sentence on the page) : http://www.sng.org.il/english-site/first.htm
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