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Ed Webb

FDD Aligned with State Department to Attack Supporters of Iran Diplomacy - LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/k-supporters-of-iran-diplomacy

US USA Iran propaganda statedepartment Trump

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Jun 19 - Cached
  • the State Department suspended its funding for a mysterious website and Twitter account, IranDisInfo.org and @IranDisInfo, after the project attacked human rights workers, journalists and academics, many of whom are based inside the U.S. But the role of the U.S. government in financing IranDisInfo’s criticisms of Human Rights Watch and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a group that has been outspoken in warning about the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive military posture towards Iran, appears to have been in collaboration with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). FDD pushes for military confrontation with Iran and has received funding from some of Trump and the GOP’s biggest campaign megadonors. While simultaneously denying their support for a war with Iran, FDD’s scholars have repeatedly urged U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic.
  • Dubowitz and his FDD colleagues have been advising the Trump White House on their regime change strategy in Iran.
  • FDD’s involvement with IranDisInfo was thinly concealed.  The website and Twitter account heavily promoted Mark Dubowitz and FDD advisor Saeed Ghasseminejad. Buried on FDD’s website is an “Iran Disinformation Project” that publishes the identical content from Ghasseminejad that was cross-posted on IranDisInfo’s website. And on at least five occasions FDD’s Twitter account promoted articles by Ghasseminejad “in @IranDisInfo.” Except the links didn’t send users to IranDisInfo’s website. Instead, the links were to FDD’s own “Iran Disinformation Project,” hosted on FDD’s website.
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  • In 2017, FDD received $3.63 million from billionaire Bernard Marcus, which constituted over a quarter of FDD’s contributions that year. Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, is outspoken about his hatred of Iran, which he characterized as “the devil” in a 2015 Fox Business interview. Marcus is Trump’s second biggest campaign supporter, contributing $7 million to pro-Trump super PACs before the 2016 election.
  • by the end of the 2011 tax year, Sheldon Adelson, who went on to become Trump’s single biggest campaign funder, the GOP’s biggest funder in the 2018 midterms, and personal advocate for Trump to take Bolton as his national security adviser, was FDD’s third biggest donor, contributing at least $1.5 million. (Dubowitz says Adelson no longer contributes to FDD.) In 2013, Adelson publicly proposed the U.S. launch a preventive nuclear attack on Iran, targeting the desert, and threaten to launch a second nuclear weapon at Tehran if Iran didn’t abandon its nuclear program.
  • the Trump administration’s decision to seemingly enter into a collaborative arrangement with FDD or Ghasseminejad, an FDD “adviser,” points to the State Department, under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s leadership, moving to increasingly align itself with organizations and individuals pushing the U.S. towards another war in the Middle East.
  • Marcus and Adelson publicly endorse a militarist posture towards Iran and aren’t shy about writing big checks to politicians and organizations that share that mission. With Adelson and Marcus’s preferred national security adviser, John Bolton, evidently pushing the U.S. towards a military confrontation with Iran, it’s no wonder that FDD, possibly (until Friday) with the support of U.S.-taxpayer funding, is engaged in a public-diplomacy campaign against critics of Trump and Bolton’s Iran policy.
Ed Webb

Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the "Arabian Countries" | O... - 0 views

opennet.net/crosoft-bing-arabian-countries

internet censorship filtering search MENA ArabWorld microsoft Bing

shared by Ed Webb on 06 Jan 12 - Cached
  • There is no filtering by keywords if a user chooses another country (e.g., United States, Canada) as their location even if they are physically located in an Arab country. - One anomaly we found when probing filtering by keywords is that filtering does not work if a filtered Arabic keyword is used together with another non-filtered keyword. For example, a search using the Arabic word for “sex” is banned, but using the Arabic term for “sex stories” is not banned.
  • We found no evidence of filtering of keywords in Arabic or English that could return results in other content categories. We tested keywords that could yield politically sensitive content (e.g., “democracy”, “freedom”, “opposition”), content related to violence and terrorism (e.g., “torture”, terror”, “explosive”), Web sites related to minority and religious rights (e.g., “Shiite”, “Baha’i”, “Christian”, “Jews”), and content related to women’s rights (e.g., “gender”, “equality”). None of the tested keywords were found banned.
  • It is interesting that Microsoft’s implementation of this type of wholesale social content censorship for the entire “Arabian countries” region is in fact not being practiced by many of the Arab government censors themselves. That is, although political filtering is widespread in the MENA region, social filtering, including keyword filtering, is not practiced by all countries in MENA. ONI 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 testing and research found no evidence of social content filtering (e.g., sex, nudity, and homosexuality) at the national level in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Libya.10
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  • filtering at the keyword level results in overblocking, as banning the use of certain keywords to search for Web sites, not just images, prevents users from accessing—based on Microsoft’s definition of objectionable content—legitimate content such as sex education and encyclopedic information about homosexuality.
  • The current approach uses a region-wide standard for filtering content as opposed to the more targeted, granular, and country-specific policy. A more targeted approach—either country-based or preferably, defined by the user—is more generally consistent with minimizing the impact on freedom of speech. Through its involvement in the Global Network Initiative, Microsoft has signaled its willingness to be at the forefront in protecting freedom of expression around the world. It is difficult to reconcile this position with Bing’s current filtering standards.
Ed Webb

Memo From Cairo - Hints of Pluralism in Egyptian Religious Debates - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...31cairo.html

religion Islam moderation Christianity Bahais media al-Banna

shared by Ed Webb on 31 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Mr. Banna was pleased because at least his ideas were being circulated. Mr. Banna, who is 88 years old and is the brother of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been preaching liberal Islamic views for decades. But only now, he said, does he have the chance to be heard widely. It is not that a majority agrees with him; it is not that the tide is shifting to a more moderate interpretative view of religion; it is just that the rise of relatively independent media — like privately owned newspapers, satellite television channels and the Internet — has given him access to a broader audience.
  • Some of those who have begun to speak up say they are acting in spite of — and not with the encouragement of — the Egyptian government. Political analysts said that the government still tried to compete with the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned but tolerated Islamic movement, to present itself as the guardian of conservative Muslim values.
  • President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world has quieted the accusation that the United States is at war with Islam, making it easier for liberal Muslims to promote more Western secular ideas, Egyptian political analysts said.
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  • the dynamic was for Christians as well as Muslims in Egypt
  • this time Mr. Qimni did not go into hiding. He appeared on the television show, sitting beside Sheik Badri as he defended himself.
  • “It is an unprecedented move to recognize that one can be Egyptian and not adhere to one of these three religions,”
Ed Webb

Targeting the messenger: Investigative journalists under extreme pressure - Mapping Med... - 0 views

mappingmediafreedom.org/...nalists-under-extreme-pressure

EU Europe media censorship investigation journalists rights

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • What do criminals, corrupt corporations and crooked politicians have in common? They all fear investigative journalists, whose job is to expose wrongdoing and hypocrisy by holding the powerful to account.
  • For their work, investigative reporters have come under threat from multiple sources with the shared aim of stopping information that’s in the public interest from coming to light. Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project, which monitors violations against media professionals throughout Europe, recorded 206 cases of investigative journalists in the 35 countries that are in or affiliated with the European Union (EU35) being targeted in their line of work between 1 May 2014 and 31 December 2018. An additional 77 reports from EU35 showed media workers other than investigative journalists being targeted for their role in reporting on corruption.
  • The country with the largest share of reports was Italy (40), followed by Hungary (25), Serbia (24), France (19) and Turkey (18).
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  • journalists under-report incidents they consider minor, commonplace or part of the job, or where they fear reprisals.
  • most corruption reporting did not take place in the mainstream media, except in France, Germany and Scandinavia, where journalism had a better standing. Independent and non-profit media outlets were among the most vulnerable to financial pressures and the target of frequent threats, whether in terms of staff safety or lawsuits
  • Media concentration has become a growing issue for journalists across EU35, notably in Hungary.
  • The assassination of independent Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a car bomb on 16 October 2017 marked a dark new trend emerging in the EU35: the murder of three investigative journalists in less than 12 months. Caruana Galizia’s death was followed by the murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak and his partner Martina Kušnírová on 26 February 2018, and the rape and murder of Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova on 6 October 2018. Authorities say Marinova’s death is not connected to her being a journalist, a claim some colleagues have disputed.
  • “The Council of Europe study on self-censorship among journalists has shown that the main form of pressure is ‘psychological violence’, which is mainly visible by intimidation used by public authorities which has a clear chilling effects on media freedom. We are convinced that many investigative journalists are the target of this type of bullying,”
  • For journalists reporting on corruption, the threat of legal action is a very serious one, which impacts what one is able to write, particularly for investigative centres with limited resources
  • Official willingness to discredit and defame journalists is a Europe-wide phenomenon, but one that is especially acute for independent media outlets that specialise in investigative journalism into official corruption.
Ed Webb

Gulf crisis sees new 'fake news' flurry online - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/s-flurry-online-070222817.html

Qatar KSA Saudi UAE socialmedia intermediate propaganda disinformation

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • In recent weeks, pro-Saudi Twitter accounts have been systematically spreading rumours of unrest in Qatar, AFP analysis of hundreds of tweets and twitter interactions shows.Many of the accounts amplifying the rumours had profile images of the Saudi leadership, mentioned them in their handles and retweeted or liked material featuring the royal family or gave their location as inside the kingdom.
  • "Anyone spreading this news is technically breaking Saudi law, it's illegal to spread rumours," Owen Jones of Qatar's Hamad bin Khalifa University told AFP."In order to be high-profile and get away with it, then it has to have the tacit approval of the regime."
  • Saudi observers say the kingdom itself is a victim of fake news alleged to originate from Qatar and its allies Turkey and Iran.The UAE, Saudi's principal ally, has also been the target of online disinformation campaigns, including one claiming Abu Dhabi's Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed had been assassinated, which Abu Dhabi blamed on Qatar.
Ed Webb

Ahead of COP27, Egypt is highly vulnerable to climate change - 1 views

qz.com/-for-climate-change-1849657612

Egypt water agriculture food land climate COP sustainability SDGs

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Oct 22 - No Cached
  • Adel Abdullah cultivates a subsistence living off of six acres of peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, wheat, corn, and pomegranates. He is one of millions of smallholder farmers working in the Delta. He walks barefoot in his farm as a show of reverence to the land. The soil is pale and thin, almost as sandy as the beach, and choked by mounting concentrations of salt, left behind by periodic coastal flooding and pushed into underground aquifers by the rising sea.“This is the first place to be affected by climate change,” Abdullah says. “The barriers help a bit with flooding, but the salty soil is still really killing us.”
  • he takes irrigation water from the nearby Kitchener Drain, one of the largest and most polluted canals in Egypt that aggregates wastewater from the farms, businesses, and households of an estimated 11 million people in the Delta. By the time water reaches Abdullah’s farm, it may have been reused half a dozen times since entering Egypt in the Nile, each time accumulating more salts and pollutants and losing beneficial nutrients.
  • Abdullah is forced to douse the farm in fertilizers, pesticides, and salt-suppressing chemicals, all of which further degrade the soil. Those inputs, on top of the rising costs of irrigation systems and machinery, eat up any potential income Abdullah might earn
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  • The Nile Delta—where agriculture employs one-fifth of the country’s workforce and is responsible for 12% of its GDP and much of its food supply—is being hammered by rising sea levels, rising temperatures, and a growing shortage of water.
  • rapid urbanization and population growth
  • Climate adaptation solutions that could keep environmental problems from turning existential—fixing the battered and wasteful irrigation network, expanding affordable access to improved seeds and climate-smart farming technologies, and more effective and equitable regulation of urban development on agricultural land—are being rolled out by the government and research groups, but often slower than the pace of climate impacts. That’s left Egypt’s economy and food security exposed to growing risk.
  • “We’re really squeezed and marginalized here, and the government isn’t helping,” said one farmer down the road from Abdullah, who requested anonymity to speak frankly (with tens of thousands of political prisoners, Egypt’s restrictions on free speech are also gaining prominence ahead of COP27).
  • his children see no future in agriculture
  • Around 1805, an Ottoman general named Muhammad Ali took control of the country, and founded the dynasty of kings that would rule—eventually under British colonial supervision—for 150 years. One of Ali’s most enduring marks on the country was the establishment of the first modern network of dams and irrigation canals in the Delta, which allowed tens of thousands of new acres to come under cultivation.
  • Egypt has managed that scarcity by meticulously recycling agricultural water and, in recent years, curtailing the production of water-intensive crops like cotton and rice and importing 40% of its wheat and other food staples.
  • Egypt’s population has since more than quadrupled, to 104 million. Yet the flow of the Nile, which supplies more than 95% of the country’s water, has remained more or less constant. In the 1990s water availability fell below the international “water poverty” benchmark of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year.
  • water and land played a crucial role in Nasser’s legacy. 12% of the country’s arable land was owned by the aristocracy; Nasser nationalized this land and distributed it to about 340,000 impoverished rural families. He also further extended Ali’s irrigation network and oversaw construction of the Aswan High Dam, which brought an end to the Nile’s ancient seasonal flooding and fixed the river in its present position, with just two remaining branches forking through the Delta.
  • The population is still growing quickly, and could reach 160 million by 2050. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that is nearing completion upstream could cut the flow of Nile water into Egypt by a quarter during the as-yet-unknown number of years it will take to fill its reservoir. By 2100, climate change-related heat waves upstream could reduce the Nile’s flow by 75%, Abousabaa said.
  • rising temperatures and falling rainfall mean crops—which consume 86% of Egypt’s water supply—will require more irrigation to survive.
  • current annual demand for water is about 35% higher than what the country receives from the Nile, groundwater, and a very small amount of rain—a deficit of about 20 billion cubic meters. To cover it, she said, Egypt will need to use every drop multiple times, aggressively minimize wastage, and boost the supply by investing $2.8 billion in dozens of new desalination plants with the aim to produce 5 billion cubic meters annually by 2050.
  • The network started by Muhammed Ali now includes about 33,000 miles of delivery and drainage canals across the country, enough to wrap around the globe, that range in size from small rivers to something a child could hop over. Delta residents say they used to bathe in these canals, drink from them, and raise fish in them. Now many of them, especially at the ends of the network, are polluted with farming chemicals and sewage, and choked with trash.
  • The unpredictability makes it difficult to identify solutions, Salah says: “Climate change is like a big black box.”
  • “For the last two years, with heat wave after heat wave, we lost more than half the crop. It’s really sad.”
  • The farm relies on groundwater brought up from wells on the property, and Nasrallah says the suburbs are draining the aquifer. In the last four years he has had to dig an extra thirty meters to find water—and deeper wells mean higher electricity bills for pumping. Some wells have dried up altogether. Recently, government officials told him he had to stop watering the grass on a soccer field he built for his workers.
  • Urbanization is also spreading in the inner Delta, as many farmers decide that constructing housing is more profitable than growing crops. Since the 1970s, about 14% of the Delta’s arable land has been converted to urban development
  • Individual farms are also becoming smaller with each generation as, in keeping with longstanding Egyptian custom, land is divided among a father’s heirs (with sons traditionally taking a larger share than daughters). Urban development degrades the Delta’s soil and drives more farming into the desert, leaving the entire food system more vulnerable to climate impacts. Land fragmentation leads to the inefficient use of water and other resources and raises the costs of distribution for farmers.
  • in some cases, the government’s own plans are responsible, most recently in August when thousands of people living on a Nile island near Cairo that was primarily used for farming were evicted to make way for a state-sanctioned development project.
  • On the western fringe of the Delta, farms and suburbs are gradually overtaking the desert as the central Delta grows more crowded. Here, water is even scarcer and the impacts of climate change are more pronounced. But in this and a few other desert areas around Egypt, the government is working to link more than 1.5 million acres to groundwater irrigation, and says it is about one-third of the way there. Land reclamation could take some pressure off the Delta, and sandy soils are well-suited for the production of citrus fruits that are one of Egypt’s most lucrative exports.
  • Between seepage, evaporation, and water wasted by farmers who flood their fields instead of using controlled irrigation hoses, nearly one-third of the country’s water is lost in the irrigation system between the Aswan High Dam and the sea
  • The soil is dark and appears rich, but is crusted with a visible layer of salt, a problem that affects up to 40% of Egypt’s arable soil.
  • Fixing the irrigation network is a priority for the government. Eman Sayed from the Irrigation Ministry said her agency has lined about 3,700 miles of canals with concrete in the last two years and is aiming to finish another 12,400 in the next few years. The ministry is also helping farmers cover the cost of installing drip irrigation systems, which researchers at AUC found can cut farmers’ water consumption 61% per year; today such systems cover only one-sixth of arable land in Egypt.
  • Authorities have also begun to restrict production of water-intensive crops like rice and bananas, although farmers say there is little enforcement of these rules, and both crops are still widely cultivated throughout the Delta.
  • Egypt has made clear that COP27 will focus primarily on wringing climate finance out of the rich countries that are most responsible for climate change.
  • On the horizon, an offshore natural gas platform is visible. Egypt, which seized the disruption of Russian energy supplies to Europe because of the Ukraine war as an opening to boost its own exports of natural gas, is now contributing more to the problem than ever before; an independent review of its new climate strategy ranked it “highly insufficient” for averting disastrous levels of carbon emissions.
  • By 2100, Noureldeen says, sea level rise could inundate nearly 700 square miles of the coastal Delta and displace four million people.
Ed Webb

Ukraine war: The stolen faces used to promote Vladimir Putin - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...blogs-trending-61351342

Russia Ukraine India BRIC BRICS socialmedia twitter bots war propaganda

shared by Ed Webb on 10 May 22 - No Cached
  • The fake account is part of a network promoting Russian president Vladimir Putin on Twitter, which used the hashtags #IStandWithPutin and #IStandWithRussia on 2 and 3 March. This led to trending topics in different regions - particularly in the global south, apparently showing support for the war, in countries including India, Pakistan, South Africa and Nigeria.
  • many other profiles appear to have been inauthentic. They retweeted messages in high quantities, produced few original messages, and were created very recently. "They were likely produced by bots, fake profiles or compromised accounts, artificially amplifying support for Putin in these countries," says Carl Miller, co-founder of CASM Technology, a company that researches online harms and disinformation.
  • The accounts tweet a mixture of criticism of Western countries, express solidarity between the so-called Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and offer direct support to Mr Putin. "We default to the idea that information campaigns will be directed to the West. Yet none of the accounts were addressing the West nor claimed to be from the West," says Mr Miller.
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  • Twitter prohibits the impersonation of "individuals, groups, or organisations to mislead, confuse, or deceive others".The company told us that since the war began, it has removed more than 100,000 accounts for violations of its platform manipulation and spam policy, including the suspension of dozens of accounts connected with the hashtags #IStandWithRussia and #IStandWithPutin.
Ed Webb

Syria's Twitter spambots | Jillian C York | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 1 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...witter-spambots-pro-revolution

twitter Syria spam spambots

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • In Morocco, Syria, Bahrain and Iran, pro-revolution users of the site have found themselves locked in a battle of the hashtags as Twitter accounts with a pro-government message are quickly created to counter the prevailing narrative
  • Another set of accounts, however, managed to inundate the #Syria tag. Using a Bahraini company, EGHNA, bots are sending messages – sometimes several a minute – using various Syria-related search terms.Under the heading "Success stories", the EGNHA website says:"LovelySyria is using EGHNA Media Server to promote interesting photography about Syria using their Twitter accounts. EGHNA Media Server helped LovelySyria get attention to the beauty of Syria, and build a community of people who love the country and admire its beauty. Some of their network members started translating photo descriptions and rebroadcasting them to give the Syrian beauty more exposure.LovelySyria is using their own installation of EGHNA Ad Center to generate the Twitter messages, their current schedule is two messages every five minutes."Other accounts, such as @SyriaBeauty, @DNNUpdates and @SyLeague, perform similar functions. Their messages are sometimes political, sometimes not, but all were created recently and all serve the purpose of diverting attention from the Syrian protests.
  • although Twitter shies away from moderating content and removing users, the search functionality favours users with a complete username, profile and photograph, and users who automate their tweets can be removed from search.
Ed Webb

Turkish TV station aims to switch western views - FT.com - 1 views

www.ft.com/...7c-11e5-a09b-1f8b0d268c39.html

Turkey media TV television AKP Erdogan satellite internet

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The fledgling TV news channel, under the wing of the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, is at the forefront of an ambitious effort by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, to shape how the country is viewed around the world. With sleek graphics, English-speaking foreign journalists and funded from the deep pockets of the taxpayer, it follows the blueprint of Qatar’s Al Jazeera and Russia’s RT, formerly Russia Today.
  • “There has [for many years] been a need for a broadcast channel delivering the events to the world from a different perspective, which presents Turkey’s own viewpoint,” says Ibrahim Eren, head of broadcasting for TRT. Ankara’s growing influence, not least in Syria and the migrant crisis, had created the need for a station showing non-Turkish viewers “how we see the world”
  • foreign journalists whom he views as an extension of western influence over Turkish internal affairs
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  • public insults to reporters from CNN, the Economist and the BBC, notably when the 2013 Gezi Park protests provided media outlets with gripping images of tear-gassed protesters
  • While TRT World has hired expensive expatriate talent and technical staff, other Turkish journalists have been jailed, their newspapers closed and their careers ended over material the government deems offensive. In 2015 Reporters without Borders ranked Turkey 149th in the world for press freedom, behind South Sudan and Palestine
  • most of the foreign employees contacted by the FT privately expressed concern they had signed up to a project that would become halfway between state propaganda and an expression of Turkish soft power. “If we’re not careful, we end up a joke,” says a senior news staffer who is already considering quitting
  • Mr van Meek, a veteran of Fox News and Al Jazeera, rejects such criticism and says the channel’s coverage will be a measure of its independence: “Watch the content. I think we are fair and objective and credible.”
  • live broadcasts that are available online and as part of Turkish cable bundles. Yet almost nobody outside the country can yet watch it on television.
  • The benefits of being under the public broadcaster’s umbrella are apparent. During two recent high-profile terrorism incidents, TRT World was able to break a nationwide ban and broadcast live from the scene, while others had to rely on studio interviews.
  • its headcount has swelled to at least 220 in Istanbul, with additional centers in London, Singapore and Washington
  • Industry analysts estimate annual running costs at £50m-£100m, rising further if the channel develops a large network of correspondents. RT’s annual budget is about £125m.
  • “If you had $100m to improve the state of Turkish media, would you spend it on a glasshouse in the middle of Istanbul?” says Andrew Finkel, founder of P24, an organisation that aims to strengthen independent reporting in Turkey. “Why are public funds being used this way?”
  • Ed Webb on 11 Mar 16
     
    WIll it be as credible as Al Jazeera is (in some quarters, at least), or dismissed as propaganda, as RT mostly is, and Iran's Press TV generally is?
Ed Webb

The right to resist is universal: A farewell to Al Akhbar and Assad's apologists - 0 views

maxblumenthal.com/...l-akhbar-and-assads-apologists

Syria Lebanon politics media Assad propaganda journalists

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • the mere existence of Western meddling does not automatically make Assad a subaltern anti-imperial hero at the helm of a “frontline resisting state,” as Ghorayeb has sought to paint him. Nor does it offer any legitimate grounds for nickel-and-diming civilian casualty counts, blaming the victims of his regime, or hyping the Muslim Threat Factor to delegitimize the internal opposition
  • The long history of sacrifice and courage by the Lebanese and Syrian people in support of the Palestinian struggle — and in defiance of self-interested autocrats — crystallizes an important fact that should not have to be repeated: Palestine will never be free as long as the Arab world lives under the control of dictators.
  • In his address to the Syrian People’s Assembly on June 3, the dictator tried to hammer the theme home by using the term “terrorists” or “terrorism” a whopping 43 times. That is a full ten times more than George W. Bush during his speech to Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11
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  • In joining the Assad regime’s campaign to delegitimize the Syrian opposition by casting it as a bunch of irrational jihadis (ironically, they seem to have little problem with Hezbollah’s core Islamist values), Assad’s apologists have unwittingly adopted the “war on terror” lexicon introduced by George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon, and the neocon cabal after 9-11. Not only have they invoked the scary specter of The Terrorists (gasp!) to justify morally indefensible acts of violent repression, like pro-Israel hasbarists, they have resorted to rhetorical sophistry to dismiss the regime’s atrocities as necessary evils, unfortunate accidents (what al-Amin called “mistakes”), or fabrications of the regime’s opponents (see Ghorayeb on “unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes.”)
  • Like the neocon chickenhawks who cheered on America’s invasion of Iraq from the offices of Washington’s American Enterprise Institute, none of Assad’s apologists appear to have done any journalistic fieldwork to support their opinions. Ghorayeb and Narwani seem to have confined themselves to Beirut, where Ghorayeb consults the writings of V.I. Lenin and Paulo Freire to back up her hallucinatory portrayal of Assad as a subaltern freedom fighter, while Narwani cobbles together a scattershot of YouTube clips and hearsay from journalists she hangs out with to justify the regime’s very own “war on terror.”
  • As a Christian who fiercely rejected sectarianism, Shehadeh’s very presence shook the Syrian regime. After he was killed, the army shelled the Christian neighborhood of Hamidyeh to prevent his funeral, then a gang of shabiha attacked a memorial service for him in Damascus that would have presented a rare display of Christian-Sunni solidarity. It was this sense of solidarity that appeared to threaten the regime the most. As Shehadeh’s mother reportedly said, “They feared him in life, and they feared him in death.”
  • A few years ago, while visiting the offices of the Nation Magazine, a publication I frequently write for, I reflected on what it might have been like to be working there during the 1930’s when its editorial leadership supported Stalin and willfully ignored his crimes. What were the internal debates like, I wondered, and how would I have reacted? The past few weeks at Al Akhbar have brought those questions back into my thoughts, and they are no longer hypothetical. The paper’s opinion pages have become a playpen for dictator enablers, but unlike the 1930’s-era Nation Magazine, there is less excuse for their apologia. Indeed, given the easy accessibility of online media produced by Syrian activists and journalists, there is no way for Assad’s apologists to claim they did not know about the regime’s crimes
Ed Webb

Egypt's top TV satirist returns, criticizes public for lionizing Sisi - News - Aswat Ma... - 0 views

en.aswatmasriya.com/...view.aspx

Egypt television TV satire politics censorship military Sisi

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • In taking aim at the frenzy of support for Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Bassem Youssef went further in his criticism of the army-backed political order than anyone else currently allowed on the airwaves.
  • "There's not another subject to talk about," he concluded, adding that he would flip through Egyptian television to find another topic. This led to a montage of Egyptians of all ages and various backgrounds, from talk show hosts to belly dancers, expressing their love for Sisi. When the clip ended, the heart surgeon-turned-comedian stuck a fake gun to his temple.
  • "We won't fear anyone," he said as the unmistakable profile of Sisi appeared behind him. "It's better we don't say anything about him," he said quickly. "That's not fear, that's respect." There is no need for political satire, he then told the audience, because "the world is stable and everything is stable in the country."
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  • Youssef, who has drawn inspiration from U.S. comedian Jon Stewart, rose to fame with a satirical online show after the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. His popularity skyrocketed when his TV program took aim at Mursi, drawing the ire of his government. Youssef was investigated on allegations of insulting Islam and the president. Critics of the Mursi government saw this as an attempt to stifle dissent. The charges were ultimately dropped. Egypt's army-backed leaders now face even harsher criticism from local and international human rights groups. Whether Youssef will be allowed to stay on air if he keeps up his sharp commentary was another topic of the broadcast. "Second episode?" Youssef asked before bursting into laughter.
Ed Webb

Israel's army and schools work hand in hand, say teachers - 0 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.”
  • “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.”
  • ...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”.
  • 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.”
  • 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

Custard Thrown On Mandelson, Business Secretary Hit In Face By Anti-Heathrow Striker's ... - 0 views

news.sky.com/...200903115235839

activism environment UK custard mandelson

shared by Ed Webb on 06 Mar 09 - Cached
  • I don't want to get up early in the morning and throw custard at Peter Mandelson but I don't have a choice because democracy has failed us
  • Plane Stupid has launched a series of high profile stunts in recent years against the Government's environmental policies, including sit-in protests bringing Stansted and Aberdeen airports to a stand-still.
  • Ed Webb on 06 Mar 09
     
    How to create media spectacle to get attention to one's cause...
Ed Webb

New Study Shows Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development - MacArthur Foundation - 0 views

www.macfound.org/...rtant_for_Teen_Development.htm

research digitalcitizenship edu_trends resources news digitalnativity digital media identity

shared by Ed Webb on 09 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Young people respect each other’s authority online and are more motivated to learn from each other than from adults.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Mar 09
       
      The question is, how skilled are internet users in general, of any age, in assessing the quality fo information. Is the authority well-deserved in each case where trust is given, in other words? How finely-honed are users' filters?
  • learning today is becoming increasingly peer-based and networked
  • notions of expertise and authority are being redefined
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “Kids learn on the Internet in a self-directed way, by looking around for information they are interested in, or connecting with others who can help them. This is a big departure from how they are asked to learn in most schools, where the teacher is the expert and there is a fixed set of content to master.”
  • new challenges in how to manage their visibility and social relationships online
  • Online media, messages, and profiles that young people post can travel beyond expected audiences and are often difficult to eradicate after the fact
  • parents and their children came together around gaming or shared digital media projects, where both kids and adults brought expertise to the table.
  • an effort to inject grounded research into the conversation about the future of learning in a digital world.
  • America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value.
  • the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age
  • The social worlds that youth are negotiating have new kinds of dynamics, as online socializing is permanent, public, involves managing elaborate networks of friends and acquaintances, and is always on.
  • Jim Franklin on 09 Mar 09
     
    I agree. I actually wrote my common application essay on what I learned from online gaming (specifically World of Warcraft).
Ed Webb

Gay Rights - Change.org: Is the Iraqi Government Executing LGBT People? - 0 views

gayrights.change.org/...vernment_executing_lgbt_people

Iraq rights sexuality repression LGBT

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • approximately 128 individuals have been arrested and sentenced to death for nothing more than being LGBT. And according to Iraqi-LGBT, executions are scheduled this week to start in "batches of 20."
  • Since the U.S. invasion, the death penalty in Iraq has soared to levels that not even Texas approaches.
  • If the Iraq government hopes to become part of the family of nations, it must respect the rights of all segements of its population, including all homosexual persons (who do not choose their sexual orientation).  To merit international respect, the government must behave justly and refrain from persecuting LGBT persons.   The world is watching Iraq as it develops into a true democracy that respects human rights. Posted by Stephen Harris
Ed Webb

The Saturday Profile - Egypt's Tomb Raider, Off and (Mostly) on Camera - Biography - NY... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...18egypt.html

egypt archaeology publicity nationalism

shared by Ed Webb on 18 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Ed Webb on 18 Apr 09
     
    Archaeology plays a significant role in the production of national identities in much of the Middle East. Particularly fiercely contested in Israel/Palestine, where some Islamic or Byzantine ruins have fared badly in the quest for remains of ancient Judea etc.
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