Bernie Ecclestone, 81, the formula one supremo, speaking at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, said of Bahrain: ''I know people who live there and it's all very quiet and peaceful.''
Death fears as Bahrain set to host F1 race - 0 views
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Pictures emerged of Ecclestone's image being burned in Bahrain posted on a Facebook page called ''Pearl Family Circle - Martyrs' Square''.
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concerns for the health of imprisoned activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, now 65 days into a hunger strike, being held in a military hospital.
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Tunisia's Governing Coalition Sees Traces of Old Regime in Essebsi Meeting : Tunisia Live - 0 views
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Mohamed Bennour, spokesperson of the center-left party Ettakatol, declared that the gathering was a way of misleading the public. “People who attended the event are using Bourguiba’s name to impose their ideas. These people do not care about Bourguiba – where were they when Bourguiba was imprisoned by Ben Ali for 13 years? They were supporting Ben Ali’s decision,” he said.
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Samir Ben Amor, a member of the center-left Congress for the Republic party, also saw in the meeting an attempt to move Tunisia back towards the undemocratic ways of Ben Ali’s RCD party. “The meeting conveys that these people want to steal the Tunisian revolution and its aims. It is inappropriate for some opposition figures to refuse to join the coalition government, yet accept to ally with RCD’s legacy parties. It is a failed attempt to bring back the RCD using a different name. It is a shame that they are using Bourguiba’s name to achieve this purpose,” he announced.
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Abed Hamid Jelassi, a member of Ennahda’s executive office, stated his belief that the gathering was a way of hijacking the Tunisian revolution, but that he thinks Tunisians are too clever to fall for the trap. “Obviously these people want the return of RCD, they are using the fear that people have against religious extremists to serve their own interests,” he said.
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Can Essebsi's 'Call for Tunisia' Movement Unite the Opposition? - By Erik Churchill | T... - 0 views
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The Call for Tunisia features a broad spectrum of former regime officials together with secular liberals. The former regime officials, or RCDists (from the Constitutional Democratic Rally), were excluded from running in the last elections and see in the new initiative a chance to revive their political prospects. (There was no such cleansing of the actual government administrations -- only positions in the Constituent Assembly). These officials and their supporters oftentimes criticize the current government as incompetent and unable to manage the complexity of government. They try to deflect criticisms of the rampant corruption and stasi-like police state of the past, by pointing to the (very real) progress achieved under Bourguiba and Ben Ali. They cite statistics on women's rights, improvements in education, and infrastructure development, and they compare Tunisia with its neighbors in the Maghreb and throughout Africa. Their motives are clear -- keep the good and throw out the bad of the former regime.
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challenge will be to integrate their liberal values into what is at heart a conservative party
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While Ennahda supporters talk about the extremism of Bourguiba/Ben Ali regarding Islamic practices (including banning the veil and a very liberal interpretation of Ramadan -- not to mention the systematic torture and imprisonment of Islamists themselves), many Tunisians felt comfortable being Muslim under the former regime. It is fair to say that many (though certainly not all) Tunisians did not feel that their religion was under assault under the previous secular regime
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Brian Whitaker's blog, January 2011 - 1 views
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without extreme vigilance on the part of the Tunisian public, the country might find itself, a few months from now, with another RCD president and a parliament still dominated by Ben Ali's party. Tunisians are going to have to remain very watchful, and keep up the pressure for change.
Egypt: Lessons from Iran | openDemocracy - 0 views
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There is no doubt that Egypt cannot go back to what it was under Mubarak, but the shape of the future system is very much dependent upon the presence of the youth, women, and the working people in articulating and pushing for their democratic demands in the public sphere. A crucial lesson from Iran for the progressive secular forces - the left, liberals, feminists, artists and intellectuals - is to not sacrifice their secular democratic demands, and not to trust the army, the Islamists or the traditional elite.
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another lesson from Iran is that in the post-revolutionary anarchy there is always the danger that the reactionary forces use the religious beliefs of the masses to get the upper hand
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The clerical/military oligarchy in Iran, with its intricate network of religious, repressive and economic institutions and multiple military and intelligence systems, is highly complex and also independent from any foreign power. It is a fascist-type system that still has millions on the payroll of the state and para-statal organizations, including religious foundations. It has also shown on numerous occasions that it does not hesitate to use extreme brutality against its opposition. In the long run, its fate will not be different from those of other dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East or elsewhere, but the Iranian people unfortunately have a much more difficult fight ahead of them.
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Hosni Mubarak « OFAC SDN List Removal Lawyers - 1 views
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The U.S. does not currently have a country-based sanctions program for Egypt. Therefore, in order to freeze Mubarak’s assets by placing him on the SDN List, OFAC would have to designate him under one of the subject matter areas. Specifically, OFAC would have to designate Mubarak as a terrorist, narcotics trafficker, diamond trader or a proliferater of weapons of mass destruction, which seems extremely unlikely.
Libya's children scarred and haunted by war: 'It's all they know' | Middle East Eye - 0 views
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Violent language has become the norm even for the youngest citizens. Residents fear that this could be devastating for the future of the country.Mustafa Mohamed, a father of five who remained in Tripoli throughout the conflict, is concerned that this normalisation of violence and weaponry among young children will have devastating effects on future society.“If the new generation is already thinking in terms of guns and militias by the age of seven or eight years old, then how will they be able to focus on the positive aspects of society?” he said.Residents say that children in Libya have been deprived of healthy and normal childhoods by the ongoing war.
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On 10 August, the United Nations children agency UNICEF warned that more than half a million children in Libya need help. More than 80,000 children have been internally displaced and migrant children in Libya are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Public health facilities have been dramatically impacted by the civil war in Libya. Forty-three out of 98 hospitals assessed are either partially functional or not functional at all due to a shortage of medicines, medical supplies and human resources.In 2013, the WHO found that there were only 12 psychiatrists in the country, with most services concentrated in the two psychiatric hospitals, situated in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya’s two largest cities. Resources in this field remain extremely scarce in the country, with only one percent or less of total health expenditure targeted on this sector.
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“So many parents bring their children in, suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, or sometimes undiagnosed mental health problems,” she told me.“The problem is we don’t have the provisions to deal with these issues. Most children end up seeing children’s doctors with no specialist training in psychiatry, which is a big problem,”
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