Egypt: Mubarak Dismisses Government, Deploys Army, Says, ‘We Seek More Democracy and Freedoms’
January 29th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal:
President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year grip on power hung in the balance Friday as protesters massed around Egypt and overpowered the police, prompting the army to deploy on the streets of the nation for the first time in 25 years.
As rumors swirled early Saturday morning local time that Mr. Mubarak would step down, Egyptian television broadcast a speech in which the president signaled he would stay but dismiss his government. “There is no turning back from the path of reform that we chose,” said a defiant Mr. Mubarak. “We seek more democracy and freedoms.”
Russia to Adopt Universal ID Card in 2012
January 29th, 2011It’s somewhat funny that articles like this mock conspiracy theorists and then go on to report that what some of us have been saying for years is now actually occurring.
Via: Singularity Hub:
For all those conspiracy theorists out there, 2012 just got a little more ominous. As required by legislation passed this last summer, Russia will adopt a universal ID card starting next year. The Universal Electronic Card (UEC) is intended to eventually replace all local, regional, and national forms of ID, providing a central database through which Russians can access everything from medical insurance to ATMs. According to the official website, the UEC will be adopted by around 1000 national and regional services along with about 10,000 commercial enterprises. The mayor of Moscow has already declared it will be able to handle public transportation there, and we can expect similar adoptions throughout the nation. Will all Russians be carrying a single form of ID that is their only passport to all public and private services? Looks like it. A similar project has started in India, and there are experiments for related concepts in Mexico. Universal ID is starting to catch on around the globe. Where will it spread to next?
Research Credit: latincognito
Believe it or Not: Senior Egyptian Military Leaders at the Pentagon
January 29th, 2011Awkward timing…
Via: Politico:
Awkward timing — or a potentially restraining influence on the behavior of Egyptian security forces?
Asked about anti-government protests sweeping Egypt, and recent unrest leading to government change in Tunisia and Lebanon, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told journalists Wednesday that senior Egyptian military leaders are currently in town for annual bilateral meetings with their Pentagon counterparts.
“We actually this week are hosting senior Egyptian military leaders at the Pentagon for our annual bilateral defense talks, referred to at the Military Cooperation Committee, which is chaired jointly by Assistant Secretary of Defense Sandy Vershbow and Lieutenant General Sami Anan, the chief of staff of the Egyptian armed forces,” Morrell told journalists Wednesday.
“So that’s just an example of how engaged we are with the Egyptians, even as these developments have taken place on the streets in Cairo and elsewhere, which I think State and the White House have spoken to in terms of our concerns about how they proceed in terms of non-violence and how they are reacted to by the government and so forth,” Morrell continued.
NPR reported from Cairo Thursday that while the Egyptian police are out in force trying to block protests, the Egyptian military has as yet not made an appearance.
Britain: Intelligence Agencies Urged to Track Social Media Sites More Closely
January 29th, 2011This is ridiculous.
The implications of the Internet for radical political movements were well known to the Pentagon at least as far back as 1995 (Strategic Assessment: The Internet, 1995). Britain and the U.S. are joined at the hip. So, are we expected to believe that this is somehow news to the British Intelligence establishment, and that the monitoring hasn’t been happening the entire time?
Tell me another one.
Via: BBC:
Intelligence agencies should track social networking sites more closely, the UK’s top civil servant has said.
Sir Gus O’Donnell told the Iraq inquiry that events in Egypt, where protests against the government are escalating, showed the value of “open source” intelligence as a barometer of opinion.
The issue would be examined as part of a review of government intelligence “machinery” due by the summer, he said.
But he said any information gathered must, above all, be “reliable”.
Sir Gus, who has been cabinet secretary and head of the Civil Service since 2005, was questioned about the UK’s current intelligence-gathering methods during his evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 Iraq invasion.
He was asked whether the Joint Intelligence Committee – which assesses raw material picked up by intelligence officers in the field and presents it to ministers – was able to “pick up” on popular protests organised through Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
“When you look at what is happening, as we speak, in Egypt… the use of the internet, the use of Twitter, the way protest movements develop, this is a different world,” he said. “We need to be tied in much more to that sort of world.”
Sir Gus, who attends weekly meetings of the National Security Council established by David Cameron, suggested the UK needed to go a “bit further” in this area to get a fuller picture of fast-moving, volatile situations when they emerge.
Syria Further Restricting Internet Use; Preventing Operation of Various Social Networking Applications
January 29th, 2011In Syria, Internet freedom ranges from bad to worse, so this definitely isn’t a surprise.
Via: Reuters:
Syrian authorities have banned programmes that allow access to Facebook Chat from cellphones, tightening already severe restrictions on the Internet in the wake of the unrest in Tunisia, users said on Wednesday.
Nimbuzz and eBuddy, two programmes that allow access to Facebook Chat and other messaging programmes through a single interface, no longer work in Syria, they said.
The Baath Party has ruled Syria since 1963, when it outlawed all opposition and imposed emergency law, which is still in force.
The main Facebook page is also banned, but servers known as proxies allow Syrians to bypass the controls, with the chat function through cellphones gaining popularity, especially among the young, according to users.
“All indicators point downhill after the revolution in Tunisia. The policy of iron censorship has not changed,” said Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Media and Freedom of Expression Centre, which the authorities closed three years ago.
Dollar, Oil, Gold All Sharply Higher on Situation in Egypt
January 29th, 2011WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Gold and oil typically move opposite to the dollar, but there’s nothing like a crisis with international implications to get them all moving up together. This is what we’re seeing as a result of events in Egypt right now.
The move on oil was the most noteworthy, with the Wall Street Journal reporting:
Benchmark crude-oil futures surged 4.3% to settle at $89.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the biggest one-day jump for Nymex crude since September 2009, in both percentage and dollar terms.
I don’t see any substantial threat of closure of the Suez Canal at this time, but it’s something I’ll continue to monitor closely.
Egypt Protests: America’s Secret Backing for Rebel Leaders Behind Uprising?
January 29th, 2011Yeah, well, I don’t know. Here’s the Wikileaks cable on which this article is based.
Is it possible that the U.S. is throwing one of its longest running client dictatorships under the bus? Sure, that’s very possible. Is that what’s happening in Egypt?
My guess is that the U.S. understands that Mubarak has outlived his usefulness and that the discontent was going to boil over, regardless. Maybe the U.S. is trying to direct the wave, but I don’t buy the argument that the U.S. is the source of the uprising on the street. Egyptians have been trodden upon by this regime for decades. The U.S. is the master of meet the new boss, same as the old boss, so watch as “democracy” goes on to be basically Mubarak by other means… Assuming that Mubarak goes, which I wouldn’t at this point. (Personally, I’ll be very surprised if the army isn’t deployed; soon.)
It seems to me that the U.S. is trying to play both sides of the fence to ensure that no wildcard outcome results from this.
I’ll recycle my commentary from the Tunisia situation. I think it applies to Egypt as well:
Come on, Kevin, why piss on the parade?
At times like this, it’s generally a good idea to keep a copy of The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski handy:
As the imitation of American ways gradually pervades the world, it creates a more congenial setting for the exercise of the indirect and seemingly consensual American hegemony. And as in the case of the domestic American system, that hegemony involves a complex structure of interlocking institutions and procedures, designed to generate consensus and obscure asymmetries in power and influence. American global supremacy is thus buttressed by an elaborate system of alliances and coalitions that literally span the globe.
…
American supremacy has thus produced a new international order that not only replicates but institutionalizes abroad many of the features of the American system itself.
He writes that two steps are required for the, “Formulation of American geostrategy for the long-term management of America’s Eurasian geopolitical interests.”
First, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them; and to pinpoint the geopolitically critical Eurasian states whose location and/or existence have catalytic effects either on the more active geostrategic players or on regional conditions;
Second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above, so as to preserve and promote vital U.S. interests, and to conceptualize a more comprehensive geostrategy that establishes on a global scale the interconnection between the more specific U.S. policies.
In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
In this context, “democracy” needs to be an insidious sham that serves U.S. national interests. It makes for better public relations than ugly dictatorships.
—
Via: Telegraph:
The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.
On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.
…
He has already been arrested by Egyptian security in connection with the demonstrations and his identity is being protected by The Daily Telegraph.
The crisis in Egypt follows the toppling of Tunisian president Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, who fled the country after widespread protests forced him from office.
The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?
January 29th, 2011Via: Organic Consumers:
In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for “coexistence” with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.
Related: Millions Against Monsanto
Research Credit: dilinger
World’s First Brain Scanner Made for Two
January 28th, 2011Via: New Scientist:
TWO heads are better than one – particularly if you’re studying the brain activity underlying social interaction. The problem is that imaging technologies such as MRI have only been able to handle one brain at a time – until now. Ray Lee at Princeton University has developed the world’s first dual-headed fMRI scanner. The innovation allows the simultaneous imaging of the brain activity of two people lying in the same scanner.
Research Credit: ubso
Egypt: ElBaradei Now Under House Arrest
January 28th, 2011Video from ITN:
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Egyptian security officials say Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei is under house arrest, the AP reported. Police stationed outside his suburban Cairo home told him he cannot leave the house after he joined tens of thousands of protesters in the capital Friday.
