Who was the elected president in Egypt!

I believe that the Egyptians had indeed chosen Ahmed Shafiq as president, but that the Military Council (SCAF) were scared from the ability of the Muslim Brotherhood to mobilize the street. I think Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, Lt. Gen. Sami Annan and their colleagues thought they could win over the Muslim Brotherhood by declaring Dr. Morsi the winner, after that press conference which took a long time for some mysterious reason, on Monday, June 18. The senior members of SCAF proved Maj. Gen. Omar Suleiman right. In his last interview with me, he told me, word for word: There was injustice against SCAF because it was never political. It only led a transitional phase after Mubarak, and its goal was to preserve what was still standing. But SCAF is ill aware of the maneuvers and the guile of the Muslim Brotherhood. SCAF was fooled by the Brotherhood, believing it to be a strong organization that can be compliant. But the Brotherhood’s goal was to create favorable circumstances to obtain legitimacy, and for this to be the sole legitimacy in Egypt. I sat down with Maj. Gen. Omar Suleiman at his home in Heliopolis on May 16, 2012, and this turned out to be the last interview he ever gave to the press. He passed away on July 17, 2012, and four months after his death, we find out that he knew SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood only too well, having predicted the problems that followed and the current ones.

Al Hayat News Paper - Jihad al-Khazen

In the Arab Spring, Watch Turkey

Landlocked Iraqi Kurdistan also needs a conduit to export its oil to the West. The only country that can fulfill both roles is Turkey. That is why K.R.G. officials, instead of supporting their ethnic brethren inside Turkey, have often sided with Ankara against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. All this explains why the bombing on Dec. 28, in which the Turks killed 35 Kurdish smugglers whom they mistook for terrorists, provoked little outrage in Iraqi Kurdistan. On the streets of Erbil there are no signs of protests against Turkey. Instead, one notices Turkey’s ubiquitous presence in the form of construction, investment, consumer goods and tourists. Should more pipelines leading from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Mediterranean via Turkey be built, the result will be the de facto creation of an Iraqi-Kurdish buffer state. Dependent on Turkey for its survival, such a state would also form a barrier to Iranian (or American, or P.K.K.) interference in Turkish affairs. In the southern part of Iraq, the situation is just the opposite. There, a Shiite Arab buffer state, buttressed by Iran as a bulwark against Turkish, American or Saudi encroachments, is being created. The last two weeks’ events have removed any doubt that Maliki is “Iran’s man” in Baghdad. Yet despite this de facto partitioning of Iraq over the last month, Turkey and Iran are not challenging each other’s spheres of influence.

In the Arab Spring, Watch Turkey

Sit-in in Egypt hit by mass food poisoning, dozens hospitalized

According to eye-witness reports, a woman wearing a niqab (face-veil) distributed grilled meat sandwiches — known as “hawawshi” — to protesters camped outside the cabinet building in central Cairo. Dr. Ahmed Farouq, a volunteer physician serving at a field hospital, confirmed that "the hawawshi was delivered to the protesters at their camp, wrapped in the wrappers of a fish and seafood restaurant." The doctor added that this restaurant does not make hawawshi.

Sit-in in Egypt hit by mass food poisoning, dozens hospitalized

Outspoken Egyptian cleric in Qatar guides Arabs on revolution

From his base in Doha, the Egyptian-born Qatari citizen has long been one of the most influential religious authorities in Sunni Islam, an influence derived partly from an unlikely standing as a media celebrity. His weekly show on Qatar’s Al Jazeera draws millions of viewers from across the Muslim world.

Role in Revolution

Victory Speech in Egypt:

Egypt’s “nude photo revolutionary” just that, revolutionary

Despise Aliya Mahdy or not, she has done what few revolutionaries in Egypt have been able to do: take revolutionary action. Her public display of her naked body in a blog post has seen attacks from the conservative Islamists and the liberals alike. Nudity, especially female nudity, leaves people queasy. Had she been a man, would the reaction have been so virulent against her? Doubtful. The man would likely have been praised for his use of his body as expression. Mahdy, unfortunately, is a woman living in Egypt.

BikYaMasr