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The al jazeera effect

The inside story of Egypt’s TV wars and how Saudi Arabia could be next

By Hugh Miles

(source: Foreign Policy.com)

aljazeera_egypt.jpg

 

“Long live Al Jazeera!” chanted Egyptian protesters in Tahrir Square on Feb. 6. Many Arabs — not least the staff at Al Jazeera — have said for years that the Arab satellite network would help bring about a popular revolution in the Middle East. Now, after 15 years of broadcasting, it appears the prediction has come true. There is little question that the network played a key role in the revolution that began as a ripple in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, and ended up a wave that threatens to wash away Egypt’s long-standing regime.

“We knew something was coming,” Mustafa Souag, head of news at Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language station, told me Monday. “Our main objective was to provide the most accurate and comprehensive coverage that we could by sending cameras and reporters to any place there is an event. And if you don’t have a reporter, then you try to find alternative people who are willing to cooperate because they believe in what we are doing.”

The Tunisian uprising revealed that the dogma perpetuated by the country’s regime — that it was impregnable and its security services invincible — was merely propaganda aimed at keeping Tunisia’s people subdued. Al Jazeera shared this revelation around the region live and in real time, breaking the spell that had stopped millions of ordinary people from rising up and claiming their legitimate rights. Suddenly change seemed possible everywhere across the Middle East.

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Mjc march may be on thursday

MJC march may be on Thursday

Posted on:  2009-01-05 13:47:50

Contrary to a text message and e-mails doing the rounds that says that Masjidul Aqsa has been surrounded by the Israeli Army, spokesperson for the Islamic Movement in Jerusalem, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Zahi Injadat confirmed that this is not the case. He told VOC News a short while ago, that Islam’s third holiest mosque, is not in any direct threat and that members of the Islamic Movement and Palestine 1948, are living inside the mosque.

Injadat said that on Friday Israeli police only allowed men 50 years and old, and women to enter the mosque for Jumuah prayers. He also confirmed that there are a number of blockades set up to limit access into the area. “We are protesting against this genocide in Gaza by marches and other protests…we are doing what we can to stop this crazy war that the Israeli’s are undertaking against our people.

 

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A talented diplomat and the power of americas Isarael lobby

A talented diplomat and the power of America’s Israel lobby

By Simon Barber

BusinessDay- 20/03/2009

ARE you now or have you ever been an Arabist? Is this the signature phrase of a post-Cold War McCarthyism that poisons Washington’s ability to deal rationally with the Middle East and sometimes makes it al-Qaeda’s best recruiter? The admirers of Charles Freeman certainly think so, though few who seek advancement in this town have what it takes to say so publicly.

Freeman, who is arguably one of the most talented US diplomatists of his generation, was to have come out of a busy retirement to be chairman of President Barack Obama’s National Intelligence Council (NIC). Last week, under bipartisan fire from Israel’s — or, more accurately, Likud’s — staunchest defenders in Congress, he stepped aside.

The White House failed to come to his aid, evoking this from the Washington Post’s David Broder, the down-the-middle doyen of America’s political commentators: “The Obama administration has just suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the lobbyists the president vowed to keep in their place, and their friends on Capitol Hill. The country has lost an able public servant in an area where President Obama has few … credentials of his own, the handling of national intelligence.”

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