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The Obama administration has announced new sanctions on those who provide Syria and Iran with technologies of repression:
“On Monday, he (President Obama) announced an executive order that allows U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions on foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, including cellphone tracking and Internet monitoring, to [...]
One year ago yesterday, I noticed a news item about protests in southern Tunisia. Although I had intended to take a blogging break until after the new year, I sensed in these protests a new social movement of some significance, and so put up a post, and continued following the story the next two [...]
The first round of voting in Egypt’s three-stage elections indicates that the new parliament will be dominated by Islamist parties. The areas that voted this week were more liberal than Egypt as a whole, and yet the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have upwards of 40% of the seats, or about what they were expected [...]
My weekend was dominated by pre-Thanksgiving binge grading, and so I’m only now getting my mind around the details of the tumult taking place, not just in Cairo, but Alexandria, the Suez Canal cities, and elsewhere around Egypt. The direct chain of events leading to the current clashes came when Deputy Prime Minister Ali [...]
Anthony Shadid fears that what’s happening in Homs could be a harbinger of things to come in Syria:
“A harrowing sectarian war has spread across the Syrian city of Homs this month, with supporters and opponents of the government blamed for beheadings, rival gangs carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings, minorities fleeing for their native villages, [...]
Thousands of Kuwaitis stormed their country’s parliament today, calling for the ouster of Prime Minister Nasser al-Sabah:
“Thousands of Kuwaitis have stormed parliamentary buildings after police and elite forces beat protesters.
“The protesters marched earlier on Wednesday to Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al-Sabah’s home to demand his resignation, an opposition MP [...]
Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for what he calls the “anti-Christian Spring.” He needs a better fact-checker, since he also blamed Muslims for a complaint an unrelated professor at George Washington University filed against Catholic University of America. Juan Cole, meanwhile, points out how Gingrich’s stated [...]