Coming Together: Why I’m Proud to be Egyptian
RACHEL MCARTHUR: Now I must admit that phrase had somewhat lost its meaning over the years. The government made its people lose the will to care.
419 Manipulation: Detecting the Agenda
STEVE ROYSTON: The aspect I latched on to was cybercrime, on the 419 scam. The talk was delivered by a former member of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.
Pilgrims to Jesus’ Baptism Site Welcomed by Land Mines
JONATHAN COOK: Visitors to Qasr al Yahud, in the Jordan Valley, received an unusual welcome: They had to pass through a fenced-off corridor warning of landmines.
Bouazizi’s Self-Immolation Spreads to Mauritania
TMND: Thus far, four Algerians and an Egyptian and a Mauritanian each have lit them selves on fire in protests meant to recall Bouazizi…
Tunisia & the C21st Gossip Super-highway, Twitter
DAVID ROBERTS: The first thing that struck me was how often trending tweets were (completely) wrong. Twitter is great for disseminating information extraordinarily quickly.
Making Sense of Algeria’s Riots: Why, What Next?
TMND: Many Algerians today feel just as their parents and siblings did in 1988: there are two castes in the country, the official and the unofficial.
Familiar Enemies: Entwined Lives of Israelis & Palestinians
JOHARAH BAKER: We know what buttons to press to evoke an immediate reaction from each other. Proximity and hostility does strange things.
A Woman’s Reflection on Leading Prayer
YASMIN MOGAHED: As soon as we accept that everything a man has and does is better, all that follows is a knee-jerk reaction: if men have it, we want it too.
Qatar and Her Neighbours in the Cablegate Releases
DAVID ROBERTS: Qatar maintains a close relationship with Iran to safeguard its “trillions of dollars of potential wealth”. Nevertheless, the Head of the Army noted that “we’re neighbours, we’re not friends…”
Publish it Not – Israel and the Sultans of Spin
JONATHAN COOK: Most freelancers forced into this position would either have learned to tailor their reporting to what was expected by the news desks or have headed off to another conflict zone. I stayed…