Why Ugandans want to work in Iraq

Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007.

So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country.

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But what good is your money when you’re dead?

Tension affects news conference in Casablanca in support of Moroccan media

Reporters Without Borders managed to give a news conference yesterday in Casablanca but, in a sign of the tension in its relations with the government, was unable to hold it as scheduled in a meeting room of the Royal Al-Mansour Hotel, although communication minister Khalid Naciri had previously given it his blessing.

An improvised news conference was instead held in the hotel’s lobby in the presence of many Moroccan and foreign journalists.

Oh, PS, I was there   (Yeah, this happened like last week though, just forgot to post it)

Striking Difference

Don’t get me wrong or anything, things here in Casablanca are much better than they ever were in Cairo. There is one thing, though, that I have noticed and that I do not approve of- domestic violence.  I have seen men beat women openly on my street twice so far (and I’ve only been living at my current apartment for three days… clearly chose the good neighborhood, huh?).  The most disgusting thing about it is that no one says anything when it happens, people just continue on their merry little way as if nothing was going on.

EXCUSE ME?! There’s a man beating the lights out of a woman in the middle of the day!! How is this acceptable?!  I can only imagine how much domestic violence goes on behind closed doors…

J Street fills gap in Washington map

Never too late to add another piece to a very complicated puzzle, but….

J Street’s goal was to give a voice to a “broad segment of the American Jewish community and other friends of Israel who believe that peace and an end to the conflict is essential for Israel’s security and survival”.

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Isn’t that what they ALL say?

Snapshot

…Of Moroccan journalism and it’s upward battle of the past few months (including the confiscation of TelQuel, of course) in an open letter to Mrs. Clinton before her appearance at the Forum for the Future in Marrakesh next week from the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Yet we note with deep concern the deterioration of freedom of expression in Morocco itself. Morocco and the United States were co-hosts of the first Forum for the Future, which took place in Rabat in 2004. We hope that you will take advantage of that ongoing partnership to impress upon the Moroccan authorities that a free press is a crucial component of any free society.

Lashes for Saudi woman journalist

A female journalist in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 60 lashes over a TV show in which a Saudi man described his extra-marital sex life.

The programme, made by Lebanese satellite network LBC, caused a huge scandal in conservative Saudi Arabia when it was shown several months ago…

It examined taboos in the Arab world. Unmarried sex in Saudi Arabia amongst Saudis – rather than expatriates – is one of the biggest.

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Would someone PLEASE explain to these people that sex happens?

Tunisia: beyond illusions of change

The president of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, is guaranteed to be re-elected for a fifth term in the country’s presidential election on 25 October 2009. This certain outcome  both reveals the authoritarianism of this north African and Arab country and underlines how far the international community continues to accept such a reality without question.

Read Full OpenDemocracy Article

Interesting take on Tunisian elections by Amel Boubekeur.

Somalis ‘made to view executions’

Hundreds of people in Somalia have been forced to watch Islamist militants executing two people accused of spying…

Somali children’s rights groups say al-Shabaab is intent on brainwashing the young to believe in violent Islamism.

In this way, it can ensure it has a steady supply of recruits, ready to fight for its aim of establishing extreme Islamist rule, not only in Somalia but far beyond its borders.

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… lovely…

Egyptians conflicted over preserving Jewish past

The warren of slum alleys is called the Jews’ Quarter, but no Jews live there. The ancient synagogue still stands, but its roof is gone. The government is renovating it, but is doing so at a moment when anti-Israel feeling is running especially high in Egypt…

The Jewish community that once flourished in the Arab world’s most populous nation left behind physical traces ranging from grand temples in central Cairo and Alexandria to a holy man’s humble grave in a Nile Delta village. But the modern-day Egyptian view of those relics lies within a narrow spectrum ranging from disinterest to outright hostility…

Most sites, however, are in the capital, and more than monuments just to the Jews, they are reminders of a more cosmopolitan Middle East, when Cairo and other Arab cities housed a jumble of ethnic minorities in the midst of Muslim majorities.

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These sites were constructed before the complicated modern politics that plague the region today.  It’s important to preserve these places, if only as a reference to the diversity that once existed in Egypt, in a not so distant past.

Egypt Muslims stone Coptic churches in sectarian clash

Muslims students stoned Coptic Christian churches and homes in a southern Egyptian village on Saturday after four Muslims suspected of killing a Copt were kept in custody, police said.

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Disgusting.