New Nominations at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon

A UN press release from earlier this week announced the latest bench and defense nominations at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. We’d written a few weeks ago here at Media Shack about speculation that Antonio Cassese would be appointed presiding judge. The press release confirms this, and adds that the pre-trial judge will be Daniel [...]

Al-Quds on the new Afghanistan Strategy

Most readers are  probably aware by now but President Obama has  announced the new_Afghan_strategy.  There’s not much I can say that isn’t being said by others elsewhere.  So I simply post a translation of Al-Quds Al-Arabi’s analysis of the plan.  Why is it worth reading?
First, Al-Quds is a major Middle Eastern voice and their analysis here is based on extensive [...]

Blog Recommendation: Qifa Nabki

There’s a new blog on Lebanon that I’ve been following for a while now and want to recommend.  It’s called  Qifa_Nabki and features frequent posts and deep analysis of Lebanese politics based on Arabic language sources.   MediaShack readers should check this site out.

Obama was right

Last week, when President Obama predicted Duke would not go far in the 2009 NCAA basketball tournament, Coach K got_mad.  Lets hope Obama’s judgement on Afghan-Pakistan is as good as his basketball acumen because he hit the nail right on the head.  Yesterday  Villanova took  Duke  out_to_the_woodshed  wait….actually,  to call it a woodshedding might not even do [...]

“Boats against the current”

I highly recommend Greg Gause’s article on the Gulf economy in this week’s Review at the National.

Would they go back?

A good article from the NY Times:
BAGHDAD — The American military marked another milestone the other day in the initiative perhaps most responsible for taming the violence in Iraq: All but 10,000 of the 94,000 Sunni militiamen — many of them former insurgents who agreed, for cash, to stop killing American soldiers — had been [...]

Who says women arent equal?

In this article from Al-Arabiya the Saudi Intel chief boasts about his female spies saying:  
“We’ve got a group of women that every Saudi man and woman should be proud of.  Their reports, analysis and suggestions are a hundred times better than the men.” 
I’m not surprised that there are Saudi women working in Intel but [...]

Liberals vs Conservatives in Saudi Arabia

A week ago I posted on a good article about Saudi Prince Walid Bin Talal.  Today, Al-Quds Al-Arabi has an interesting article  talking about the division between a liberal reform current and the religious conservatives who are pushing back.  
Here’s a brief summary: 
Al-Qudspoints out Talal’s wife making unprecedented statements in Saudi media about how she drives when abroad and [...]

The new hotspot

Given this blog’s central mission I feel compelled to formally make note:  Dar_Al_Shourouk is a new Egyptian newspaper that’s making waves.  Look down at the bottom of the screen and you’ll notice that it’s attracted a bunch of big names including Fahmy Howedi who left Al-Dostor to join the paper.    One of the reasons is funding.  The [...]

Measuring Internet Use in the Arab World

I’ve said this before but I think  American journalists and academics tend to inflate  the significance of the internet  in the Arab world ( ie blogs, Jihadist forums),  overlooking that it is not widely used, especially in places such as Egypt.   There isn’t a culture of primarily communicating through email, buying stuff online etc like there is in the [...]

How are people still getting fooled by this guy?

Do foreign journalists often visit National Guard units and ask_to_train?
Military officials met Cohen and his crew at the gate.
“He was treated like a member of the media and escorted around. He was put in a uniform like he requested to allow him to get a taste of what it was like to be an officer [...]

Who gave those to you?

Here is  very interesting story from Egypt’s Al-Masryoon newspaper on Mohamed Hussaneyn Heikal (for more on his background see this post from mregypt).  
Basically, Heikal was one of the most important Arab voices of the 1950s and 1960s (close ally of Nasser) and still has a huge following throughout the region.   As a sign of his popularity,  he has how [...]

“Umm…the Dog Ate my Agenda”

Editor’s Note: Yes, we know that the font’s messed up.  Blame wordpress for not allowing a simple copy and paste from a word document. Not Rob.
Last year, Syria and Lebanon finally agreed to establish diplomatic ties.  The decision was hailed as a political breakthrough, with significant credit given to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for his [...]

Book Endorsement

I want to recommend a good  book I’ve been reading called AC/DC Maximum Rock and Roll: The Ultimate Story of the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.   Overall a good read, even if it occasionally provides more details than necessary about the band’s extracurricular activities.  Any band that has a tendency to melt amps with [...]

The Judges of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Blackstar, Esq,  MediaShack’s Legal Analyst, continues her coverage of the Lebanese Special Tribunal.
Naharnet and Al Mustaqbal report today that Justice Antonio Cassese, has  been appointed presiding judge of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.   Justice Cassese was the former presiding judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and one of the most [...]

The Next King of Saudi Arabia?

This is a very good article on Prince Alaweed Bin Talal, a Saudi businessman and a major player on the Saudi, Arab and even global scene.  I like this part:
He’s not above a little discreet bragging. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he confides to a reporter. “I went to the king almost ten years ago. He was [...]

Getting out of the game

According to this story, 134 members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (which really means the most extreme holdouts  from Algerian GSPC who don’t understand that the war is over) have turned in their weapons and embraced the national reconciliation process.  This came after Hassan Hattab, the group’s founder, issued a statement and set up a website calling [...]

Update on Russian MiG donation to Lebanon

A few months ago, Rob and I discussed Russia donating  10 MiG-29 fighter jets to Lebanon (read here and here).  The cost of maintenance was back then considered a serious issue  for (and probably by) the Lebanese government.  As it turns out, so too it was for the Russian government.
Russia has apparently failed to invest [...]

She’s got my vote

Is there really any question about this?  If this contestant does not win American Idol, something is seriously wrong with the American people. I don’t even care if she wins, make a cd,  anything, I’ll buy.

Bringing the Shia into the Fold?

Yesterday both Blackstar  and Abu_Muqawama  posted on the UK’s attempt to open up lines of communication with Hezbollah. I don’t think its signifigant and I participated in a long 91 comment discussion at Mr. Muqawama’s site which was quite good until about the last 40 when the whackjobism of a few individuals……
Anyway, speaking of Hezbollah, I recommend [...]