Headlines:
- Farmer Dressed Donkey to Depict Egypt's Sisi Gets Six-Month Sentence
- Ukraine Crisis: NATO Suspends Cooperation with Moscow
- Alliances Realign as Latest Superpower Pulls Out of Afghanistan
Details:
Farmer dressed Donkey to Depict Egypt's Sisi Gets Six-Month Sentence
An Egyptian court has sentenced a farmer to six months in jail for dressing up his donkey last year to depict then-army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, who left his military post last week to run for the presidency. Omar Aboul Magd, 31, was arrested in September after riding his donkey during an anti-military march that was called for by supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. During the protest in the governorate of Qena, Aboul Magd painted Sisi's full name on the donkey's body and dressed it in a military cap. The word "Sisi" stands for "Pony" in Egyptian slang. Both Aboul Magd and his donkey were kept in custody until the Qena Misdemeanors Court found the man guilty of "humiliating the military" on Monday. Although Aboul Magd is expected to be released for time already served, his case is among several viewed as showing the risk of criticizing or offending the military. In January, executives at Vodafone Egypt telecommunications company were questioned by prosecutors over an advertisement in which a puppet was allegedly "using a coded message to incite terrorist attacks" in Egypt. In another court ruling that was described as "grotesque" by Amnesty International last month, 529 Morsi loyalists were sentenced to death for their alleged role in killing a policeman amid violent protests last summer.[Source: Los Angeles Times].
Surely the one who is humiliating Egypt, its people and its armed forces is Sisi. Sisi has overtaken Mubarak in his brutality and is setting new records in both the oppression of the Egyptian people and the humiliation of Egypt to outside foreign powers.
Ukraine Crisis: NATO Suspends Cooperation with Moscow
NATO will suspend "all practical civilian and military cooperation" with Russia because of its annexation of Crimea, saying it has seen no sign that Moscow was withdrawing troops from the Ukrainian border. Foreign ministers from the 28 members of the Western military alliance met in Brussels on Tuesday for the first time since Russia grabbed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine last month, triggering the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War. They were discussing ways to boost NATO's military presence in formerly communist central and Eastern Europe to reassure allies worried by Russia's moves. After the session, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia has challenged truths that only a few weeks ago seemed self-evident: that European borders in the 21st century would not be redrawn by force." is important for everybody in the world to understand that the NATO alliance takes seriously this attempt to change borders by use of force," he said. "So that is the wake-up call." Russia's aggression "is the gravest threat to European security in a generation and it challenges our vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters. In a joint statement announcing the suspension of cooperation, the ministers said political dialogue in the NATO-Russia Council could continue, "as necessary, at the ambassadorial level and above, to allow us to exchange views, first and foremost on this crisis." They said they would review NATO's relations with Russia at their next meeting in June. NATO and Russia have cooperated on an anti-narcotics operation in Afghanistan, counterpiracy and various counterterrorism measures. Rasmussen said cooperation on the anti-narcotics operations would continue. [Source: CNN].
NATO's feeble actions have laid bare America's latest attempts to reassert herself over the European continent, especially Eastern Europe. The spectre of redrawing European borders is alarming for countries with native Russian people as they clamour for Western protection.
Alliances Realign as Latest Superpower Pulls Out of Afghanistan
Afghan watchers in the chancelleries of a dozen different states in south and west Asia know they are in for a long, tough weekend. Alongside them are spies, soldiers and business people, all keen for clues as to how the result of the presidential elections will affect the vast web of invisible regional networks that run through Kabul and across a vast swath of south and west Asia, from the Levant to the Himalayas. "Everybody always says each year is key in Afghanistan. But we are now in a period when everything is very much up in the air. A lot of people have an awful lot at stake," said one western official based in the region. The key local players are Pakistan and Iran, with India, China, the Gulf states, the "-stans" of central Asia, and Russia playing lesser roles. Then there are informal "non-state" actors, extremist groups such as al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Pakistan Taliban, as well as criminal trafficking gangs who have a strong interest in what happens in Afghanistan.Publicly, Afghanistan's immediate neighbours all now insist they want to avoid the anarchy of the early 1990s. Pakistan's official position is that it "remains committed to supporting all efforts for a free and fair electoral process in Afghanistan ... as it would strengthen the prospects of stability". This is challenged by Afghan officials, and some in Washington, who blame the tenacity of the insurgency, the failure of negotiations with the Taliban and a series of bloody attacks on their neighbours. There are fears that a win for Abdullah Abdullah, a candidate who played a key role in a faction sponsored by India in the 1990s, could prompt Pakistan to ramp up "interference". Officials in India are watching Pakistan's moves closely. Delhi has spent billions in Afghanistan since 2001 to build goodwill and has steered away from any security assistance that could provoke Islamabad. Salman Kurshid, the foreign minister, recently flew to Kandahar to open one project - an agricultural university set up in a former collective farm built by the Soviets and later used as a base by Osama bin Laden. Others involve power lines to central Asia, a road to Iran which would break Afghanistan's dependence on Pakistani ports, and a new parliament building. Indian intelligence services have nonetheless made a significant effort to build up networks of contacts in strategic areas such as the south and south-west, one informed expert said. "Maybe someone would like to come to Delhi for medical treatment, or send a relative to an Indian university. That can be arranged. It's just about making friends," he explained. Then there is Tehran, for long deeply involved in its neighbour Afghanistan, if only because of a perceived need to counter efforts of its own great rival, Saudi Arabia, as well as Pakistan, to build influence there. Senior Iranian officials have recently visited India, with which Tehran has a warm relationship, rooted in Delhi's need for cheap oil and mutual antipathy towards Pakistan and Kabul. Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iranian foreign minister, said in Delhi last month: "The occupation [of Afghanistan] by foreign forces is inherently destabilising but if the vacuum is filled by the Taliban all of us will lose." Moscow, an active backer of anti-Taliban factions in the 1990s, has been less involved recently but China is increasingly prominent. Five years ago it was Afghanistan's resources that interested Beijing. Now, it is also the security threat posed by radical Islamic groups and separatists from the Muslim southwest of China, of whom a handful have made their way to Afghanistan to train. [Source: The Guardian].
No matter what Afghanistan's neighbours do to reorganise themselves they will not be able to stop the growing Islamic revival that is sweeping Afghanistan and the surrounding countries. It is only a matter of time before the Caliphate will either emerge from this region or this region will be annexed by the Islamic state, and the real losers will be the disbelievers and their agents.
