Egypt’s Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission on Sunday declared Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) candidate, the winner of the presidential election runoff held the week before in the midst of a political coup carried out by the ruling Supreme Council of...
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The failed emergence of Egypt, Turkey and Iran | by Samir Amin
These three Middle Eastern states should normally have been found in lists of today’s ‘emerging’ states. They have each attempted, in the past, to modernise as a response to the challenge from Europe. Egypt attempted this under Pacha Mohamed Ali of the nineteenth...
Capitalism and alienation | by Phil Gasper
Capitalism creates a society that robs most people of their creative potential, says Phil Gasper I’M SURE it’s not often that the ideas of Karl Marx are discussed in the prestigious pages of the British Journal of Dermatology, but an article published there in January...
Obama, imperialism, and capitalism | by Phil Gasper
In foreign policy, the Obama administration has continued what Bush began, argues Phil Gasper I DON’T often read the conservative columnist Ross Douthat in the New York Times, but a week after the Obama administration’s assassination of Osama bin Laden, Douthat for...
Egyptian election: Odds stacked against democracy | by Sokari Ekine
Whilst the Egyptian people continue artistically expressing themselves, the Egyptian government is busy painting over the walls of history in and around Tahrir square that document the uprising. [attributed to Angry Egyptian] It’ been 16 months since the start of...
“Drones, Missiles, and Gunships, Oh My!” Welcome to the 2012 London Olympics | by Dave Zirin
As many as 48,000 security forces. 13,500 troops. Surface to air missiles stationed on top of residential apartment buildings. A sonic weapon that disperses crowds by creating "head splitting pain." Unmanned drones peering down from the skies. A safe-zone, cordoned...
Syria: Militarization, Military Intervention and the Absence of Strategy | by Gilbert Achcar
I was able to attend the meeting of the Syrian opposition that was held on October 8-9 in Sweden, near the capital Stockholm. A number of male and female activists operating in Syria and abroad joined with prominent figures from the Syrian Coordination Committee (SNC...
‘Islamists’ On Probation: Western Reaction To Tunisian Elections | by Ramzy Baroud
Following Tunisia’s first fair and free elections on October 27, the Western media responded with a characteristic sense of fear and alarm. For many, it seemed that the ghost of the Islamic menace was back to haunt ‘Western values’ throughout the Arab world. The...
An Arab Springtime? | by Samir Amin
The year 2011 began with a series of shattering, wrathful explosions from the Arab peoples. Is this springtime the inception of a second “awakening of the Arab world?” Or will these revolts bog down and finally prove abortive—as was the case with the first episode of...


