Egypt

Egypt's Economic Crisis: How to Help Cairo Help Itself - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

The Washington Institute for Near Policy, by Michael Singh---rather long, but worth the read

Because Egypt's economic crisis has political roots, international donors cannot save the country by themselves. But they can use the IMF negotiations to help Cairo recognize that a turnaround will require not just economic reform, but more inclusive government and political reconciliation.

Just as Washington is contending with a spreading civil war in Syria and trying to head off a conflict with Iran, U.S. policymakers find themselves worrying about yet another looming contingency: economic collapse in Egypt. As Secretary of State John Kerry stated during his recent visit to Cairo, "It is important, even urgent, that the Egyptian economy gets stronger." The United States and its allies have several options for addressing this concern, but each requires a fuller understanding of the country's economic problems and how the Egyptian government has responded thus far.

IMMINENT COLLAPSE?

Since the January 2011 revolution, Egypt has been gripped by deepening stagflation: economic growth in the last three months of 2012 was a mere 2.2 percent according to official data, while inflation rose in February 2013 to an annualized rate of 8.7 percent, its highest level since 2010. This combination has placed mounting pressure on ordinary Egyptians, who face rising prices for basic goods (e.g., food, medicine) and increasing unemployment, which rose to 13 percent in the last quarter of 2012, up from 9.8 percent during the same period of 2010 -- which translates to an additional 850,000 jobless people.

These problems are largely driven by two factors. First and foremost is political instability, which has spurred capital flight and harmed domestic businesses. Second is the lack of flexibility in Cairo's fiscal and monetary policies, particularly its mounting budget deficits (a result of large food and fuel subsidies) and its efforts to defend the Egyptian pound against devaluation.

Political instability following the revolution, which has yet to abate, drove a massive outflow of foreign direct investment and portfolio investment; according to Egypt's Central Bank, these losses totaled $418.1 million and $3.3 billion, respectively, in the second half of 2011. This in turn encouraged Egyptians to convert their deposits into dollars and move money abroad, exacerbating the pressure on the pound.

The capital outflows have been accompanied by a sharp decline in tourism, another important source of foreign exchange. Egypt's Tourism Ministry has reported a "loss" of $2.5 billion in tourism revenue since January 2011 compared to typical pre-revolution levels, and the World Economic Forum recently -- and devastatingly -- ranked the country as one of the world's most dangerous destinations for tourists. These developments decreased demand for the pound, the value of which has declined from about 5.8 to the dollar in 2010 to a record low of 6.78 today (and reportedly 7.3 on the black market).

Eager to avoid an increase in the prices of key imports priced in dollars, the Central Bank moved to defend the pound's value, resulting in a staggering decline in Egypt's foreign exchange reserves from almost $37 billion before the revolution to about $13.5 billion today. Furthermore, about half of these reserves are in the form of gold, which is essentially illiquid because it is deposited in Egypt. This means that available reserves are sufficient to cover just over a month's worth of imports, which is critical given Egypt's need to purchase fuel and wheat on global markets and service its external debts.

Meanwhile, the government's post-revolution budget deficit and debt have increased at an accelerating rate as the pound's diminishing value and high global commodity prices drove up Cairo's subsidy bill (which accounts for at least 27 percent of all government spending). This was accompanied by increased spending on social benefits, a key demand of the revolution. Overall, subsidy and social benefit spending rose 49 percent from July 2012 to January 2013 compared to the same period the previous year; the budget deficit rose by 36 percent to $17.7 billion that period and is projected to increase to $27-34 billion by July. With Egypt's international credit rating repeatedly downgraded, the government has been forced to finance these enormous deficits by relying almost exclusively on domestic debt, which last year rose $34 billion to reach $184 billion, or almost 70 percent of gross domestic product. This has increased domestic borrowing costs, potentially crowding out private-sector borrowing that is vital to renewed economic growth.

Taken together, these developments paint a dire picture for Egyptians, especially if the government runs short of the foreign exchange required for food and fuel imports, resulting in shortages. According to Egypt's Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade, food products represent about 17 percent of the country's imports, and oil products about 18 percent. From 2011 to 2012, these imports increased at least 10 and 28 percent, respectively. Egypt's wheat supply is reportedly already under pressure, reduced from six months' stock to three. The alternative -- ending the Central Bank's defense of the pound -- could mean a sharp drop in the currency's value, significant inflation, and even more pressure on the budget and the banks. Either way, Egypt faces the possibility of significant economic hardship and further social unrest.

For its part, the Egyptian government appears to be banking on a third scenario -- muddling through. President Muhammad Morsi's current policy amounts to reducing food and fuel imports, though not to crisis levels, while counting on stopgap assistance from friendly countries to prevent the Central Bank's foreign exchange reserves from reaching critical levels. Yet this policy cannot be sustained indefinitely; public anxiety about the pound is accelerating dollarization of deposits, and upcoming debt payments could combine with other factors to trigger a deeper crisis (similar to the $650 million Paris Club payment Cairo made in January, which caused a sharp drop in reserves).

 

via www.washingtoninstitute.org

Why is Morsi a failure in every sense?

Canadian Charger

In politics as in physics there are basic laws, if a political leader respects and follows them he will succeed but if not he will fail, often with a high price paid by the people. Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi is a classic example of a failed political leader and the 92 million Egyptians are now paying a heavy price.

To be a successful political leader, following these laws is necessary but not sufficient. To be successful, the political leader must also have leadership qualities; to have a vision, be a team player, a good manager, a good communicator, a good listener and well read. Morsi has none of these characteristics.

Morsi took office in July last year promising to work hard to fulfill the three aims of the January 25^th revolution; to live in a democracy, and to achieve both economical development and social justice. This is exactly what his platform was during his presidential campaign, and it was also the reason that he got more votes, only 2%, than his rival.

The first law of politics states that in such cases following a revolution, if Morsi negates on his election promises then the people, all the people, those who elected him and those did not, will lead an uprising against him as they will consider him a liar, never to be trusted.

The second law of politics states that if Morsi uses the police to harass, intimidate, and kill those who lead the uprising against him, he will fuel more of the same. And this is exactly what Morsi has done during his first 8 months in office.

As corollary to this law, if the head of the state continues on this track he is inviting more violence on the streets which will result, sooner or later, in the masses, with or without the help of the army, to topple him. This is again will be the end of Morsi, off course if and only if the US (alone and via Qatar) stays away from saving him.

The third law of politics states that in a political turmoil like what is happening in Egypt now, the local currency will suffer resulting in high inflation, local and foreign investments will disappear, unemployment will increase and the poor will become poorer. As result kiss good bye to achieving economical development and social justice.

As corollary of the third law, the poor will join the uprising in mass and pity crime will sour. And this is exactly what happened in Egypt under Morsi’s leadership.

The fourth law of politics states that if an elected president gives himself dictatorial powers and declared that his decrees  are all above the law, then he becomes an outlaw and losses not only his legitimacy as an elected head of state but loses also the respect among his people, his subordinates and the international community of nation states. These in turn make the people not respectable of the law or any of the court rulings; if the head of the state turns his back to the law why should they. This is what we have witnessed in the last 8 month of Morsi’s rule.

The fifth law of politics states that if an elected president turned a dictator (EPTD) ignores the opposition’s political views accusing her of sabotaging his rule and blaming her for the uprisings, the violence in the streets, the increase in pity crime, etc. etc. then the conclusion is this: the EPTD will not accept the responsibility of his actions and will not learn from his mistakes, hence he will lead his country into a disaster.

The sixth law of politics states that if the EPTD interferes with the courts and the justice system and politizes court cases, then the justice system will collapse and loses its power as being impartial and fair. Again, and again Morsi interfered with the court system by appointing Muslim Brotherhood members as General Prosecutor and as Minister of Justice and approved a new constitution which was approved only by less than 20% of the registered voters.

The case of Morsi as a failed political leader breaking all these six laws of politics was manifested clearly in the events of last Saturday.

A court verdict over last year soccer violence in Port Said which resulted in 72 fans of the strong Cairo’s Al-Ahly club being killed, sparked fresh unrest across the country, with deadly clashes between police and protesters and buildings being torched, as the civil unrest which was already wide spread in several cities grow even farther.

This wave of unrest came on the heel of last week court ruling that Morsi’s calling for parliamentary elections in April is illegal under the current election law.

Morsi was, and still is, facing a revolt in Port Said, growing nationwide unrest and an unprecedented police strike across the country. All this and he is nowhere to be found.

A Port Said court, sitting in Cairo for security reasons, confirmed death sentences for 21 defendants and handed down life sentences to five people, with 19 receiving lesser jail terms and another 28 exonerated. The ruling was considered harsh to appease the politically strong and well organized fans of Cairo’s Al-Ahly club, as Morsi thought they would join the opposition parties calling for his downfall.

The court’s confirmation of the death sentences for the 21 defendants was unprecedented in the country’s history as Egypt’s Grand Mufti has not yet confirmed the death sentences as the law demands. Also sending 21 people to their death meant that the panel of judges had no doubt that these people had the intention and also the means to kill the 72 victims of the Al-Ahly club. This is hard to believe. Worse still, the court also did not address the motivation and did not identify the master mind behind the tragedy.

via www.thecanadiancharger.com

Terror in Tahrir Square

NY Times

Cairo’s Tahrir Square once symbolized the hope Egyptians felt when they overthrew Hosni Mubarak and began building a democracy. But this iconic rallying point for protesters has today also come to symbolize the terror and contempt women increasingly face since the Muslim Brotherhood came to power and the country descended into turmoil.

Assaults and gang rapes of women in Tahrir have become so common the last two years that the square is now a no-go zone for women, especially after dark. There are no official statistics. But according to an account in The Times on Tuesday, at least 18 incidents were reported on Jan. 25, the second anniversary of the revolution, during a demonstration against the new Islamist-led government.

Six women were hospitalized, one was stabbed in the genitals and another required a hysterectomy. Hania Moheeb, 42, a journalist, told how a group of men had surrounded her in Tahrir, stripped off her clothes and violated her for almost an hour.

The scandal is not just that such violence happens. The women are being blamed by conservative Islamists for bringing the assaults on themselves. As Adel Abdel Maqsoud Afifi, a police general and lawmaker, said, “Sometimes, a girl contributes 100 percent to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions.”

Such twisted thinking is not only hateful in itself but is designed to keep women, who were at the front lines of the revolution, out of politics and power. If President Mohamed Morsi, his Islamist-led government and opposition political leaders do not speak out unambiguously and repeatedly to condemn the attacks and also bring assailants to justice, they are complicit in the crimes.

In the Mubarak era, the omnipresent police kept sexual violence out of prominent public sites and public view. Since the police withdrew from Tahrir Square and other places, sexual assaults have grown bolder and more violent. Attackers are also enabled by certain extreme religious orthodoxies and government policy. This month, when a United Nations conference adopted guidelines for ending violence against women, the Brotherhood condemned the statement, saying it would undermine Islamic ethics and lead to the disintegration of society.

Because Egypt is a leader in the Arab world, what it does and says about women and their relationship to Islam matters a lot. The Brotherhood says it is committed to the rule of law and equal rights, but unless those concepts are applied in ways that let women live their lives safely and as true partners and citizens alongside men, they are just slogans and a surefire guarantee of persistent hostility and controversy in a country that can ill afford either.

 

via www.nytimes.com

The Last Jews of Egypt

The Daily Beast, by Alistair Beach

When Amir Ramses decided to shoot a documentary about the history of Egypt’s rapidly dwindling Jewish community, the filmmaker knew he could be stirring up a hornet’s nest.

Egyptian demonstrators burn an Israeli flag during a protest outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo on August 20, 2011. (Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty )

“People in Egypt have conspiracy theories about Jews,” Ramses told The Daily Beast in Cairo this week. “When you say the word ‘Jew,’ people automatically relate it to Israel.”

Problems began earlier this month when Egypt’s Censorship Bureau, which operates under the Ministry of Culture, told Ramses it would not be issuing a permit to allow the film to be released. Speaking shortly afterward, censorship chief Abdel Sattar Fathy explained to a local newspaper that the film had been marked up by State Security as unsuitable for public showing.

But following an outcry from free-speech advocates and fellow filmmakers, officials eventually backed down. And this week the documentary, which presents an unprecedented account of Jewish Egyptian life in the 20th century, finally went out on general release.

According to 33-year-old Ramses, the reaction from preview screenings he conducted before the film’s premiere was “weirdly positive.”

“We expected people to go into this kind of topic with hostile preconceptions,” he said. “But actually there was really good feedback.”

Rights groups and activists, although welcoming the eventual decision to issue a permit for Ramses’s documentary, criticized the earlier attempts by the nation’s deeply entrenched State Security services—weaned on anti-Zionist antipathy and reared under the shadow of successive wars with the Jewish state—to torpedo his film.

“It implies that the same laws used by the old regime are still being used by the current regime,” said Emad Mubarak, director of a free-speech NGO that had been helping Ramses prepare legal action against the Egyptian authorities.

Numbering up to 100,000 at their peak following the Second World War, the Jewish presence in Egypt stretches back more than 3,000 years to the time of Ramses II.

Jews of Egypt

The documentary, titled Jews of Egypt, certainly marks a daring watershed in Egyptian cinema.

Described on its website as an attempt to find out why the country’s once-thriving Jewish community went from being “partners in the same country to enemies,” it represents the first time any serious attempt has been made to document the collective experience of Egypt’s 20th-century Jewry for a mainstream film.

Numbering up to 100,000 at their peak following the Second World War, the Jewish presence in Egypt stretches back more than 3000 years to the time of Ramses II.

Despite constituting only a fraction of the Egyptian population, many rose to positions of the highest prominence. The great medieval Jewish polymath Maimonides was at one time chief physician in the court of Saladin, the great Crusader foe of the English king, Richard Lionheart.

More recently, in the first half of the 20th century, King Fouad’s chief speechwriter was a Jew, as was his minister of finance.

Many who lived in Egypt during the twilight of Britain’s fading influence as a colonial power gaze back longingly to a cosmopolitan country where they say Italian and Greek merchants lived peacefully alongside their Jewish neighbors—albeit in a society where plurality was often underpinned by British bayonets.

Roger Biboul, an Egyptian Jew now living in the U.K. after being expelled from his homeland in the 1950s, told The Daily Beast that his childhood growing up in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria was a “glorious time.”

“It was a very multicultural environment where people from different religions and nationalities got on with each other,” said the 72-year-old. “We had a very nice, blessed type of existence.”

But problems began when Gamal Abdel Nasser took power in 1954. After a high-profile Israeli spy ring was uncovered that same year, popular attitudes against Jews hardened.

In the wake of the Suez Crisis of 1956, when Israel helped Britain and France invade Egypt to reclaim the Suez Canal, the government ordered a wave of expulsions. Over the following years, tens of thousands more left, joining the other foreigners who were fleeing Nasser’s nationalist revolution.

The current size of Egypt’s Jewish community now numbers no more than a few dozen.

The youngest member of the mostly female community is older than 50, while most of those who remain have married Muslim or Christian men, meaning that Egypt’s Jewish culture is likely to die out within the space of a generation.

“I think in Egypt you could question whether there is any future left in the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, an American who has been trying to help establish a fund to preserve the country’s Jewish heritage.

Those who remain live in a society, that, over the years, has become steadily more hostile toward Israel—a hostility that occasionally bubbles over into outright anti-Semitism.

Although the Egyptian government has carried out high-profile restorations of synagogues over the years, members of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora complain that officials often seem ambivalent about the projects.

In one telling scene from Jews of Egypt, an elderly man is filmed telling an interviewer how much he likes the famed Egyptian singer Leila Mourad. After being told that she was Jewish, he then changes his mind.

“I did this film because I’m very concerned about where we are going as a society,” said Ramses. “My utopia was Alexandria in the 1940s. But I feel a depression about where we are now.”

via www.thedailybeast.com

Three Crazy James Bond Villains Were Caught Trying to Cut Through The Internet's Undersea Cables

While the Internet at large was freaking out about an apocalyptic attack that wasn't really happening yesterday, something nefarious was going down at the bottom of the sea. Egyptian authorites found a trio of divers down there attempting to sever a crucial submarine communications cable.

Yesterday, Egypt's Coast Guard stumbled upon a suspicious fishing boat off the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. There's no word on what tipped them off, but upon investigation, they caught the team of divers up to no good and apparently mid-cut. The cable in question is owned by Egypt Telecom, the country's monopoly landline provider, making it sort of an important link in the vast network of undersea Internet connections.

These guys were slicing away right here by node #5:

The Official Military Spokesman of the Armed Forces of Egypt put it this way in a statement on Facebook (translated):

[The] Navy today successfully foiled 3 divers, while they cut submarine cable for connection to the Internet, the company's Telecom Egypt, near the coast of Shatby in Alexandria ... [The] Navy chased Bnas fishing which was launched from three divers, and arrested all crew members and handed them over to the border guards to take the necessary legal action against them.

And whatever they were up to, it was a good first step to serious Internet destruction. If you were out to really cripple the beast like some cartoon mastermind, cutting the cables would be your go-to first step, second only to destroying more guarded land-based nodes. The 'net's web of undersea cables is a verifiable weakness, considering they're both hard to effectively guard and necessarily act as chokepoints.

So far, there's no explanation for what the divers' nefarious plan was, but it's possible they also had something to do with previously unexplained disruptions to undersea cables serving Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia over the past several days. And coordinated cable cutting—if that was the plan—could seriously cripple the Internet for quite a while.

So worry all you want about DDoS attacks, but there are physical targets for Internet attacks as well. You just have to be sort of a James Bond-style villian to get to them. [Reuters]

Image via Official Military Spokesman of the Armed Forces of Egypt

via gizmodo.com

Closed off in Cairo: walls erected during Egypt protests still standing

The Guardian, by Patrick Kingsley

Residents and business owners say 12ft barriers installed by military dictatorship have changed the once vibrant streets

One day in late 2011 yoga instructor Salima Barakat arrived at her studio in central Cairo to find a wall blocking the entrance. Soldiers had built a series of four-metre-high concrete barriers across the width of her street, dividing the road – and her building – in two. On one side was her garage. On the other was her front door.

"I have my 80-year-old aunt living in the building," said Barakat. "If anything had happened to my aunt, how would she have got out?"

The wall is one of around a dozen that continue to block a similar number of the most central and strategic residential thoroughfares in downtown Cairo. Two blocks north, life bustles on. But the walls have stagnated the once-lively streets in their immediate vicinity.

"People don't know how to live here any more," said civil servant Abdel Mansour, whose home and office sit 100 metres apart, but are now separated by a wall three streets east of Barakat's. "It's like we've reached decay. There's no more movement of cars, or of people."

The walls were erected, supposedly as a temporary measure, by the military dictatorship that followed the fall of Hosni Mubarak. In November 2011 revolutionaries protesting against army rule tried to force their way from Tahrir Square towards nearby government ministries. After days of deadly fighting the army built the walls to stop them. They are still there.

"It affects all of us – the people who work here and the people who live here," said Georges Hanna, a dry cleaner whose shop, once perched on a bustling thoroughfare, is now at the bottom of a makeshift cul-de-sac, thanks to the wall on Fahmy Street. Hanna said business had dropped markedly after its construction, as the resulting traffic jams made his shop hard to access. "Some of my clients had been with me for a lifetime, but now they stick to places closer to their home. There was also a lot of walking traffic. But now no one will pass this way because there's no shops."

A wall blocking Qasr al-Aini street. The banner reads: 'Residents and owners of markets in Cairo, ask Mursi to open and bring down the walls.' Photograph: Amr Dalsh/Reuters

For some the walls are more than a hindrance: they are also a visual visual reminder of how the new Islamist-led government is as unconcerned as the dictatorships that preceded it about the concerns of ordinary Egyptians. The new government, headed by Egypt's first freely elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, has not only preserved the walls but has even built new ones.

"The walls are the latest iteration of the gap between the rulers and the ruled," said Mohamed Elshahed, the editor of Cairobserver, a website about urban space in Cairo. "The Brotherhood are just a civilian cover for the same mentality that has been governing Egypt for the last 40 years."

"It's oppression that you can see with your eyes," said Zeft, one of many graffiti artists to have painted murals on the walls as an act of defiance. "We were colonised by the military and we're now colonised by religion."

For Zeft, an engineering student who was involved in the November 2011 protests, the walls also have an emotional significance. "I see a certain street and I can remember that someone died there. Or that someone was blinded near that wall." He pointed to a bulge on a lamp-post next to a wall on Manshour Street. "Feel that," he said. "That's a bullet. It entered there, and settled here."

At first, the images on the walls were hopeful. On one artists created a witty trompe l'oeil of a suburban street apparently beyond the wall, an optimistic reminder of what the roads used to be like. Zeft put a rainbowon another surface, children playing beneath it. But later Zeft's work became more despondent. Recently he helped a friend create a horrifying mural of a woman's assault in Tahrir Square, a reference to the recent wave of sexual harassment of female protesters.

"It used to be a very lively area – there was always people laughing and joking all the time," said Sarah Youssef, a non-governmental organisation director who owns a flat on Youssef el-Guindy Street. "Then after the walls it became very quiet, very dull and sometimes scary. It's become a place where all the weird stuff happens: robberies, theft … Tahrir Square is lively, but then I go home a block away and it's totally dark, there's lots of garbage."

Youssef and her husband have been forced to move out of their flat, partly because of the walls and partly because the teargas frequently used at nearby protests exacerbated her asthma. "For eight months my furniture still smelled of teargas," Youssef said. "One of my neighbours started coughing up blood."

Some residents – usually those blessed with strong arms and dressed in casual clothes – save time by hauling themselves over the walls. But it's tough work, and sometimes dangerous. "My brother tried to get over this week and he broke his leg," said Ahmed Tegi, as he clambered over himself, carrying a bag of juice back to his restaurant on the other side. Many schools straddle the barriers, forcing students to take the long route round. For a time, the only way to one school was through Salima Barakat's house.

"Before it would take two seconds to get to work," added Mansour, the civil servant, who has lived in the area all his life. "Now I have to go all the way round. It's ridiculous. Some of my colleagues have to get up at five in the morning because the traffic is so congested."

Samir Abou Eissa works as a car parker for business executives who don't have time to do it themselves. But because of the walls and the protests, work has dried up.

"People have lost their jobs in these areas so they don't come here any more," he said. "Also there's a general sense that it's more dangerous, so people don't trust to leave their keys with me. And because of the walls, people are more frustrated with parking, so they park anywhere, and don't ask me to help them. My remaining customers are the ones who have been here for many years. I haven't got any new customers recently."

Taxi drivers are also frustrated, as the walls have made it even harder to drive through parts of Cairo. "This road used to be moving traffic," said driver Mahdy Sayed on a blocked street that is now a glorified car park. "Before it would take me less than five minutes to get through here. Now it takes an extra half hour. You have to take the longest route, and there are [fewer] passengers."

The blockage has nevertheless had a few positive effects. On some streets, the walls have added to the traffic. But on Qasr-el-Aini Street, a normally frantic thoroughfare that passes the houses of parliament, the walls have rid the area of cars. "In a way [it] has returned the area to a neighbourhood feel," said Elshahed, who lives nearby. "It's a very bizarre side effect that I don't think was ever intended. Qasr-el-Aini was almost a hellish experience, with cars honking the whole time. But now it's much more pleasant, somehow."

Yet for Youssef, who has moved back in with her parents, this is scant consolation. "I miss my home," she said.

 

via www.guardian.co.uk

Morsi’s-first-Arab-summit

Al-Ahram Weekly by Dina Ezzat

President Mohamed Morsi is leading the Egyptian delegation to the Arab summit meeting in Doha this week, where his ambitions are likely to range more widely than just the Qatari capital, writes Dina Ezzat

Morsi gives his speech at the Arab summit in Doha (photos: AP)

When President Mohamed Morsi heads back home to Cairo this week from a visit to the Qatari capital Doha, where he arrived on Monday evening to take part in the annual Arab summit, he is unlikely to have made a breakthrough in ending the apprehension that has clouded Egypt’s relations with key Arab states, especially those that it desperately needs to come to its economic rescue, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

According to some presidential aides, a key objective of Morsi’s mission in Doha is to ease tensions with Arab countries that have been eyeing Morsi’s presidency, or rather the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, with apprehension.

When the president left Cairo on Monday against a backdrop of growing political furore and fears of escalating political confrontation, there were few officials who could be found expressing optimism over the prospect of bilateral meetings with the heads of the Saudi or UAE delegations at the summit meeting.

“I think the focus is on the summit and its agenda rather than on bilateral meetings that even if convened will not be extended or elaborate,” one official said, adding that though the president would “for sure” like “to break the ice”, the mission would not be an easy one given the “deep apprehension” that both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have expressed regarding the arrival of Morsi in power.

Both Arab countries have been unhappy with the performance of Morsi and his team since the president took office last summer, and shortly before the Doha summit Morsi had to personally assure the Saudi monarch in a phone call qualified by some as “rather cold” on the Saudi side that the wealth of Saudi investors in Egypt was protected and that there was no intention on the Egyptian side to freeze Saudi assets.

The phone call came fewer than 24 hours following a decision issued by the prosecutor-general in Egypt to freeze the assets of several Egyptian and Arab investors, including key Saudi businessmen, for their alleged involvement in the flawed sale of a bank under the rule of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak.

Then, fewer than 24 hours after the telephone call, officially announced as an opportunity to discuss regional developments, a Cairo court suspended the prosecutor’s actions due to a lack of evidence of any involvement by the businessmen concerned.

However, according to leading Arab and Egyptian businessmen the damage had already been done, and Saudi investors are reportedly already reconsidering plans to invest in Egypt.

The matter came to a head only a few days after Riyadh decided to reconsider, at least on a temporary basis, a plan to grant Egypt a rapid loan to help the country fix its foreign currency deficit in order to facilitate the already complicated negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a loan of around $6 billion that Egypt has been trying to negotiate in several tranches.

The complications in the relations with Saudi Arabia came at the same time as an already confused relationship with the United Arab Emirates, which has been playing host to some key refugees from the former Mubarak regime, including Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak’s last prime minister, who ran against Morsi in the second round of last year’s presidential elections.

Egypt’s complicated relations with the UAE are likely to be more difficult to fix given the arrest of Egyptian citizens by the UAE authorities a few months ago on charges of trying to establish a Muslim Brotherhood network in the UAE in violation of national laws.

“Mediation to fix this matter, including that exerted by Qatar [probably Egypt’s closest ally since Muslim Brotherhood rule began] and the US, has not been successful,” said one informed government source.

While in Doha, Morsi will be trying to promote the image of a president of a regime that aims strictly to refrain from any intervention in the internal affairs of other Arab countries. However, it is very much an open question, Egyptian diplomats admit, whether this message will be heeded or not.

Indeed, the statement made by Morsi in the Arab summit, whereby he coupled his assertion of Egypt’s commitment to non-interference in internal affairs of other countries with a show of anger about suggested potential intervention by some Arab states in Egyptian affairs, indicates that tension rather than reconciliation seems to be in the air of Egyptian relations with at least some of its Arab friends.

“We don’t interfere in the affairs of anyone but we also don’t accept anyone to interfere in our affairs; it is not acceptable to have any finger meddling in Egypt; this is prohibited,” Morsi told the Arab summit.

Meanwhile, Morsi joined other Arab leaders in addressing the two priority items on the agenda of the Arab summit: negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and the crisis in Syria.

“It might not look like it, but the Palestinian issue remains a key subject for Cairo, especially now that there are concerns that the chances of the two-state solution being realised are fast eroding as [illegal] Israeli settlements are eating up whatever is left of the Palestinian territories on the West Bank,” one peace process diplomatic source said.

Egypt, the same source said, was keen to make the best out of the new US willingness to play a role in the peace process that was expressed by US President Barack Obama during his recent visit to the Middle East.

Obama will not become directly engaged in the way that former US president Bill Clinton did in the peace process in the late 1990s, Arab peace process diplomats said. However, “he will give things a good try, and he will try to get things to move forward,” one diplomat said.

According to Morsi’s aides, Egypt is willing to support this try, even in the knowledge that it may not work. “Of course, we are not blind to the lack of political will on the part of [Israeli prime minister Binyamin] Netanyahu to find a fair settlement to the Palestinian issue, but this might be the last chance for the two-state solution,” the same aide said.

In his statement before the summit Morsi made no direct reference to either Obama’s efforts or to the Arab peace initiative. He, however, spoke exactly of the elements of the initiative and the new US diplomatic scheme: a fair peaceful settlement.

Morsi, who during his pre-presidency days spoke at length about the whole of historic Palestinian territories and the right of resistance, skipped the past jargon and confined himself to an en passant reference to the “steadfastness of the resisting Palestinian people”.

On Syria, Morsi, the same officials said, would prescribe a mixture of supporting the Syrian opposition, not excluding military and technical assistance, and of promoting the initiative of the opposition’s leader to pursue a negotiated settlement.

In Cairo’s view, a negotiated settlement may be the best way of avoiding civil war in Syria. “If you force a military settlement, and I am not sure that this could be done without going from the current very bloody scene to an even worse scene of bloodshed, you will end up with winners and losers, and in a country like Syria that has many ethnic ingredients this is precisely what could start a protracted civil war,” one government source said.

Effectively, Morsi’s statement before the Arab summit made an unmasked warning of a possible civil feud that could endanger Syrian territorial unity if the crisis is forced into a settlement. A negotiated settlement to the liking of all Syrians was prescribed by Morsi to the summit.

Morsi is likely to be able to garner considerable support for the Egyptian approach to both the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the Syrian crisis, though possible more on the former than the latter.

Overall, Egyptian diplomats say that Morsi’s participation as the head of an Arab delegation to an Arab Summit meeting for the first time is a big event, even though the president has already participated in several other summits and has hosted a summit meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Egypt.

The family photograph of Arab leaders in which Morsi is going to take the place of ousted former president Mubarak will also include new faces from other Arab Spring countries, including Libya and Tunisia. However, there will also be quite a few old faces, especially those from the monarchies of the Arab Gulf, and there will be some provisional faces, including those of the leadership of the Syrian opposition.

These will be present as the representatives of the Syrian people, though the increasingly isolated Syrian president, Bashar Al-Assad, is not in any case sending a delegation to the Summit.

“The family photograph used to see no changes, except with God’s intervention [through the death of one or other Arab leader], but now there is little guarantee that those who appear in this year’s photograph will still be in office next year,” commented one Arab League official.

 

via weekly.ahram.org.eg

Egypt forex reserves did not fall significantly in March

 Reuters

(Reuters) - Egypt's reserves of foreign currency did not decline significantly in March even though $1.3 billion of hard currency was used for imports including essential commodities and oil, the central bank said.

 

The reserves stood at $13.5 billion at the end of February - barely enough to cover three months of imports to the country of 84 million that buys much of its food and fuel from abroad. The March figure is due out next week.

Two years of instability since Hosni Mubarak was swept from power have battered Egypt's economy and foreign reserves, which had stood at $36 billion on the eve of the uprising that toppled him.

The central bank made its comments in a statement on Thursday denying an Egyptian newspaper report claiming Governor Hisham Ramez had told President Mohamed Mursi that the bank could not supply foreign currency to import basic goods.

Shortages of imported fuel are disrupting Egypt's economy, leading to power cuts and long queues at petrol stations for subsidized diesel that some are now hoarding at home. Egypt has also cut back on purchases of imported wheat this year.

The central bank said that the $1.3 billion had gone towards imports including basic commodities and petroleum products.

"Despite that, the reserves of foreign currency at the central bank did not witness a significant decline during March," it said, attributing that to good management of foreign currency resources and uses.

The statement added that the central bank had not received any deposits from "friendly states" in February and March. The Gulf state of Qatar deposited $4 billion in Egypt's central bank last year to help support the Egyptian economy.

Seeking to ration dollars, the central bank introduced a system of foreign exchanges auctions in late December, since when the Egyptian pound has lost 9 percent of its value.

The authorities are giving priority to importers of essential goods, leaving other importers to meet their hard currency needs on a black market that has taken root this year.

Egypt is seeking a $4.8 billion IMF loan to help plug a gaping budget deficit and address the foreign exchange crisis. Agreement on a loan would unlock billions of dollars of aid from other states and international institutions.

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it would visit Egypt in the "first days of April" for talks with the government on a possible financing program.

In Cairo, government spokesman Alaa El Hadidi said the IMF would return "some time next week".

President Mohamed Mursi's government initialed a deal with the IMF last November but postponed final ratification in December in the face of political unrest.

Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, visited Cairo on March 17, saying the Fund would continue talks aimed at agreeing possible financial aid.

The governm

 

via www.reuters.com

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: A project of patriarchal extremism

Ahram Online, by Margot Badran

Gaining freedom of speech and other forms of unfettered public visibility after long decades of repression and silencing – thanks to the January 25 Revolution – the Muslim Brothers now raise their collective voice in defence of patriarchal oppression writ wide and deep.

The Muslim Brothers (not the breakaways and principled youth among them) with increasingly shrill voices have been telling everyone that they decide upon the rights of human beings – what is good and necessary for everybody – in an aggressive display of authoritarian arrogance. 

They unabashedly use Islam to shore up the patriarchy they hold dear and the power that goes with it. What they have dribbled out piecemeal over the past two years on the floor of the (now defunct) parliament or in the media the Muslim Brothers have now pulled together in an official declaration of their patriarchal project.

What brought this out we might ask?  Can this be seen as an answer to the spectre of women’s power and anxieties about creeping egalitarianism?  The 57th meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) from 4 to 15 March confronting violence against women in all guises flushed out the pronunciamento. Now we have it, not in stray demands for reigning in women that might have been put down to rogue voices but as a larger package.

The international attention given this month to the scourge of violence against women was highlighted in neon by the spike in physical and sexual attacks against women in streets and public squares in Egypt. Young women, along with outraged young men, are taking matters into their own hands trying to provide security and fighting back in the absence of efforts by the Islamist-headed state, which seems more involved safeguarding itself than its citizens. We see the Muslim Brothers fiercely protecting their headquarters under attack, including roughing up women, they who pretend to value women.

Instead of joining efforts to stop violence against women, demonstrating genuine concern for women, the Muslim Brothers seized the occasion of the UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting to blast these global efforts and flex their patriarchal muscle.

If they wish to deflect attention from their waning influence, the Muslim Brothers are courting just theopposite. They are pushing the proponents of justice, freedom and dignity to fight harder to achieve the societal transformation the revolution has set in motion.

Rather than making common cause with Egyptian women, and the world at large in tackling the urgent matter of violence against women now reaching epidemic proportions, the Muslim Brothers swivel attention away from the blight of violating women back to distracting harangues about religion and culture (as defined by them), fecklessly sheltering their patriarchy in its folds.

In the lead-up to the vote on the draft statement on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women and Girls, the Muslim Brothers issued their patriarchal broadside condemning the CSW statement claiming it “includes articles that contradict established principles of Islam, undermine Islamic ethics and destroy the family.” 

If ratified, they warned, the declaration “would lead to complete disintegration of society.” They topped it up with the old mantra that this would “be the final step in the intellectual and cultural invasion of Muslim countries, eliminating the moral specificity that helps preserve the cohesion of Islamic societies.” 

Apart from the pontification of the Muslim Brothers bordering on shirk by seeming to endow the Muslim Brothers with divine authority, the old ‘religious and cultural invasion argument’ has become threadbare.

From the Muslim Brothers’ declaration we hear about the doom and gloom that await if the UN document is ratified (which was soon after their statement was posted). Their declaration is an outline of patriarchy, egregiously alleging the benediction of Islam in its assault against the notion of equality. 

It intones on what women and girls should do and not do, should be and not be. It is about men’s control of women. It is concerned with men’s privileges, power and authority. There is not a word about violence against women, about men’s physical and sexual violence against women and violation of women’s rights. The Muslim Brothers outrageously exploit an occasion for dealing with violence against women to uphold male pre-eminence.

In demonising the UN statement, the Muslim Brothers enumerate “the destructive tools meant to undermine the family as an important institution that would subvert the entire society.”  We name three. (For the full list see: Ikhwan Web)

·       “Replacing guardianship [of women by men] with partnership, and a full sharing of roles within the family between men and women such as spending, childcare and home chores.”

·       “Removing the authority of divorce from husbands and placing it in the hands of judges [actually this already happened a decade ago when a law was enacted allowing women to request divorce in front of a judge through a mechanism known as khul’]

·       “Cancelling the need for a husband’s consent in matters like travel [around the same time this has already been granted to women]…”

The Muslim Brother’s patriarchal atavism is in direct clash with the time of revolution when Egyptians are fighting to assure the triumph of freedom, justice and dignity achievable only in an egalitarian order. Patriarchy as a regime of control, of the older over the younger, of men over women, of the privileged over the less advantaged is doomed. Bashing women, sending them home, telling them how to live their lives – all this violence and violation of women as part of broad intersecting layers of violence and violation to assure the domination of the few over the any will not do the trick.

The revolution as a profound and comprehensive transformation will be realised when patriarchy and its institutions, ideas and practices are dismantled and all the political, social and cultural jahaliyya detritus is dumped in the trash bin. Islam will no longer be called upon to do patriarchy’s political work. Egalitarianism of gender, age, class, ethnicity and belief will triumph over patriarchy as its grid of inequities is split apart.  It will be an undivided secular/religious victory.

 

via english.ahram.org.eg

Thursday’s papers: the judiciary and the presidency back in the ring

Egypt Independent, by Heba Afify

Mahmoud Khalid

Thursday’s papers point to a new episode in the long-standing power struggle between the presidency and the judiciary, which had been dormant for the past few months.

Independent Al-Shorouk newspaper reports that an appeals court has overturned the president’s appointment of the current Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah in November.

The paper cites the head of the prosecutor’s office Hassan Yassin who responded to the verdict saying that it cannot be executed, and affirmed that Abdallah will continue fulfilling the obligations of his position as usual until the verdict is appealed.

Meanwhile, the head of the judges’ club, which was at the forefront of the judiciary’s battled with the presidency told the paper that the general prosecutor should leave his post and thereby preserve his standing among judges. He added that an appeal from him would be met with an appeal from the judges’ club requesting the annulment of all the prosecutor’s decisions.

Amidst confusion as to whether the verdict will lead to the return of the former Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, Mahmoud told Al-Shorouk that he is currently studying the verdict before determining his next move.

The Freedom and Justice paper representing the ruling Muslim Brotherhood led its Thursday issue with legal opinions asserting that the ruling does not imply the return of Mahmoud.

The paper reports that legal experts have said that the ruling is not final and that the appeal could reverse the decision because it doesn’t correspond to the constitution, which makes constitutional decrees immune.

The paper states that, having been appointed by constitutional decree, Abdallah’s position is protected by the recently passed Constitution.

Al Sabah opposition newspaper further highlights the legal confusion surrounding the interpretation of the verdict.

While some experts told the paper that the presidency and the Ministry of Justice are the ones who have the right to appeal the verdict, former judge with the Supreme Constitutional Court Tahani al-Gebali told the paper that it is not possible to appeal the verdict.  Rather, it would be up to the Supreme Judiciary Council to do so, she said. However, Yassin, head of the current prosecutor’s office told the paper that the state lawsuits authority is the only body capable of appealing the ruling and that there are many loopholes that the appeal will utilize.

Despite the legal uncertainties, Al-Watan newspaper reports that judges and the prosecution celebrated the verdict against Abdallah. The Justice Ministry’s deputy Hisham Raouf made contradictory comments to the paper, saying that the position of prosecutor general is now vacant, but also saying that the execution of the verdict is suspended and that Abdallah would remain in his post.

In other news, Al-Watan reported on statements made by Al-Wasat Party President Aboul Ela Mady accusing the intelligence of heading an organization of 3,000 thugs it employs to incite violence in protests has attracted the attention of the papers.

Head of intelligence Mourad Mowafy declined to comment telling Al-Watan that he distances himself from politics.

Papers continue to comment sarcastically on the president’s offbeat comments that have been surfacing throughout the last week. In response to those who claim that Egypt is falling apart, Morsy replied with an Egyptian saying that roughly translates to “I hope you fall.” His comment, which used a kind of slang uncommon for presidents, was featured on front pages for the second day.

via www.egyptindependent.com