Mohamed ElBaradei,
Egypt’s new
prime minister
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/07/96920/mohamed-elbaradei-egypts-new-prime-minister/
CAIRO,
July 06, 2013 (AFP)
Liberal opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, who was named
as Egypt’s
new prime minister on Saturday, is a former head of UN nuclear watchdog the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Tamarod campaign behind the protests that toppled
Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday said after talks with interim
president Adly Mansour that ElBaradei, who returned home in February 2010 after
retiring as
IAEA chief, had been
picked as premier.
Tamarod had already nominated him to represent the movement
in transition negotiations with the military. ElBaradei is close to the liberal
pro-democracy movement that spearheaded the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s
30-year rule in February, 2011.
In January 2012, his decision to quit the race for the
presidency was seen in Egypt
as a slap in the face for post-Mubarak military rulers and one depriving
liberals of a key champion. In late June this year, he urged Morsi to resign
after one year in office for the sake of national unity, ahead of record
opposition-backed rallies calling on the Islamist leader to step down.
“For Egypt’s
sake, I call on President Mohamed Morsi to resign and give us the opportunity
to begin a new phase based on the principles of the revolution, which are
freedom and social justice,” ElBaradei said last month.
“I would like to call on President Mohamed Morsi and his
Muslim Brotherhood to respond to the cries from all over Egypt,” he
added at a conference aimed at drawing up a plan for a post-Morsi order. Rather
than join a political party, the 71-year-old ElBaradei created a movement of
his own to act as an umbrella for a range of opposition groups- the National
Association for Change.
ElBaradei, who is untainted by the allegations of corruption
that surrounded Mubarak’s regime, was however criticised by opposition groups
for spending too much time abroad and being out of touch with Egypt’s
reality. His 12 years as the public face of the UN nuclear watchdog nonetheless
earned him respect at home, where he was awarded the country’s highest honour,
the Nile Shas, in 2006.
Ahead of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, he won admiration around the world and
infuriated Washington
by challenging claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding a secret nuclear
programme. No nuclear weapons were later found by US-led forces.
ElBaradei is not a noted orator, but has earned a reputation
for speaking his mind. He has lambasted what he calls the double standards of
countries that have nuclear weapons but prevent other countries from obtaining
them.
He was born on June 17, 1942, in Cairo, where his lawyer
father headed the bar association, a position that sometimes put him at odds
with then Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser. Following in his father’s
footsteps, ElBaradei earned his law degree at the University of Cairo
in 1962.
Two years later, he joined the diplomatic service and was
assigned to the missions in Geneva and New York, where he
earned a doctorate in international law and later taught. He has written that
his New York
years were among the most formative, helping to broaden his world view.
As special assistant to the foreign minister, ElBaradei
served on the negotiating team at the historic Camp David peace talks that led
to Egypt’s peace treaty and
diplomatic relations with Israel.
ElBaradei began his UN career in 1980, and was sent to Iraq in the
wake of the 1991 Gulf war to dismantle Saddam’s nuclear programme. In 1997, he
was chosen as head of the IAEA, a role that made him a household name worldwide
and led to confrontations with Washington,
first over Iraq and later
over Iran.
When Washington claimed Iraq was buying uranium in Africa,
ElBaradei dismissed the evidence before the UN Security Council as fake. The
Washington Post reported that ElBaradei’s Vienna
telephone was bugged by the US Central Intelligence Agency.
In 2005, ElBaradei and the IAEA won the Nobel peace prize
for their efforts “to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military
purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the
safest possible way”.
ElBaradei, who is married to kindergarten teacher Aida
Elkashef, has a son, Mostafa and a daughter Laila.
Thousands of Morsi supporters mourn Egypt Islamists
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/07/96896/thousands-of-morsi-supporters-mourn-egypt-islamists/
CAIRO,
July 06, 2013 (AFP)
Thousands of supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood paid
their respects on Saturday to four members of the movement killed in 24 hours
of clashes during protests against the ouster of their president.
Violence linked to the political crisis has cost the lives
of at least 37 people and injured more than 1,400 across the deeply divided
North African nation, official sources say.
The Islamists gathered for mass prayers on Saturday after a
call for a new round of demonstrations to demand that the army restore Mohamed
Morsi three days after the military toppled him in a popularly backed coup.
The imam told tearful mourners gathered outside Rabaa
al-Adawiya mosque in the Cairo neighbourhood of Nasr City,
where the Islamists have been camped for the past 10 days, to pray for the
“martyrs of legitimacy”.
Wearing green headbands, Islamists in their thousands,
including many women wearing the full veil, waved Egyptian flags and pictures
of Morsi.
Morsi, who has been in detention since overnight on
Wednesday, had issued a defiant call for supporters to protect his elected
“legitimacy”, in a recorded speech aired hours after his removal that day.
Saturday’s funerals come after a gun battle between soldiers
and Morsi supporters outside the Cairo
headquarters of the Republican Guard on Friday killed four demonstrators, the
official MENA news agency reported.
McCain calls for suspension of US
military aid to Egypt
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/07/96915/mccain-calls-for-suspension-of-us-military-aid-to-egypt/
WASHINGTON,
July 06, 2013 (AFP)
Republican Senator John McCain called for a suspension of US military aid to Egypt
after the army ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, breaking with the
official position in Washington.
“I’ve thought long and hard about this, but I believe that
we have to suspend the aid to the Egyptian military, because the Egyptian
military has overturned the vote of the people of Egypt,”
McCain said Friday evening at a press conference in his home state of Arizona.
“We cannot repeat the same mistakes we made at other times
in our history by supporting the removal of freely elected governments,” the
2008 presidential candidate said.
“So I believe that the aid has to be suspended, that the
Egyptian military has to set a timetable for elections and new Constitution,
and then we should evaluate whether to continue the aid or not.
“And I am aware that by suspending aid to the Egyptian
military, which is the only stable institution in Egypt, we are risking further
problems in the Sinai, and in other areas of cooperation with the Egyptian
military,” McCain said.
“I say that with great reluctance, but the United States of
America I think must learn the lessons of history and that is: we cannot stand
by without acting in cases where freely elected governments are unseated by the
military arm of those nations,” he concluded.
His position sets him apart from the views adopted by
several other Congressmen and by President Barack Obama, who, in his sole
statement on the situation, avoided using the word “coup.”
American law requires all military and economic aid be
suspended when a government is overturned by the military.
Culture…
Princess Lalla Salma presides over opening of 19th Fez
Festival of World Sacred Music
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/06/93700/princess-lalla-salma-presides-over-opening-of-19th-fez-festival-of-world-sacred-music/
Mawazine Festival: the brothers give a concert in memory of
Michael Jackson
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/05/92790/mawazine-festival-the-brothers-give-a-concert-in-memory-of-michael-jackson/
Art will always triumph, says Tunisia revolution singer
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/06/93720/art-will-always-triumph-says-tunisia-revolution-singer/
RABAT,
June 08, 2013 (AFP)
“Art will always triumph in the end,” says acclaimed
Tunisian singer Lotfi Bouchnak, who composed songs for the 2011
revolution but has
since seen his profession come under threat from firebrand Islamists.
“The Tunisian revolution continues,” said the singer and oud
player, one of the voices of the first Arab Spring revolt which inspired an
album he made in March that year.
“Art will always triumph in the end. People cannot get by
without art and beauty,” he told AFP in an interview at Morocco’s
Mawazine festival.
More than two years after the fall of dictator Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali, Bouchnak does not hesitate to defend Tunisia’s
popular uprising, despite widespread concerns about the rise of hardline
Salafists that it ushered in.
Last August during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,
Salafists blocked a concert Bouchnak was due to give at a Sufi music festival
in Kairouan, south of Tunis, because he was
accompanied by a troupe of Shiite musicians from Iran.
The following day, Muslim extremists armed with swords and
sticks attacked the Bizerte music and theatre
festival in northern Tunisia,
wounding five people.
And later that month Tunisian poet Mohamed Sghaier Ouled
Ahmed said he was attacked by two Salafists.
In response, the Islamist-led government vowed to protect
the freedom of artists, and said the violence was “alien to Tunisia, which
is known for its moderation.”
Bouchnak insisted that “the Tunisian revolution is bound to
succeed.” “We have no other choice but to make it succeed… The changes don’t
happen in two, three or even four years,” added the singer, sometimes referred
to as the Pavarotti of Tunisia, who was appointed a UN Ambassador for Peace in
2004.
Born in January 1954 in the old city of Tunis,
Bouchnak was influenced from an early age by classical Arabic songs, from
Egyptian legend Oum Kalthoum to Lebanon’s
Fairouz, by way of other greats such as Mohamed Abdelwahab, “the
pyramid of Arab
music.”
In the aftermath of the revolution, he was embroiled in an
unpleasant controversy that he said “greatly affected” him.
His critics accused him of opportunistically embracing the
revolution after spending years supporting the Ben Ali regime.
He had been billed to open the first edition of the Carthage
International Festival after the dictator’s ouster, but the Tunisian union of
musicians barred him from attending, accusing him of signing a petition calling
for Ben Ali’s re-election in 2014.
Bouchnak strongly rejects the charge, insisting his name was
put on the list without his consent. Two years after the incident, he continues
to define himself as a “conscientious artist.” “The artist is either
conscientious or he doesn’t exist. Each one of us must assume his share of
responsibility, wherever he is, so that the Tunisian revolution achieves its
objectives,” he said.
“My message has always been the same: remember the past to
not forget, and give people reasons for hope in life, today and tomorrow.”
While some say the quality of his work has deteriorated, Bouchnak is still
hailed as a major figure in Arab music, especially in the Maghreb
where he appears regularly.
Last weekend, on the closing night of the Mawazine festival
that organisers say attracted a record 2.5 million spectators this year, he
performed with celebrity Moroccan singer Abdelwahab Doukkali.
On stage at the Mohamed V theatre in Rabat the two artists sang to a captivated
audience.
Ghazi Khalil, a radio presenter who had come from Tunis for the festival,
savoured the moment.
“This duo with Doukkali, it’s really a meeting of greats,”
he said.