Egypt

Friday May 11, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 11, 2018

The world is nervously watching as the gloves come off between Iran and Israel

Israel says that it’s done with strikes on Iran — for now. France fears an escalation. Iran has its finger on the trigger. But, really, it’s Russian President Vladimir Putin who sits in the hot seat.

July 15, 2015

Where once the US would have been the brake on spikes in Syrian violence, there is a real possibility President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is greasing the wheels towards a wider regional war.

In recent months, the world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, has warned that Israeli and Iranian tit-for-tat strikes in Syria could quickly boil over to a regional conflagration.

Overnight, rockets fired by Iranian forces from inside Syria toward Israel triggered a forewarned robust response from Israel’s military — targeting Iranian military assets in Syria.

Since early February, when Israel says it shot down an Iranian drone laden with explosives that was launched from Syria, the Israeli Defense Forces have increased retaliatory strikes in Syria at Iranian targets.

Some of those strikes are reported to have killed several Iranian fighters. Yet until this point there had been no Iranian retaliation.

The sudden surge in the exchange of rockets Wednesday night — on the heels of Trump’s exit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — hints that Iran has suspended its strategic restraint.

If so, the likelihood that the Iranian-Israeli confrontation will escalate increases. (Source: CNN) 

 

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Wednesday June 25, 2014

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 25, 2014

Wednesday June 25, 2014

Family of jailed Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy blames Harper for outcome of ‘sham’ trial in Egypt

Fadel and Wafaa Fahmy entered a courtroom in Cairo Monday to hear the verdict on their son, journalist Mohamed Fahmy, expecting an acquittal and a prompt return to their home in Montreal where the family has lived for 23 years.

Instead, a surprise finding of guilt on terrorism-related charges and a sentence of seven years in a harsh prison sent Mrs. Fahmy into turmoil, bursting into tears and stomping her feet on the floor.

The entire family was stunned, most of all Mohamed Fahmy himself, the Cairo bureau chief with broadcaster Al Jazeera English. The dual Canadian-Egyptian citizen was found guilty along with two journalist colleagues, an Australian and an Egyptian, of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt, and with fabricating news reports that undermine Egypt’s security.

On Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he will not interfere in court rulings, despite an international landslide of condemnation and calls for el-Sissi to intervene. Egypt’s constitution gives the president the right to issue a pardon or commute the sentences.

He said he called the justice minister late Monday to repeat that sentiment, despite what he described as debate over the rulings against the journalists.

After a trial and verdict, declared by Amnesty International to be “a complete sham” where no evidence of a nefarious conspiracy was heard, Mr. Fahmy was instead declared guilty and returned to his cell, but not before he angrily called out from behind the bars of the prisoners’ cage: “I swear they will pay for this.”

The anger was a reflection of how crushed his brother was by the verdict, said Mr. Fahmy’s brother, Sherif.

“It’s insane. There is nothing that makes any kind of sense at all. The evidence is insane,” Sherif said in an interview from Kuwait. “It was a very, very heartbreaking scene. We were very optimistic. We never thought this was coming.”

Sherif said he holds Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, responsible for the outcome because the Canadian government failed to aggressively address the case.

“If you compare what Canada has done to what the Australian, English and Dutch have done, it is not much. [Mr. Harper] did not mention Mohammed once,” Sherif said. (Source: National Post)

 

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Saturday, February 8, 2014Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, February 8, 2014

Internal memo shows concern over Hudak’s ‘right-to-work’ plan

For SaleAlarm over Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s controversial “right-to-work” policy is spreading among party activists, MPPs and increasingly skittish new candidates.

In an unusually candid memo obtained by The Toronto Star, 11 would-be MPPs express concern that Hudak’s U.S.-style anti-union measures could hurt them in a provincial election expected as early as spring.

Echoing fears raised in a Jan. 22 conference call of 300 party stalwarts and earlier by MPP John O’Toole at last September’s Tory convention, the candidates worry that radical labour reforms will be a tough sell to voters.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014“Part of being smarter means we should recognize that campaign policies need to be flexible in order to allow for the type (of) precision needed to maximize regional support,” says the draft memo, written by Timiskaming-Cochrane Tory hopeful Peter Politis with input from the 10 other Northern Ontario nominees.

“I’m sure we agree that messaging of policies and being prepared for the counter-message is the most important aspect of our campaign going forward,” he writes.

Politis warns that “critical wedge issues” must be “messaged effectively in order to maximize the impact in our region while not hurting the impact of other PC seats in other regions.”

“The ‘right-to-work’ policy also needs to be messaged effectively to maximize its impact in the south without sacrificing 11 seats in the North that can very well be the difference between a majority or minority government.”

The candidates’ memo is the latest sign of an internal PC schism over a pledge to eliminate the Rand Formula, which requires all workers in a unionized workplace to pay dues, regardless of whether they join the union.

Harking back to the party’s heyday, the PC standard bearers urge Hudak to follow the centrist footsteps of former premier Bill Davis, who governed from 1971 until 1985 and remains popular to this day. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday, August 15, 2013

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, August 15, 2013

Egypt in state of emergency

November 23, 2011

Riot police backed by armoured vehicles, bulldozers and helicopters Wednesday swept away two encampments of supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi, setting off running street battles in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. At least 278 people were killed nationwide, many of them in the crackdown on the protest sites.

Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-reform leader in the interim government, resigned in protest over the assaults as the military-backed leadership imposed a monthlong state of emergency and nighttime curfew.

Clashes broke out elsewhere in the capital and other provinces as Islamist anger spread over the dispersal of the six-week-old sit-ins by Morsi’s Islamist supporters that divided Egypt.

February 8, 2011

It was the highest single day death toll since the 18-day uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The Health Ministry said 235 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 injured, while Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said 43 policemen died in the assault. He said Morsi supporters attacked 21 police stations and seven Coptic Christian churches across the nation, and assaulted the Finance Ministry in Cairo, occupying its ground floor.

February 12, 2011

The violence drew condemnation from other predominantly Muslim countries, but also from the West, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying it had dealt a “serious blow” to Egypt’s political reconciliation efforts.

The assault to take control of the two sit-in sites came after days of warnings by the interim administration that replaced Morsi after he was ousted in a July 3 coup. The camps on opposite sides of the capital began in late June to show support for Morsi. (Source: CBC News)

Wednesday November 23, 2011

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 23, 2011

International criticism of Egypt’s rulers mounts

Egyptian police clashed with anti-government protesters for a fifth day in central Cairo Wednesday as a rights group raised the overall death toll from the ongoing unrest to at least 38. The United Nations strongly condemned what it called the use of excessive force by security forces.

February 12, 2011

The clashes resumed despite a promise by Egypt’s military ruler to speed up a presidential election to the first half of next year, a concession swiftly rejected by tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square. The military previously floated late next year or early 2013 as the likely date for the vote, the last step in the process of transferring power to a civilian government.

The standoff has plunged the country deeper into crisis less than a week before parliamentary elections, the first since the ouster nine months ago of longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi tried to defuse tensions with his address late Tuesday, but he did not set a date for handing authority to a civilian government, instead offering a referendum on the immediate return of the armed forces to their barracks.

The Tahrir crowd, along with protesters in a string of other cities across the nation, want Tantawi to step down immediately in favor of an interim civilian council to run the nation’s affairs until elections for a new parliament and president are held.

Street battles have centered around the heavily fortified Interior Ministry, near the iconic square, with police and army troops using tear gas and rubber bullets to keep the protesters from storming the ministry, a sprawling complex that has for long been associated with the hated police and Mubarak’s former regime. (Toronto Star)