BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
Fertile Crescent
Aisha Rehman
From 23rd – 28th January 2009
Egypt
Political front: State security detained nine members of the Muslim Brotherh
ood in Daqahleya as they were campaigning for a parliamentary run-off election. They were campaigning for Muslim Brotherhood member Hussein El-Sabea, who ran in the 2005 parliamentary elections raking 36,000 votes in the first round.
A travel ban was imposed on newly elected Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badea’s, almost two weeks after he was appointed, according to the group’s lawyer. Barring Brotherhood MPs who enjoy parliamentary immunity such as MP Mohamed Saad El Katatney and MP Saad El Husseiny, members of the newly-elected Guidance Office were also placed on the travel ban list. This is a violation of the law, the ban was imposed by the Minister of Interior but it is only the Prosecutor General who is authorized to issue such bans.
Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas government in Gaza, called newly-appointed Muslim Brotherhood (MB) General Guide Mohamed Badie to pledge the Palestinian resistance group's support. In an official statement, Haniyeh wished Badie "all the best," calling for the MB's continued support for Hamas and the besieged people of the Gaza Strip.
Former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei unequivocally stated that he does not want to become president of Egypt in an interview with Foreign Policy Magazine. “I don't want to be president of Egypt,” he said. “I have a lot of plans other than being president of Egypt … However … a lot of people are saying that they want me to be engaged in domestic politics — they want me to run for president of Egypt.” ElBaradei added, “What I've said is that I would not even consider running for president unless there is the proper framework for a free and fair election — and that is still the major question mark in Egypt.
Geo strategic front: Both President Hosni Mubarak and Interior Minister Habib El-Adly defended Egypt’s decision to build an underground wall on the border with Gaza. Mubarak was speaking on the occasion of Police Day. The reinforcements on our eastern border are a matter of Egyptian sovereignty.
Reacting to President Hosni Mubarak’s statements on Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt, lawyer Naguib Gobrael says that he “refuses” to accept that Egyptian Copts in diaspora “are spreading misinformation” about the issue. Mubarak said, that there have been “continued attempts” to disrupt national unity in Egypt and provoke sectarian strife in the country. “There exist extremists on both sides, and there are individuals who try to exploit Egypt’s ordinary people.
Social front: Flash floods and rains that decimated 1,246 homes in Aswan have finally subsided, governor said. At least 15 people were killed in the floods that occurred last week, mainly in Aswan and Sinai but also in Qena and the Red Sea, while thousands of homes were completely or partially destroyed especially in the first three days when the rains were at their worst. EGYPT'S First Lady Mrs Suzanne Mubarak ordered compensation of LE80,000 (around $14,747) to be paid to each family, whose home was destroyed by the flash floods in Aswan in Upper Egypt two weeks ago. The Government has agreed to pay a compensation of LE25,000 to each one of these families, but Mrs Mubarak ordered to increase it by LE55,000 during a meeting with community leaders and Government officials in Aswan.
An official report presented to Electricity Minister Hassan Younis revealed that heavy rains in the southern city of Aswan in recent days had temporarily disrupted the Aswan High Dam's power station, with 81 high-tension cable towers collapsing as a result of strong winds causing damage estimated at more than LE70 million.
Human rights: Egypt is among a host of countries including the US that is still involved in secret detentions of terrorism suspects around the world, according to a UN report. The report, due to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March, stated that these countries had been continuing the practice of secret detentions which is illegal under the Geneva Conventions even during states of emergency and armed conflict for the past nine years, Reuters reported. Alongside Egypt and the US, the report names Russia, China, Algeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, India and Iran as the other countries still involved in secret detentions. The report surmised that the objective of secret detentions was to cover up torture and human rights abuses carried out against the terror suspects, and “continues to be used in the name of countering terrorism around the world.”The report also indicated that the US was still heavily involved in these practices, which included kidnapping suspects before locking them up in undisclosed locations.
The Foreign Relations Committee of the People’s Assembly (PA) rejected the statement issued by the European Parliament (EP) Members of the committee argued that Europe was not in a position to pass judgment due to violations against freedom of belief in its own backyard. House speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour, who chaired the meeting, said that the statement from the EP was completely rejected. The EP had adopted a text last Thursday that expressed concern over recent acts of violence against Christians in both Malaysia and Egypt.
An International report issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Network for Human Rights gave Egypt a “red” in the classification of the status of non-governmental human rights organizations in the countries of the northern and southern Mediterranean in 2009, a report which is expected to be reviewed by EU countries at the end of this month. It comes within the framework of Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which was conducted by the Union with a number of Arab governments, including the Egyptian government. The report, which was announced, at the headquarters of the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, employed three colors for the classification of the status of human rights, including: green, orange and red as an indicator of the government’s respect for freedom of assembly and association, through the registry and intervention in the affairs of human rights associations, and the possibility of access to foreign funding, and other variables in the 11 Arab countries south of the Mediterranean, including the occupied territories and Israel. The red color represents the highest restrictions imposed on such indicators. In Egypt, the report said that the same period witnessed a state of “silence” took the closed-door meetings held by the Ministry of Social Solidarity on the amendment of the NGO law No. 84 of 2002, in which the ministry had ignored requests made by non-governmental organizations to participate in these meetings and exchange of views on the amendments of the NGOs law within the framework of “freedom of organization.”
Cairo said they will not send Egyptian women to work as housemaids in the Kingdom, a senior Egyptian official visiting the capital said. "We will not send our women as housemaids due to social and cultural concerns," said, the Egyptian labor minister, following talks with Abdul Wahid Al-Humaid, deputy minister of labor.
An Egyptian court ordered a stay of a ban on the full face veil, or niqab, in female schools affiliated with the Islamic Al-Azhar University. The administrative court's decision came a week after it ruled, on grounds of constitutional liberties, against a ban by the education ministry on women wearing the niqab in university residences and examination halls. The court's ruling came in response to a complaint by a student in a high school affiliated with the prestigious Sunni university.
Lebanon 
Political front: Lebanon’s Cabinet on Friday approved the adoption of a women’s quota for the municipal elections. After the rejection of a proposal by Interior and Municipalities Minister calling for a women’s quota of 30 percent, Cabinet agreed women should form a minimum of 20 percent of all candidates on ballot lists for the elections, which are slated for June.
Geo strategic front: Israel has no intention of attacking Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yeste, after Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled (Likud) warned of a confrontation on Israel's northern border. "The State of Israel is not looking for any kind of confrontation with Lebanon," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office, adding, "Israel seeks peace with all of its neighbors."
Senior European diplomats in Lebanon said the country's leaders, including Prime Minister Saad Hariri and President Michel Suleiman, told visiting U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell that they were concerned Israel might attack. Well-informed Lebanese sources confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that French President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Lebanese officials that France has vowed to try to prevent Israel from bombarding Lebanon’s basic infrastructure “but no more than that.” Sarkozy stressed to Lebanese officials that it was imperative to “control the internal situation in Lebanon and prevent any provocations.”
Social front: Human rights report:
Lebanon “missed” several opportunities to promote human rights in 2009, a watchdog group said. Releasing its 20th annual study, “World Report 2010,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that although Lebanon enjoyed its most peaceful and prosperous year in recent times, the stability didn’t bring with it expected reforms in women, refugee and prison rights. “The year 2009 was one of missed opportunities … in the region,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Middle East director. After free and peaceful parliamentary elections in June 2009, it took five months for a Cabinet to be formed, meaning much needed reforms were left in the air, HRW said. “Conditions in prisons and detention facilities remain poor, with overcrowding and lack of proper medical care a perennial problem,” the report said, noting that while Lebanese prisons had a capacity for 3,653 detainees, 5,324 people were currently behind bars. HRW women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa region, said Lebanese women still faced considerable discrimination in legislation and political participation. Women were subject to unfair personal status laws and penal laws relating to violence in the family, and continued to be deprived of their right to grant nationality grants. HRW called on the Lebanese authorities to grant women nationality grants regardless of the nationality of their husbands, protect migrant domestic workers in the country’s labor law, and give greater employment and ownership rights to Palestinian refugees. The organization also called upon the Lebanese to publish the results.
Palestine
Agencies- Dr. Mahmoud Zahhar, a political leader of the Hamas movement, stated that they would sign the Egyptian document for internal Palestinian unity should the Egyptian leadership provide guarantees to ensure a successful agreement. Zahhar said that Hamas does not want to sign on unclear issues, and that Egypt should provide clarifications so that all aspects are durable to ensure a lasting unity deal.
Iraq
Political front: A prominent sheik and U.S. ally is weighing whether to urge fellow Sunnis to boycott upcoming elections in protest of the government's ballot 
purge of hundreds of candidates suspected of links to Saddam Hussein's regime. Such a call by Ahmed Abu Risha risks derailing Obama administration hopes that the March 7 parliamentary elections will bring stronger reconciliation between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunnis who want to reclaim more political power. It would also set back the clock on Iraqi politics, using the same protest tactic that Sunnis used in 2005 parliament voting that left them with only a few lawmakers and a weakened voice in key debates.
In his first State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama has told the American people that eight years of war in Afghanistan and nearly seven years of war in Iraq are coming to an end. But he devoted most of his annual address to Congress to detailing how he plans to strengthen the struggling U.S. economy and put unemployed Americans back to work.
