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Hosni Mubarak: Life and times

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned his presidency and handed over power to the military, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced on Friday on Egyptian State Television. In this March 7, 1983 photo, Egyptian President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak greets Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on his arrival for the opening session of the 7th NAM summit, in New Delhi. Mubarak resigned on Friday after 30 years in rule. After 18 days of unprecedented protests across the country, Mubarak's 30 year rule of the North African country came to an abrupt end.

Born in 1928 in the village of Kafr el-Moseilha in the Nile delta province of Menoufia, he rose through the ranks of the Air Force when Egypt was locked in conflict with Israel, eventually becoming Air Chief Marshall after the Yom Kippur or Ramadan war 1973, in which Egypt reversed some of the humiliation of the 1967 Six Day war defeat. He then became President Anwar Sadat's trusted Vice-President in 1975

Six years later at a military parade, Mubarak was rushed to safety as Islamic militants sprayed the leaders' podium with bullets, assassinating Sadat. Mubarak was unscathed; he was sitting right next to Sadat, prompting many to speculate about whether a conspiracy or incredible good fortune were behind his safety.

Mubarak was named president seven days later in October 1981 and proceeded to carry on the main tenets of Sadat's post-Gamal Abdul Nasser years. Nasser, Egypt's first post revolution leader, had been the focal champion of pan-Arabism, Arab socialism and nationalism, in the 1950s and 1960s, maintained a state of war with Israel, had close ties with Moscow, and was a leading figure of the non-aligned movement.

In a March 19, 1985 file photo, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, center, welcomes Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, right, and King Hussein of Jordan during a surprise visit to Baghdad. Egypt's vice president says Mubarak resigned on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 as president and handed control to the military. Sadat made peace with Israel, switched Egypt's super power alliance to Washington in exchange for huge injections of economic and military aid, opened up the economy, creating a rich elite, and ruthlessly repressed the Muslim Brotherhood.
As the years went by, Mubarak became more aloof, carefully choreographing his public appearances, and his authoritarian governing style appeared increasingly out of sync with a world focused on economic and political openness.

Mubarak was a regional heavyweight, and a familiar face on the international stage, often involved in the various, mostly aborted, attempts at Middle East diplomacy and peace negotiations. It was his continued crackdown of the Islamic opposition, however which nearly brought him the same fate as Sadat. In June, 1995, Mubarak narrowly escaped assassination in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, as he arrived at an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit. His car was riddled with bullets by jihadists, but he again survived. Upon his return to Cairo, he told reporters, "Suddenly I found a blue van blocking the road and somebody just flat on the ground and machine guns started. For me it was shocking. What's that? Then I realised there were bullets coming in our car."

In a Sept. 28, 1995 file photo, President Bill Clinton, left, speaks with Yassar Arafar, center, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, right, during a reception for Middle East leaders in Washington. Egypt's vice president says Mubarak resigned on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 as president and handed control to the military.

As his contemporaries, Jordan's King Hussein and Syria's Hafez Al Assad, died and were replaced by their sons, observers speculated that Mubarak would lay the foundations for his son, Gamal to follow suit. Many Egyptians feared that Gamal might end up with the presidency, and that fuelled further resentment towards the regime. Mubarak never appointed a vice president as the constitution required. Critics said he wanted no rivals, but he repeatedly said the parliament dominated by his ruling party would oversee the succession in accordance with the constitution.

Extremist attacks hit Egypt several times during his time in power, before and after the September 11 attacks. Most prominent, were the massacre of 58 tourists at Luxor in 1997 and the Taba attacks in 2004 that targeted Israeli tourists, and left some 34 people of varying nationalities dead. Another of his long-term cotemporaries, the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, with whom he shared an at times difficult relationship, died in November 2004, and was accorded a statesman's funeral in Cairo before his burial in Ramallah.

In a July 25, 2002 file photo, French President Jacques Chirac, right, and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak gesture during a news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Egypt's vice president says Mubarak resigned on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 as president and handed control to the military. On the domestic front, democratic credentials were never a priority for Mubarak, who kept the pro-reform and Islamic opposition cowed or imprisoned. Anti-government demonstrations gained strength in 2004 and 2005, led by the "Kifaya" (enough) pro-reform movement, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The government ensured that the first ever presidential elections, held in September 2005, were a foregone conclusion, in spite of a constitutional amendment which allowed others to stand against the incumbent. The purported move toward democratic reform retrenched sharply when opponents made gains, and Mubarak jailed both his main secular opponent, Ayman Nour, and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.Mubarak easily won a fifth term, the previous four having come by referendum.

Turnout was low in March 2007, in a rushed referendum on amending Egypt's constitution, changes the government touted as democratic reforms but critics dismissed as attempts to curtail rights and consolidate the regime's power.

In this Oct. 6, 1981 file photo, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, right, and Vice President Hosni Mubarak are seen on the reviewing stand during a military parade just before soldiers opened fire from a truck during the parade at the reviewing stand, killing Sadat and injuring Mubarak. Egypt's vice president says Mubarak resigned on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 as president and handed control to the military. AP The authorities claimed more than 75 percent of voters approved their changes. The opposition insisted the poll was rigged. He remained Washington's closest ally in the Arab World, along with Saudi Arabia, though he warned that the Iraq war would create scores of Bin Ladens.

He endorsed former US President George W. Bush's push for Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations and a two-state settlement which consequently foundered.
When Hamas destroyed the wall at the Rafah crossing, effectively ending the Israeli blockade of Gaza in January this year for some days, Mubarak instructed his troops to keep the border open. "I told them to let them come in and eat and buy food and then return them later as long as they were not carrying weapons," he told reporters. The Bush administration seemed to tire of Mubarak's anti-democratic tendencies, as reflected in a brief flying visit by the president during his major Middle East tour in January 2008.

In this June 1, 1990 file photo, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visit a panorama and weapons exhibition of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's vice president says Mubarak resigned on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 as president and handed control to the military. Applying the same dictum to their other autocratic and monarchy-led friends in the region, they were more wary of the possible populist alternative - a militant Islamic party in power. After the Algerian paradigm, the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah, and stealth of Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mubarak's strongest international card was always his maintenance of the status quo, though it won him few admirers at home. Mubarak's health was frequently called into question by observers in recent years, although discussions were usually kept under tight control by the regime and public statements on the issue were rare.

In an Aug. 18, 1981 file photo, Egyptian Vice-President Honsi Mubarak, right, speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Alexandria, Egypt. Egypt's vice president says Mubarak resigned on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 as president and handed control to the military.
In 2006, an editor was sentenced to six months in prison for reporting on rumours about the president's health. Mubarak later pardoned the journalist. Many diplomats and Egyptian political observers believe his health took a downturn after the sudden death of his 12-year-old grandson in May 2009. However, Mubarak continued travelling abroad and touring Egyptian provinces. In March 2010, Mubarak underwent an operation in Germany to remove his gall bladder after temporarily handing over power to the prime minister.
Source: Associated Press

Echoes of Gandhi in Egypt

Washington: US President Barack Obama heard echoes of history in the way Egyptians brought about change through the "moral force of nonviolence" like India's Mahatma Gandhi "leading his people down the path of justice."

"Egyptians have inspired us, and they've done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence," he said in praise of the Egyptian revolution hours after President Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down Friday.

"For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence - not terrorism, not mindless killing - but nonviolence, moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more," Obama said in a six-minute speech from the White House. "And while the sights and sounds that we heard were entirely Egyptian, we can't help but hear the echoes of history - echoes from Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesian students taking to the streets, Gandhi leading his people down the path of justice," Obama said.

"As Martin Luther King said in celebrating the birth of a new nation in Ghana while trying to perfect his own, "There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom," he said.
"Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square, and the entire world has taken note.
"Today belongs to the people of Egypt, and the American people are moved by these scenes in Cairo and across Egypt because of who we are as a people and the kind of world that we want our children to grow up in," Obama said. "The word Tahrir means liberation. It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom." "And forevermore it will remind us of the Egyptian people-of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world," Obama said.

In Tehran, Iran congratulated the Egyptian people on their "victory." "We congratulate the great nation of Egypt on this victory and we share their happiness," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a statement, according to the Press TV. Salehi also sought to draw a connection with the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Mubarak's resignation. "Today, our dear people with their millions-strong turnout [in Friday's demonstrations] while hailing the glorious Islamic Revolution across Iran, announced their support for the brave and justice-seeking movement by the history-makers of Egypt."
Salehi also called on the Egyptian army to join the people in their pro-democracy movement.

The channel also quoted Iran's National Security Council secretary Saeed Jalili as saying: "The United States and Europe must be answerable to the Egyptian people for supporting a dictatorship for 30 years."
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that he expected Egyptian authorities would ensure the normal functioning of governmental bodies. The current events in Egypt are evidence that "the existing government is approaching the problems responsibly and is opting to contribute to an intra-national agreement". Lavrov also said he hopes that the country's opposition will be ready to stabilise the situation. "[We] expect that all the latest events will help to reestablish stability, will ensure the normal functioning of all authoritative bodies and that not only structures of the current government but also opposition powers will express their readiness to stabilise the situation," Lavrov said.
In a related development, the Swiss government has decided to block any assets that may be held in Switzerland by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said on Friday. The minister said that a decree was issued shortly after Mubarak stepped down Friday to identify and block any assets belonging to the Egyptian president and his family. It's the same law that was applied in January to ousted Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine ben Ali and incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo, whose Swiss assets were frozen. Bern has in recent years enacted legislation making it easier to return illegally obtained assets of corrupt leaders to their countries' coffers, on condition the funds are used for the wellbeing of the citizens.

Mubarak's wealth has long been a subject of speculation. According to media reports, he and his family own assets worth more than $40 billion. According to the Swiss National Bank, Egyptian deposits in Swiss bank accounts totalled 3.6 billion Swiss francs ($3.7 billion).
Source: IANS

US Embassy Involvement In Swedish Copyright Issues

from the no-surprise-there dept
It's long been common knowledge that US diplomats have had a heavy hand in other country's copyright laws but, with the Wikileaks release of State Department cables, we're finally seeing some actually confirmation of that. We've already covered the US's involvement in Spain's proposed copyright changes and now a Swedish television station claims to have a cable (not yet released by Wikileaks) that shows heavy "behind the scenes" involvement by the US Embassy in Swedish copyright law.

The key points are that the US diplomat admits that public perception is (quite accurately) that the raid and subsequent trial of The Pirate Bay was due to pressure from the US government and that public perception was in favor of The Pirate Bay and against the US government's position on copyright law. Thus, "this delicate situation made it difficult, if not counter-productive, for the Embassy to play a public role on IPR issues. Behind the scenes, the Embassy has worked well with all stakeholders."

Why do I get the feeling that "all stakeholders" seemed to leave out the public and actual content consumers who were (as stated) very much against the US government's position on copyright laws. However, the cable also lays out six specific items that the US Embassy hoped the Swedish government would follow through on with regards to copyright law... and apparently five of the six have since been implemented. So despite the public being very much against these ideas, the US government (at the urging of the US entertainment industry) directly meddled in Swedish copyright policy.

source wikileak & Kai