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Egypt Turmoil
Egypt: Six years after the coup, what has US military assistance bought us?
Published date: 2 July 2019 12:31 UTC | Last update: 1 year 6 months ago
Military aid to Egypt has become an entitlement programme that often facilitates human rights abuses
US President Donald Trump welcomes Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the White House in Washington (Reuters)
The death of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi just weeks before the sixth anniversary of the military coup that ousted him from office is a dark - but fitting - symbol of Egypt's devolution back into autocracy.
But after an unpredictable decade of upheaval, revolution, and counter-revolution one thing has remained constant - the annual flow of billions of dollars in US military aid.
An entitled programme
Successive US administrations have treated military aid to Egypt almost as an entitlement programme. And while previous US administrations have viewed Egypt as vital to maintaining regional stability, the anniversary of the deadly putsch and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's brutal rule warrant serious reevaluation of this relationship in Washington.
Since the 1970s the US has provided substantial military aid to Egypt as part of the Egypt-Israel peace agreement set at Camp David. Between 1946 and 2019, the United States has provided Egypt with $83bn in bilateral foreign aid, not adjusted for inflation. In 2019 alone, Cairo was allocated $1.307bn in US military assistance.
Despite such a staggering investment, the US found itself unable to challenge the violence of the 2013 coup
Unfortunately, despite such a staggering investment, the United States found itself unable to challenge the violence of the 2013 coup that was largely supported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Though then secretary of state John Kerry claimed that the events of 2013 were about "restoring democracy", it is difficult to view it as anything other than a military coup against a democratically elected civilian government.
Unprecedented rights violations
As such, the United States was legally obligated to suspend all aid to Egypt under the Foreign Assistance Act. In an impressive display of linguistic gymnastics, former US President Barack Obama never referred to the events of July 3rd, 2013 as a coup, nor did he suspend more than a symbolic amount of assistance.
Meanwhile, the aftermath saw an unprecedented level of human rights violations.
The coup's aftermath saw an unprecedented level of human rights violations
In an attempt to assuage international concerns over Egypt's coup, Obama failed to take a stand on Cairo's democracy, saying, "[Morsi's] government was not inclusive and did not respect the views of all Egyptians." The president had never before articulated this disturbingly inconsistent standard.
Obama's response to the Rabaa massacre, where over a thousand demonstrators were killed when the military dispersed a sit-in, and other post-coup violence was lacklustre. He did not freeze military assistance until October 2013, nearly two months after the violent crackdown began.
The amount frozen, however, was not all that significant, only a couple hundred million dollars and the suspension of shipments of large weapons systems. Meanwhile, Egypt still received military aid over $1.2bn in 2013 and over $1.3bn in 2014.
Egyptian-Americans hold a protest outside the UN headquarters during the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan, New York, US, on 25 September,2018 (Reuters)
Moreover, in a subsequent visit to Egypt, Kerry reassured the Egyptian military of continued cooperation, thereby undermining the freeze's coercive value.
The freeze was lifted in 2015 despite lack of progress on human rights or democratisation.
Although there was a temporary hold in 2018 from which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later released all assistance, Egypt still received over $9bn in military assistance between 2013 and 2019. The cycle of withholding assistance to Egypt has essentially become part of a regular pattern.
Public slaps
This pattern indicates that the US is more interested in using temporary holds on symbolic amounts of aid to serve as public slaps on the wrist rather than deliver legitimate rebukes to regime conduct. These "freezes" have not been sufficient in scope or duration to meaningfully impact Egypt's conduct.
US spends over $1.3bn annually in return for an autocrat masking human rights violations as counter-terrorism measures
In May 2019, Human Rights Watch raised concerns over military assistance perpetuating human rights abuses in Sinai in the name of counter-terrorism. Previously, the Egyptian military had lethally attacked a group of mostly Mexican tourists using US-made Apache helicopters.
Late this June Amnesty reported on a "wave of arbitrary arrests" which targeted several secular activists and a former MP. Yet the current administration shows little sign of changing policy. As such, military aid to Egypt has essentially become an entitlement programme that often facilitates human rights abuses more successfully than American strategic interests.
Mubarak 2.0
Under Sisi's leadership, the progress achieved following Egypt's first democratic election has been more than reversed. Between the targeting of Copts, journalists, Islamists and liberals, human rights practices in Egypt have deteriorated rapidly.
Sisi resembles a Mubarak 2.0, but on many accounts he runs a more repressive regime.
The United States fails to use military assistance as a tool to make its partners accountable. A foreign policy informed by human rights and reform must take precedence over cooperation with the Egyptian military.
Military assistance heavily skews towards partners with little interest in long-term governance reforms – and, as Egypt demonstrates, some US partner countries receive the same amount each year regardless of their behaviour.
Egypt: How the Trump-Sisi alliance is fuelling repression
From this foreign policy weakness, Sisi has learned to manipulate great power politics, increasing weapons imports from France and Russia, thereby reducing the potential impact of US assistance. Many voice concerns that enforcing conditions and cutting US military aid would permanently jeopardise US-Egypt relations, and that Sisi would replace US-made weapons with Russian ones. However, our history of suspending arms shipments to Egypt demonstrates that this may not be the case.
If we let these concerns dictate policy and don't cut or condition assistance, the return value on the assistance we provide plummets. Instead, the US consistently fails to leverage aid to modify partner behaviour for the improvement of human rights practices.
In light of the coup's sixth anniversary, growing human rights abuses, and President Morsi's death, members of Congress and foreign policy advisors ought to ask themselves, "Is the violence and repression of Egyptian society worth the supposed gains for international security?"
Presently we spend over $1.3bn annually in return for an autocrat masking human rights violations as counter-terrorism measures.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Ian Wallace is a research associate at the Security Assistance Monitor focusing on the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted research in Morocco and Tajikistan on social movements, nationalism, and issues of governance across the MENA region. He tweets @eeyoan
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Basheer Nafi


text:
Justin Gunnar Walter Chancellor, född 19 november 1971 i England, är en brittisk musiker, mest känd som basgitarrist i rock-bandet Tool. Han har tidigare spelat i bandet Peach.

Diskografi (urval)
Med Tool
Ænima (1996)
Salival (livealbum/samlingsalbum/video-album) (2000)
Lateralus (2001)
10,000 Days (2006)

Med Peach
Giving Birth to a Stone (1993)

Som gästmusiker
Isis – Panopticon (2004)
Isis – Holy Tears (2007)
Intronaut – Valley of Smoke (2010)
Isis – Live IV Selections 2001-2005 (2011)
The Fusion Syndicate – The Fusion Syndicate (2012)

Referenser

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
There are protests like this all over India, especially in Assam, the state most immediately effected by legalizing the marginalization, disenfranchisement, & persecution of Muslims by the NRC & the passage of CAB. One Indian friend reports that she witnessed many protests before the passage of CAB but they were not reported in media. There are also solidarity protests called for cities outside India because of the momentous character of these laws internationally. What would happen to the million of Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, & other religious faiths living in the US if the US Congress ruled the US a Christian country? It only exposes the monstrous character of Israel as a Jewish-only colonial state, of Iran under a corrupt theocracy, of Burma's genocide against Rohingya Muslims, & now India as Hindutva fascism.
The few companies of Indian troops pulled out of Kashmir are deployed now in Assam where they are shooting at unarmed protesters. The struggles against CAB are inextricably linked to the struggle against occupation in Kashmir. What happened in Kashmir will not stay in Kashmir. What happens in India will not stay in India so this is a matter of concern to all of us.
(Photographers not identified)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Passing parameters in body in POST API Call to Openstack Nova I am trying to stop a running server instance on Openstack Nova. I am using the following API as a reference
https://developer.openstack.org/api-ref/compute/#stop-server-os-stop-action
The following is my code snippet
import openstack.config
self.cloud_region = openstack.config.OpenStackConfig().get_one('adminproject')
self.session = self.cloud_region.get_session_client('compute')

I am able to make GET requests to the server
response = self.session.get(url)

But when i try to make POST requests, I am getting errors. This is how I am trying to do it
url = "/servers/" + vm_id + "/action
body = {"os-stop":"null"}

reponse = self.session.post(url, {'os-stop' : 'null'})

TypeError: post() takes exactly 2 arguments (3 given)

I have also tried
reponse = self.session.post(url, body=body)

which gives me an error
TypeError: request() got an unexpected keyword argument 'body'

When i do it via the nova client and enable the debug mode, this is what i get
curl -g -i -X POST http://IP:PORT/v2.1/12bf80bc27cf4fdc87a2ce2cb0619159/servers/93bc82d4-7a3b-4f67-bc6e-dfb2553a57fc/action -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA1}447e97116c71efcff1a02f4d7fdf8d76a4490d9d" -d '{"os-stop": null}'

It would be great if someone can help in finding out how to emulate the above request.
TIA.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The Transparency Project
Australian political donations
This article is more than 1 month old
'No good reason' for eight-month delay to reveal parties' election donors
Political parties will not publicly disclose campaign financing for the federal election until February 2020
About this content
Christopher Knaus
@knausc
Thu 23 May 2019 14.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 24 May 2019 02.16 EDT
Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison during an election debate. The political parties' campaign financing will not be disclosed until February 2020. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Australians won't know who bankrolled the major parties' election campaigns for another eight months, due to a weak donations reporting regime that experts say is feeding "secrecy and distrust".
The major parties have repeatedly ignored calls to introduce real-time disclosure in Australia's donations system, which will not publicly disclose campaign financing until February 2020.
The federal system now lags far behind Queensland, where real-time donation disclosure technology introduced in 2017 requires money to be declared within seven days. In Victoria, donations are now revealed within 21 days, and New South Wales requires funding to be disclosed within 21 days during elections.
High court closes loophole that would have allowed developer donations in federal election
Even when the sluggish federal system finally reveals election financing, parties will only be compelled to disclose donations above $13,800. Victoria, Queensland and NSW all require donations of $1,000 or more to be declared.
Danielle Wood, a director at the Grattan Institute, said there is "no good reason" why voters have to wait eight months to know who has paid for the campaigns of the Coalition and Labor.
"The current system feeds secrecy and distrust," Wood told Guardian Australia. "In a world where (close to) real-time disclosures are feasible and indeed already happening in some state elections, there is no good reason why we should have to wait to see who's funded the parties at the election."
Successive studies have shown that public confidence in democratic processes is waning. University of Canberra researchers found last year fewer than 41% of Australians are satisfied with the way democracy works in Australia. That is a vast decline since 2007, when satisfaction was at 86%. The third biggest grievance detected in the study was that "big business has too much power".
Wood said the current flawed system means voters were going to the polls without knowing who was funding the party they were voting for.
"Many people are concerned about the influence of vested interests in the political process and so the identity of major donors is relevant information for voters," she said. "By February the election is old news, and that's the point. There is simply less accountability to voters in a system with long lags in disclosure."
Earlier this year, Labor and the Liberals combined to vote down Greens amendments to the foreign donations ban, which would have paved the way for a real-time disclosure system. Guardian Australia understands the software provider that is behind the Queensland system has offered it to the federal government.
Labor has a party policy of disclosing donations of above $1,000, and supports lowering the disclosure threshold to this level for all parties. Prior to the election, it was also considering support for a donation cap of $4,000 to reduce the influence of big donors.
A recent report by the Grattan Institute found that the disclosures – when eventually made – still hide much of the parties' finances. The report found the source of about 30-40% of donations remained hidden.
Pressure for reform has also mounted in Tasmania, where a vast injection of gambling-lobby funds helped the Liberal party defeat the Labor opposition, which was proposing a pokies ban. It took 11 months for the scale of the industry's contribution ($500,000) to be revealed. Since then, the Liberal speaker, Sue Hickey, has described reform to the system as "absolutely essential" and Labor and the Greens have kept the issue firmly on the local agenda.
Gambling lobby gave $500,000 to Liberals ahead of Tasmanian election
Federally, the Greens went to the election with a policy of implementing real-time donations disclosures and dropping the disclosure threshold. Crossbenchers have also been broadly supportive of donations reform.
The Greens' democracy spokeswoman, Larissa Waters, said earlier this year the current system allowed private interests to have undue influence on the election.
"The real-time disclosure of donations to political parties would reveal to the public who is attempting to seek influence – and would enable closer tracking of whether any favours were granted as a result," she said. "Real-time disclosure of donations would discourage donations that seek to buy policy outcomes that favour corporate interests over the community's."
Australian Greens


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Pilktjärnen är en sjö i Sundsvalls kommun i Medelpad och ingår i .

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New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) recruits Consultant (IT Security) posts. Candidates with Graduate, BE experienced can apply.


Discussion in 'Forum News and Announcements' started by CrazyKooK, Apr 22, 2012.
Got in on the Open Beta today. Absolutely great gameplay. Looking forward to setting up some clans/ guilds/ or what have you.
Big shout-out to ST+ for really kicking off the diablo 3 fan page on Facebook... now let's bring some of that discussion to the forums!
For starters, what do you guys think is the most overpowered class (good/ bad, doesn't matter)?
What classes did you try?
I got to try out Demon Hunter and Monk. Never got to witch doctor or barbarian. Heard that witch doctor was weak and barbarian was powerful as well as good fun.
From what I've heard, Inferno difficulty is so hard that none of the developers have beaten it yet.
Heard something about Inferno and the developers. I'm pretty sure a few of them have beaten it but from what I know, it was truly the best of the best of the people that MADE THE GAME.
I have no hope of even attempting it personally.
I have tried the Monk, the barbarian and the witch Doctor, I like their skills and I love the game.