Arab Spring needs more supports

The world is transfixed as the unprecedented events in the Middle East and North Africa unfold. And foreign policy aficionados are equally transfixed as the U.S. government maneuvers between its stated values and sometimes short-sighted security policies. With targeted airstrikes and lofty rhetoric supporting some, but not all, of the brave activists seeking respect for their rights, Washington's relations and approach with the region are inconsistent and off the mark.
This is a seminal opportunity that the United States can't afford to miss. The Arab Spring requires a consistent approach to the shared clarion call of freedom from the 300 million-plus people in the 11 countries where significant protests are unfolding.
The U.S. government has a critical role to play in protecting the virtual town square. Access to Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the Internet fueled and documented the Arab Spring. But since January, the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Syria, and United Arab Emirates have either tried to restrict Internet access or have detained bloggers. The Obama administration should step up its efforts to promote expanded and unrestricted Internet access and forcefully condemn efforts by other governments to undermine this freedom.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a forceful advocate for women's rights her entire career. The Obama administration can build on that legacy by consistently and unequivocally insisting that the only credible reform processes will be those that fully integrate women. Washington should also press the Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, a treaty that's already in force in 186 countries.
Words and actions are important, but money talks. Congress should fully fund Obama's foreign aid budget, which funds programs that alleviate extreme poverty, prevent violence against women, and support democratic institutions. At just 1 percent of the entire federal budget, it's a smart and cost-effective way to promote the rule of law and human rights in a region fighting for those rights.

The so-called Twitter revolution didn't happen overnight. Brave human-rights defenders have been working for years, under threats, harassment, and worse. Since mid-January, Amnesty International has issued more than 48 global appeals to protect the people who have peacefully advocated for change in at least 11 countries during the Arab Spring. The U.S. government should support human rights groups that protect activists' safety and security, and speak out strongly when human rights defenders are harassed or detained.

Not since the Berlin Wall's demise have core U.S. values been on the line like this. There's much that Washington can do to have a powerful, positive impact in the Middle East and North Africa. The Obama administration's diplomacy should be as bold as the extraordinary events unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.

Morocco's uphill struggle for media reform

The February 20 movement in Morocco has had to deal with state censorship while international media attention focused elsewhere, as the Arab Spring unfolds [EPA]

Source:

Al Jazeera

On February 17, as Egypt became the second Arab country to topple a dictator in just one month's time, the Arab Spring seemed eternal and unstoppable. Young activists in several countries across the region, believing that anything was possible, put forth calls for demonstrations on YouTube and Facebook, emulating their Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts before them.

On February 20 - just three days after the fall of Mubarak - thousands of Moroccans poured into the streets of Rabat, Tangier, Casablanca, and elsewhere, responding to calls from civil society and human rights groups. A viral video campaign created by a group called 'Democracy and Freedom Now' just a week prior outlined protesters' demands: an increase in the minimum wage, labour rights, minority rights, education reform, and equality.

Initially, the protests garnered significant international attention. But as the world's attention turned first to Libya, then the rest of the region, and more recently - particularly in the Francophone world, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair - continuing demonstrations in Morocco have fallen low on the priority list of mainstream media, leaving supporters of the February 20 movement flailing. A terrorist attack on a popular Marrakesh cafe has complicated the matter, giving Morocco a reason to beef up security and justify crackdowns.

Nevertheless, the protests have indeed continued over the past three months, with large-scale demonstrations attracting thousands on March 20, April 24, and May 8 in cities across the country. And while the sizable Moroccan blogosphere has historically been only marginally political, citizen journalism has found a strong point of entry in the absence of mainstream coverage, emboldened by the emergence of professional journalists online, and with the sudden courage to criticise the monarchy.

That kind of fortitude is new in Morocco, where publications have been shut down and journalists blacklisted for crossing the country's three red lines: Islam, the Western Sahara, and the monarchy. Though the Moroccan government blocks only a few websites, bloggers have in the past been arrested for content posted online.

One citizen media initiative that arose out of the protests is Mamfakinch. Co-founded by blogger Hisham Almiraat (the site's other bloggers write anonymously), a Moroccan doctor who lives and works in France, Mamfakinch is a collective blog dedicated to countering what they view as propaganda from state-run media, with free access to information at the core of their work.

Almiraat, who on his blog recently called this a "make or break moment" for Morocco, says that "at some point, the official news agency declared that the protests were cancelled. None of that was true." That spurred Almiraat and his partners to start a new platform. Studying the work of friends in Tunisia and Egypt, they identified Tunisian news collective Nawaat.org as a "gold standard for curating", says Almiraat, "so we decided to create an alternative media entity."

Citizen journalism often serves as a major source for mainstream media. Nawaat's reporting during the Tunisian uprising often help inform major publications, as did the reporting of bloggers and Twitter users in Egypt in elsewhere. Almiraat says that his collective "hopes to serve as a link between citizen reporters and journalists in the mainstream media. We believe that both citizen and traditional media can serve the cause of free access to information and free expression."

Like Nawaat, Mamfakinch uses the relatively small-scale San Francisco based platform Posterous, which allows users to post via multiple methods, including by e-mail, making it filtering-resistant. At a recent event held at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sachin Agarwal, founder of CEO of Posterous, noted that they recognise their role in the revolution, and have worked to ensure that sites remain accessible; for example, they have developed mitigation techniques to protect against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Despite the secure hosting and role model, Mamfakinch and sites like it in Morocco are still up against considerable challenges, from the fear of detention to the sheer fact that the world's eyes are elsewhere.  The question for citizen journalists, then, is how to sustain global attention during times of protest. It is a question that Tunisians and Egyptians fortunately didn't have to face as they worked to bring down their regimes; Ben Ali fell in less than a month, Mubarak fled after twenty three days. Nevertheless, citizen journalists and activists in Tunisia and Egypt, currently working to ensure the change they worked so hard for truly happens, struggle for attention and cohesion as well.

The model that Mamfakinch aspires to- promoting local viewpoints that will later be amplified by larger media -only works when the mainstream media is paying attention. As Almiraat points out: "The Moroccan regime has nurtured the reputation of stability and is very sensitive to its image abroad."

With that in mind, it will be very difficult for citizen media to captivate a global audience on its own. What is needed is a trust model in which traditional media - from television to print journalism - focuses not just on social media like Twitter and Facebook, but also works with trusted citizen journalism sites to get the local scoop. As mainstream media moves further from a model in which professional journalists are embedded in foreign countries and fixers become virtually a thing of the past, mainstream media would do well to look toward innovative initiatives that combine original reporting from local experts with more opinionated content.

Jillian York is director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. She writes a regular column for Al Jazeera focusing on free expression and Internet freedom. She also writes for and is on the Board of Directors of Global Voices Online.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Ancient Predator Lasted Longer Than Thought

By Jesse Emspak | May 26, 2011 10:54 AM EDT

A lobster-like animal that was the biggest predator of its kind survived much longer and gota  lot bigger than anyone thought.


Based on a set of fossils found in Morocco, paleontologists from Yale University found that anomalocaridids, survived 30 million years past the date when they were originally thought to have died out.
Anomalocaridids are arthropods, related to crabs, insects and spiders. The creatures appeared between 540 and 488 million years ago, in what is called the "Cambrian explosion." The period is so named because at that time there was the sudden appearance of many major animal groups that exist today (and a few that no longer do).


Previously, scientists thought that the anomalocaridids hadn't survived past the end of the Cambrian, though during that 62 million-year span they diversified into many different types. The fossils that were found seemed to show that the biggest they ever got was about two feet long, but the new discovery is a creature that was about 3 feet. The fossil the Yale team found dates to the Ordovican, a period that followed the Cambrian which was also marked by a lot of diversification.
Anomalocaridids had two spiny, tentacle-like front limbs, with the front half of their bodies covered in a shell and the rear half segmented. They also had a series of blade-like filaments on their backs, which might have functioned as gills. They are rather like shrimp or lobsters, though they appear long before either one. Another major difference is modern crustaceans have gills that are on their undersides, rather than on their backs.
Most paleontologists think the two limbs would snag prey which was then drawn into a circular mouth that was lined with plates. "It is something like a combination of a parrot's beak and a nutcracker," said Derek Briggs, director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and one of the lead researchers. It was probably one of the single largest predators in the world at the time - there were not yet any fish big enough to tackle it.
Anomalocaridids aren't ancestors to anything living, as they are a branch of the arthropod family that died out, much like the trilobites (who they shared the seas with).


The specimens are just part of a new trove of fossils that includes thousands of examples of soft-bodied marine fauna dating back to the early Ordovician period, 488 to 472 million years ago. Briggs said such finds are rare. "Only about 40 percent of species have shells that fossilize," he said. Anomalocaridids - like modern lobsters and horseshoe crabs - had a shell made of chitin, which decays unless it gets buried in silt very quickly. "The rest of the animals don't have anything like that." That, Briggs said, means a lot of the time you only get a very incomplete picture of what life was like millions of years ago. The animals found in Morocco inhabited a muddy sea floor, and were trapped by sediment that buried them and preserved their soft bodies.

Army Medics Conduct African Lion 11 MEDEVAC to Guelmim, Morocco

By Specialist Cody Campana
301st Public Affairs Detachment

CAP DRAA, Morocco, May 25, 2011 — Soldiers of the 848th Forward Surgical Team participating in exercise African Lion 11 organized a rehearsal medical evacuation with the Moroccan military May 8, 2011. 

Exercise African Lion is a joint exercise involving U.S. Army, Navy and Marines, and the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces that consists of peacekeeping operations, humanitarian civic assistance operations and construction projects. 

The rehearsal was part of the 848th's mission to "conduct level-two care for Marines, the Navy, and soldiers, and to provide trauma support in order to stabilize them, or if unstable to make it possible to move them to a hospital," said Staff Sergeant Darren Ladouceur, an Army nurse and detachment sergeant of the 848th FST. 

"The purpose for the MEDEVAC rehearsal was to get an orientation of a Moroccan helicopter, and to get the soldiers and medical providers on the ground familiar with the helicopter and how we can load the patient and best organize our medical providers in route," said Ladouceur. 

If the case of an injury, the MEDEVAC helicopter would take the casualties to Guelmim, about 200 kilometers from Cap Draa. Guelmim has a military hospital, which employs medical specialists, general surgeons and emergency medical technicians, where they can give anesthesia and perform surgical procedures, said Lieutenant Colonel Ali S. Zaza, a general and trauma surgeon with the 848th FST since 1986, a Syrian-American also serving as an Arabic-English translator in the course of the exercise. 

After inspecting the helicopter, a Huey, some soldiers and Navy personnel took a ride around the surrounding area. Directly after the flight and rehearsal, Zaza and a group of other medical personnel traveled to the nearby Moroccan military base. 

"We went to the battalion aid station. They can take care of lacerations, provide immediate treatment of major injuries, and can tracheal incubate. They could administer a lot of medications intravenously for nausea, vomiting, pain, antibiotics and I.V. fluids," Zaza said. "The battalion aid station has everything you would expect a battalion aid station in the United States to have." 

While inspecting the aid station, Zaza interacted closely with his Moroccan counterparts. 

"I enjoyed it. I had a chance to speak to them in Arabic, in many situations where I thought I was helpful. It was a chance for me to use the language and take a look at the culture," he said. "The [Moroccan] surgeon here seems to be very knowledgeable. He seems to be very good." 

Zaza, an Army reservist, is a general surgeon as a civilian and has been deployed as an Army surgeon. "I have been deployed four times, twice to Iraq, once to Germany and once to Louisiana," he said. "The two deployments to Iraq were during combat operations." 

Zaza said his civilian career benefits from his Army experiences because there are various types of injuries in both fields. 

"Military injuries from high speed projectiles are always different than civilian trauma situations," he said. "It [the military] adds to your scope of knowledge and experience." 

So far, exercise African Lion 11 has had no major injuries, but the 848th are vigilant and continue to train just in case. 

"The medics on the ground are the first responders ready to help every soldier, sailor, Marine, or Moroccan military member that may be injured," Ladouceur said. "It is very important that we stay ready." 

Source: U.S. Army Africa

Morocco holds youth meetings

2011-05-25
Thousands of youths gathered in the coastal town of Bouznika May 23rd-24th to partake in the first series of national debates aimed at adopting a strategy for Morocco's rising generation.
"The government took responsibility and had a discussion with young people who make up more than 35% of the society," Youth and Sports Minister Moncef Belkhayat said.
"We initiated today a work programme by signing ten significant agreements with some ministries," he added.
According to Belkhayat, the accords envision a mechanism for ensuring social security for youths between ages 18-25. They also provide for creating health centres to tackle youths' problems such as drug addiction and constructing sports stadiums. Furthermore, it was agreed to double the finance ministry's budget allocated for youths for the period 2011-2016, bringing it to one billion dirhams.
"It will help strengthen the infrastructures dedicated to that category such as centres and stadiums for the youth," Belkhayat said.The meetings were attended by members of "political parties, civil society activists, graduates and others," activist Aziz Boukassrine told Magharebia. "They elected 48 young men and women to present questions concerning them to the ministers who attended the debate."
According to February 20 Movement member Mehdi Laimina, the participants in the debates managed to "determine the set of questions to present to ministers".
"I think it is a massive step forward in the government's dealing with the young people," he said, adding that these youths had never expressed themselves in their neighbourhoods or educational organisations.
The change in dealing with young people is a "result of a wave of protests that were led by the February 20 Movement," Laimina argued.
Belkhayat, however, disputed the assertion, telling Magharebia that the ministry "started preparing for the debate 18 months ago".
"It is a government strategy that started before the beginning of the movement’s protests," he said.
According to General Confederation of Moroccan Businesses (CGEM) chief Mohamed Hourani, the debate was marked by "common optimism shared by youths and the government"."The signed agreements have credibility," he added. "The concerned parties must work on bringing these projects to fruition."
"During the debate, we have seen strong expectations of young people, especially with regards to jobs," Employment Minister Jamal Rhmani told Magharebia. "Their proportion of the labour force in 2016 will reach 65%."
Moroccan youths are "aware that the employment market is developing, which requires good education," he added.

By Naoufel Cherkaoui for Magharebia in Bouznika – 25/05/11

GCC Reaches Out to Morocco and Jordan

DUBAI — Invitations to Jordan and Morocco this month to apply for membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council are aimed at strengthening the security of the monarchies in the Gulf, political analysts and diplomats say.

“G.C.C. decision makers are inviting Jordan, a major country from the Arab East, and Morocco, another major country from North Africa, in order to give political and strategic depth to the G.C.C.,” said Mustafa Alani, director of the security department at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

In Paris, the Bahraini ambassador to France, Nasser al-Belooshi, told journalists this month that Morocco and Jordan “are well respected in the world,” adding, “They have a weight globally, and it will help the G.C.C.”

At the same time, Mr. Alani said, “Jordan and Morocco are different in terms of culture, economic profile, and even the type of monarchy found in G.C.C. states.” Given those differences, he said, “this decision seems to be based mainly on a new emerging Arab bloc with geographic expansion plans in mind.”

Since the uprisings began in December in the Arab world, in Tunisia, the Gulf states have been shifting their strategic and political alliances to adapt to changes in their basic security framework. Analysts say this is a response to both the internal threat of further unrest and the external threat from Iran.

Faced by this year’s groundswell of unrest, the Sunni monarchies of the G.C.C. — Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar — have coordinated a mutual defense, using carrots, sticks and diplomacy.

“The six-nation bloc is trying to bolster its defense,” said Ayesha Sabavala, a Middle East economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, based in London.

In mid-March, the council gave $20 billion in aid to Oman and Bahrain for housing and infrastructure improvements to appease protesters. Days later, troops from the Emirates and Saudi Arabia backed Bahrain’s military crackdown on Shiite demonstrators demanding economic and political reforms. Then, this month, came outreach to Jordan and Morocco — two pro-Western, Sunni monarchies with a common interest in containing Shiite Iran.

The courting of Jordan is a sign of how much has changed in the region’s geopolitical arithmetic. While Morocco has never shown any particular interest in joining the Gulf club, Jordan applied twice, in the 1980s and in 1996, and was rejected, Mr. Alani said.

Taufiq Rahim, a visiting fellow at the Dubai School of Government, said: “There is greater uncertainty in the region and a lot of shifting alliances. The nature of the Arab league is changing.”

“Greater G.C.C. integration will lead to a more united front in terms of foreign policy in the region,” he added.

Analysts say the turning point came when Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors saw how the United States dealt with the fall of the Egyptian regime.

Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington, said: “The Saudis worried that if the U.S. was able to turn its back on one of its closest allies in the region when former President Hosni Mubarak left, will they do it again if unrest erupts somewhere else in the region? Who will they throw under the bus next?”

Mr. Hamid noted that Jordan and Morocco have been close to Washington. In 2007, Morocco signed a $697.5 million poverty reduction accord with the United States. Jordan is one of the highest per capita recipients of U.S. foreign aid, Mr. Hamid said, adding, “These two countries have been receiving a lot of money from the United States, and now Saudi Arabia wants to peel them off.”

Mr. Hamid also points out that Jordan has one of the best-trained military and intelligence units in the region.

Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for regional security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, added that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia moved some police and army training facilities from Egypt to Jordan in mid-May.

Ms. Sabavala, the economist, said, “The message is that the G.C.C. is looking to diversify its defense allies and perhaps reduce dependence on the West.”

Meanwhile, membership in the Gulf group could bring Jordan and Morocco not just access to alternative aid flows, but also improved trade and employment opportunities — important benefits for countries facing big youth unemployed challenges, said Mhemet Biygautane, a research associate at the Dubai School of Government.

In market-building terms, Jordanian and Moroccan accession to the G.C.C. would double the bloc’s total population, he added. Still, he and other analysts cautioned that there is no solid timeline in place for the two countries to join the club and that the precise scope of any membership deal has not been defined.

“Is it a full membership with privileges of open borders and free movement of people and goods, or will it solely cover selected areas like security and trade?” Mr. Biygautane asked. “So far, we have not heard any specific hints from the G.C.C. regarding the terms of membership.”

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the G.C.C. was founded to foster economic integration among Gulf states. Yet plans for a G.C.C. customs union and common market, proposed in 2007, have made little progress, while the most recent of several target dates for a G.C.C. monetary union passed virtually unnoticed at the end of 2010.

“We shouldn’t take for granted that this G.C.C. integration will definitely happen,” said Mr. Hokayem, the regional security specialist. “This is about putting Egypt, the U.S. and Iran on their toes and sending them a message.”

The invitation to Jordan and Morocco “makes it seem as if the G.C.C. is primarily a political or security body,” he added. “That’s fine, but it raises a lot of questions about common foreign policies for countries dealing with different regional and cultural issues.”

Morocco sells stake in Banque Central Populaire

By: Staff Writer

The Moroccan government is selling half of its holding in Banque Central Populaire (BCP), raising some MAD 5.3 billion ($660 million)

Morocco is selling 20 per cent of BCP to the regional offices of the bank – the 10 Banques Populaires Regionales, a move which raises their stake in BCP to 37 per cent. The Ministery of Economy and Finance claimed the move would boost the bank’s development and allow the regional branches to play a greater role in the devolution of power to the regions.

BCP shares had been suspended on the Casablance bourse on Friday, 20 May ahead of the announcement. It appears that the price at which the stake in the bank is changing hands offers neither a premium to the government nor a discount to the regional banks.

Although the sale of the stake in BCP has come as a surprise to many, it had been known that the Moroccan Government would be looking to sell assets. The state is struggling to contain a burgeoning budget deficit at the same time as spending is rising sharply in response to public protests At end-March, the Moroccan budget deficit was running at MAD 6.3 billion ($785 million), against MAD 5.2 billion ($648 million) in the red a year ago; and this figure does not take into account the public sector wage rise that took effect in May.

Although over all bank lending rose by only 4.7 per cent annualized in Q1 2011, down from growth of 15 per cent in Q1 2010, loans to the Treasury rose 9.7 per cent (1.1 per cent in Q1 2010).

In the meantime, King Mohammed’s promised package of constitutional reform is due to be submitted for approval next month before a referendum in July, scheduled to be followed by parliamentary elections before October.