I know we'd hoped for a few more months, but then the rulers went and increased subsidies and social security payments to offset increased prices.
Investors bought less an a third of the 3.5 billion Egyptian pounds (US$580 million) worth of Treasury bills offered to the market on January 22, a red flag warning that Egypt's foreign exchange position is close to the brink.
Yields on Egyptian government debt maturing in nine months jumped to nearly 16%, but the government could not place its local-currency debt to Egyptian investors, even at that exorbitant rate.
This is a new and ominous decline in the financial position of the most populous Arab country. I have been warning since last May that "Egypt is running out of food, and, more gradually, running out of the money with which to buy it." How fast this may occur is hard to specify, but the government's inability to borrow on money markets suggests that the crunch is not far off. (See The hunger to come in Egypt Asia Times Online, May 10, 2011.)
Egypt faces a disaster of biblical proportions, and the world will do nothing about it. Officially, Egypt's foreign exchange reserves fell by half during 2011, including a $2.4 billion decline during December - from $36 billion to $18 billion, or about four months of imports.
But the situation almost certainly is worse than that. More than $4 billion left the country during December, estimates Royal Bank of Scotland economist Raza Agha, noting that the December drop in reserves was cushioned by a $1 billion loan from the Egyptian army and a $1 billion sale of dollar-denominated treasury bills.
The rush out of the Egyptian pound is so rapid that Egyptian investors refuse to hold debt in their own national currency, even at a 16% yield. After Islamist parties won more three-quarters of the seats in recent parliamentary elections - 47% for the Muslim Brotherhood and 25% for the even more extreme al-Nour Party - the business elite that prospered under military rule is counting the days before exile.
The first reports of actual hunger in provincial Egyptian towns, meanwhile, are starting to trickle in through Arab-language press and blog reports. A shortage of gasoline accompanied by long queues at filling stations and panic buying was widely reported last week.
In some towns, for example Luxor in Upper Egypt, the disappearance of diesel fuel shut down bakeries, exacerbating the spot shortages of bread.
After months of refusing to bargain with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Egypt's government has begun negotiations for a $3.2 billion loan, or less than the amount of capital flight in December alone. The involvement of the IMF evidently did little to reassure the Egyptian investors who sat out Sunday's Treasury auction.
It seems unlikely that Egypt's central bank will be able to prevent a banana-republic devaluation of the Egyptian pound, and a sharp rise in prices for a population of whom half barely consumes enough to prevent starvation. The difference between Egypt and a banana republic, though, is the bananas: unlike the bankrupt Latin Americans, who exported food, Egypt imports half its caloric consumption.
Meat imports have already fallen by 60% over the past year, the Egypt News website reported on January 22, reflecting the collapse of purchasing power. More alarming is that bread has become scarce in some provincial cities. In Ismailia on the Suez Canal, the Youm7 website reported on January 22, a bread protest burned cars and blocked a main highway. Similar protests took place in other towns close to Cairo, including Zagazig and Ibousoar.
Anything that can be sold for hard currency - wheat, rice, butane, diesel fuel and sugar - has disappeared from government warehouses during the past year, according to a multitude of reports in local Arab-language media summarized in my 2011 essays. (See When will Egypt go broke? Asia Times Online, July 12, 2011.)
It is not clear whether the localized shortages of food and the nationwide shortage of gasoline reflect a buyers' panic, or large-scale theft, or an effort by the central bank to conserve foreign exchange by slowing essential purchases - or all of the above.
Nearly half of Egyptians are functionally illiterate. Nine-tenths of adult women have suffered genital mutilation. Almost a third of Egyptians marry first or second cousins, the fail-safe indicator of a clan-based society. Half of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day, and must spend half of that on food.
Under duress, and after the collapse of the secular military dictatorship that ruled Egypt since the Free Officers coup six decades ago, Egyptians naturally revert to traditional institutions: mosque, tribe and clan.
It should have been no surprise that the Islamists swept the parliamentary elections, given the desperation of the people and the cupidity of the political system. The Wafd Party, Egypt's oldest secular political entity, polled just 9% of the vote.
Delusional as it was to expect Egyptians to support secular liberal parties that never existed and offered no solution to their desperation, it is all the more delusional to expect the Islamists to stabilize Egypt. The Islamist victory in the first round of voting last year almost certainly prompted the jump in capital flight in December, and the consolidation of Islamist power.
Egypt's middle class will leave and tourism, down by a third over the past year, will virtually disappear in response to Salafist restrictions. The Barack Obama administration in Washington will try to appease the new Islamist government whenever it takes power, but will succeed no better than the Jimmy Carter administration did when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979.
The European Council set the tone for the international community's response to the Egyptian crisis, with a statement on January 22 that it would avoid "formal dialogue" with Egypt until a democratic government is formed. There is no point talking to the generals, who are about to leave, let alone giving them money, for they would simply steal it.
Europe, however, will give serious thought to 449 million euros (US$560 million) in foreign aid during 2011-2013, a meaningless sum given Egypt's requirements.
The Obama administration, despite the president's enormous personal investment in the notion of Egyptian democracy, will do nothing until November, by which time it will be too late to do anything: the last thing the incumbent president wants during an election year is to defend an increase in foreign aid (the least popular line item in the US budget) to Egyptian Islamists (the least popular people as far as American voters are concerned).
By protesting the harassment of Egyptian human-rights groups in a call to the military leadership on January 20, Obama distanced himself from the mess he helped create by forcing the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak early last year.
The Republican establishment, to be sure, waxed just as enthusiastic about Egyptian democracy as did Obama, but under the circumstances, Republican pundits will insist they never said it.
It is sad enough for Egyptians to stumble into a long night of hunger, repression and anarchy; it is doubly sad that Democrats and Republicans will do their best to ensure that Americans learn nothing from Egypt's failure. Not often does a great and ancient country go to its ruin in the full light of day, observable in real time.
What passes for optimism - the notion that Americans can teach their political system to everyone else as if it were simply another technology - too often turns into adoration of our own cleverness. Millions of Egyptians will die before this is through. It would be a shame if this great sacrifice taught us nothing.
Continued on Page 49
#5
Maybe we'll be lucky and Egypt will only become another Pakistan, instead of another Iran.
Let's pray it doesn't become another Somalia, where life is post-apocalyptically nasty, brutish, and short...and destructive of the remaining infrastructure. (Not a thought original to me, but it lead to nightmares last night after I posted the article.)
#6
Drain Lake Nassar (behind the Aswan) and they would have 50 years worth of Nile silt to plant some productive crops in. Of course they would lose the electric power but you can't "yet" eat electricity.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/24/2012 9:02 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Oh and Mubarak started a "Y" in the Nile after the dam. Ran it about 50 miles and lost interest. Run the lake Nasar water down the Y and let it lose itself in the desert - in the process creating millions of acres of farm-able land.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/24/2012 9:09 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I can only hope that the people that so embraced radical Islam will learn something from this.
#10
Egypt is almost unique in that it has only three seasons: flood season, crop season, then for the rest of the year do other stuff season.
The Nile is, or at least was, a mostly reliable source of flooding, and they took advantage of it, growing one huge crop then putting it in storage to last the rest of the year.
They decided to be crafty by building the Aswan dam. However, the plus of excessive flood control and year around water came with some drawbacks.
The first of these is that the flood waters no longer replenish the soil nutrients, so they have to import fertilizer.
In the US, in its western dams, they have realized that periodically flushing out dams with a controlled flood both gets rid of dam silt and sends it downriver where it can do some good. It has the added bonus that it can be done at your convenience.
Second, by having an irrigation water supply the year around, while it permits more crops, it also encourages lots of insects to eat those crops, far more than would normally exist. These insects also spread diseases.
#13
then for the rest of the year do other stuff season.
It's that 'do other stuff' season that leads to the need for ever-increasing food supply. Sort of like Katrina babies, but on a regular schedule.
#14
Sigh ... everyone who visited Egypt in the last couple of decades get good pictures of the ancient antiquities? Nice collection of memorabilia? Do the Western museums with good collections have a good tight hold on them?
I fear, alas - that very soon, this is the only means we will have of experiencing Egypt. Pity, that. It was a nice place, once.
Methinks Virgina just found out once again why many Islamists call for imposing hefty fees + surcharges, etc. on foreign ships transiting the Suez Canal.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued its annual report on human rights worldwide Sunday, including Mexico, which said the Mexican Army and the legal system routinely violates human rights in the war on drug cartels.
The report focuses on several areas such as military impunity, freedom of expression, human rights defenders and other areas as areas of concern.
Specific in the report is HRW's contention that of almost 5,800 cases of human rights abuses by the military, only 90 have been investigated. The ratio comports correctly to what the two military agencies say are the number of cases in which actual crimes have been involved, or about two percent.
Additionally, the report says that since 2007, 3,671 cases of human rights abuses by the military have been resulted in actual investigations, for which only 15 military have been convicted. That number seems low. The report does, however, say an additional 14 soldiers have been sentenced for crimes committed in the normal course of fighting drug cartels. In the report it is unclear if those 14 are included under the rubric of resolved cases.
One case involving an individual in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon last September was included in the report, that of Gustavo Acosta.
That month there was increased armed gang activity in which several police facilities were attacked by armed suspects in Monterrey metropolitan area. Apodaca is a suburb of Monterrey.
The reports, not surprisingly, fail to give much in the way of detail. Indeed, while this writer covered Monterrey metropolitan area that month, the shooting of Gustavo Acosta by Mexican Marines was not reported or had been missed.
It is important to note that during the first week of last October, following the death of Gustavo Acosta, 157 municipal police agents were detained and tested for their involvement with drug trafficking. It is not hard to see how Gustavo Acosta could have been involved in drug trafficking and did fire a weapon on marine units operating in the area -- drug cartels routinely employ lookouts they term as hawks -- just as it is not hard to see how Gustavo Acosta could have been accidentally shot by marines. In an environment in which drug gangs routinely infiltrate state agencies, information is often lacking or is of poor quality
The Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency for the Mexican Army, is not squeamish about investigating abuses. It remains to be seen how the Gustavo Acosta shooting will turn out with the Secretaria de Marina (SEMAR), the controlling agency for Mexican Naval Infantry.
It is worth noting that the Mexican military have publicly stated their commitment to policing their ranks of those who commit abuses, but that is never enough for the human rights watching agencies who swim in the arcane insistence that not only must every t get crossed, but get crossed their way.
It is also worth noting that drug cartels routinely pay poor citizens -- in cash or in kind -- to lodge complaints against the military when a loss of life or other abuse has taken place. SEMAR chief Admiral Mariano Francisco Saynez Mendoza has said as much, and indeed in Mexican press there have been descriptions of individuals who have been paid to perform such services as protesting the Polica Federal presence in an area, for example.
Naturally, the HRW report does not touch on that little bit of window dressing courtesy of drug cartel operatives, predictably preferring to rake a government institution over the coals for its failings. Government agencies are easier to deal with.
The report also fails to address the fact that many Mexican local human rights groups do not vet their members with any of the vigor the Mexican military vets its own. In such an environment, it would be easy for drug cartels, indeed even for operatives of violent Marxist groups such as Guerrero state's Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR) to infiltrate and create the kind of reports groups such as local human rights watch groups have released to the public in the past.
Perhaps the most irritating aspect of the report is the way HRW redact critical facts in cases it champions.
Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera were two ecologistias working in southern Guerrero in 1999 when they were detained for planting marijuana and for possession of military weapons.
The two were convicted for those crimes and sentenced. Then in 2001, they were released on humanitarian grounds by order of then president Vicente Fox. The convictions, however, were not vacated The two men promptly fled to the US, where they live today.
According to internet reports, in 2011 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared the two innocent of their crimes and released a report saying they had been tortured while in military custody.
The report IACHR failed to detail the nature of the torture, nor does any report on the IACHR ruling say if the two actually did the crime for which they were convicted.
The strangest aspect of the case revolves around stories of threats against Montiel and Cabrera. They were ecologistas, according to environmental groups' reports, seeking to defend southern Guerrero from logging, i.e. commercial interests.
If the two ecologistas were indeed threatened, it would not have been by the military, whose involvement was complete when they were by law turned over to local legal authorities. In the past Guerrero state and local officials have been linked to human rights violations. Those violations were part of a war instigated by local Marxist groups who were fighting commercial activities such as logging, and were known to enjoy support in some local communities in southern Mexico, including Guerrero state.
The year 1999 was just one year after the famous encounter at El Charco, which human rights groups claim -- disingenuously -- was a massacre of unarmed farmers. The area at the time was already at hot zone for the Mexican military trying to deal with hostile and armed Marxist groups in the area, as well as drug traffickers.
A lot of information framing the arrest and conviction of Montiel and Cabrera remains shrouded in a penumbra of ecological agenda increasingly favored by human rights organizations, and probably funded by global warming alarmists.
Citizen involvement in righting wrongs is always a good thing in a republic, but the additional dimension of the drug cartels and organized crime, whose economic profits sometime depend on smearing their opponents -- like the drug trade it is an intolerable element in discussions of human rights, and a conversation in which HRW refuses to engage.
The HRW report in its rush to judgement fails to make any distinctions when it attempts to decry human rights violations in Mexico. That rush to judgement is the result of sloppy reporting and dishonest ecological agenda building.
George Soros gives $100 million to Human Rights Watch (2010).
Billionaire's biggest single grant to an American organisation will allow HRW to expand its reach into developing nations
Wiki
The George Soros Open Society Foundation is the primary donor of the Human Rights Watch, contributing $100 Million of $128 Million of contributions and grants received by the HRW in the 2011 financial year.
[Dawn] Whether the rally held here on Sunday for the defence of Pakistain was to revive the Jihadi spirit of the 1980s or to voice genuine concern at the threats that government policies may pose in the long-term would be known later, but the show at the Liaquat Bagh was not much impressive.
The 'defence of Pakistain rally' witnessed a gathering of Jihadi groups, radical Islamists, sectarian warriors and even some mashaikh.
Apart from various rightwing or pro-rightwing groups belonging to Pakistain Defence Council, comprising 44 politico-religious parties, the rally was also participated by the leadership of two Rawalpindi-based factions of Pakistain Mohammedan League and two former army generals. Almost all the speakers threatened to take over Islamabad by force if the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... supplies were restored and India was granted the MFN (most favoured nation) status.
The rally was also attended by Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... chief Syed Munawar Hassan ... The funny-looking Amir of the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami. He joined the National Students Federation (NSF), a lefty student body, and was elected its President in 1959. He came into contact with the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) Pakistan and studied the writings of Mawlana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, The Great Apostasizer. As a result, he joined IJT in 1960 and soon he was elected as President of its University of Karachi Unit and member of the Central Executive Council. He was Assistant Secretary General of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistain in 1992-93, and became Secretary General in 1993. After years of holding Qazi's camel he was named Amir when the old man stepped down in 2009... , Sardar Atiq Ahmed Khan, the president of Mohammedan Conference and former president of AJK, and ex-COAS Gen (retired) Aslam Beg.
About 10,000 to 15,000 people, including those from many districts of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... , attended the rally. Those who came from distant places expressed the confidence that the rally would pave the way towards ideological and political illusory sovereignty of the country which they believed was lacking.
"This will show the Americans that we are united like Taliban of Afghanistan for our independence," said Umar Gul, of Tehrik Irshad-i-Tauheed wa Sunnah, who came from Swabi. He said such show of strength would stop drone attacks.
Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea: there was a simple way to tell whether Manetti had been the triggerman -- just look at his shoes!... one worker of Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat (former Sipah-i-Sahaba), who came from Narang Mandi of Mandi Bahauddin, said they wanted the restriction on their party lifted.
"This is unfair and all done at the behest of Americans as the US is afraid of Islamic revolution in Pakistain," he said.
Addressing the gathering, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and Ijazul Haq criticised the religious leadership for not being united and having strong discord in their ranks.
"There are active conspiracies against the country but they are all successful only because of disagreement among the Islamists. It will all end the day Maulana Samiul Haq votes for Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... and vice versa," said Sheikh Rashid, the president of Awami Mohammedan League.
Spearheaded by Hafiz Saeed, leader of Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), the umbrella organization of the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba, the gathering also showcased the organizational strength of JuD as its workers managed all the arrangements, including security of the stage and the venue as a whole.
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... none of the parties or the participants displayed weapons while armed police personnel were seen around Liaquat Bagh and at the stage.
It may be noted that the Defence of Pakistain Council was created in the wake of the NATO attack on Salala checkpost in Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... Agency under the patronage of chief of his own faction of Jamaat Ulema-i-Islam, Maulana Samiul Haq.
Addressing the gathering, Maulana Samiul Haq took oath from the participants that the Islamists would surround the parliament if the government reopened the NATO supply routes.
"Jehad against the US aggressors will continue in Afghanistan till the American forces are forced to retreat back," said the Maulana.
Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea: there was a simple way to tell whether Manetti had been the triggerman -- just look at his shoes!... JuD leader Hafiz Saeed dispelled the impression created by other speakers that the rally could provide a platform to Islamist rightwing groups or his entry into national politics.
"We are neither a political alliance nor having any aim to overthrow the government but only want an end to American interference in Pakistain. America cannot
be Pakistain's friend."
He added that the Taliban in Afghanistan and the people of Pakistain were one entity, adding: "We are all in Jehad against the US aggressors."
He also warned the government against granting MFN status to India. "I tell you that an aggressive movement will be launched if any interest of sacred land (Pakistain) is compromised for India."
The rally also provided a chance to the banned beturbanned goon groups to show their presence in the public -- one reception stall was established by Ahle Sunnah wal Jamaat showcasing its old name Sipah Sahaba Pakistain (SSP) which has been banned, and the workers were openly distributing party flags to the participants.
Some even paid tributes to the banned groups, saying they had suffered at the hands of policy makers and were now ready to render sacrifices for defence of the country.
"The leaders of the country should see that those who had been banned and persecuted for 10 years are now at the forefront to defend the country," Gen (retired) Hamid Gul The nutty former head of Pakistain's ISI, now Godfather to Mullah Omar's Talibs and good buddy and consultant to al-Qaeda's high command... said.
"The decision taken by our leaders to please the Americans has only caused sufferings for Mohammedan nation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistain and elsewhere."
The former head of ISI said people were being called to defend the country because successive governments and politicians did not do their job well during the last 10 years.
"We have strong presence of 2.5 million ex-servicemen who will come out and along with the courageous Islamists free Islamabad of the US agents," he added.
The speakers said the public meeting was aimed to give a message of solidarity with the Paks and make a call for independent foreign and internal policies.
While being a strong opponent of taking pictures of living beings on religious grounds, Hafiz Saeed was seen talking on camera with the foreign media.
Though strong speeches and powerful rhetoric were witnessed against the government and politicians for their proposals to reopen NATO supply routes and grant MFN status to India, the leaders of the Islamic groups refrained from criticising the armed forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2012 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
How is Gul still alive or is he like Iain Paisley that every time he opens his mouth he gains more support for the opposition!
> Russian Space Rock = check?
> Peak of "Peak Oil" [Australia] = check?
> 1990's Russo-Chinese "War agz the US not only possible but DESIRED" = a mighty MAYBE???
Move along, People of America = Amerika, nothing to see then.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Spengler
Syed Munawar Hassan
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Mohmand
Hamid Gul
