Sunday, 13 February 2011
FACT mix 214 - Optimo (Jan '11)
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Tracklist:
Odd Machine – Phase In (edit)
Cindytalk – Our Shadow, Remembered
Alvo Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Morning
This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren (JD Twitch Reversion)
Zoviet France – The Decriminalisation Of Country Music
Sun City Girls – Come Maddalena
Forest Swords – The Light
Oneohtrix Point Never – Young Beidnahga
No Man – Days In The Trees
Tomita – Clair De Lune
Conrad Schnitzler – Ballet Statique
Peter Baumann – This Day
Reichmann – Wunderbar
Duet Emmo – The First Person
Carol – So Low
Zoviet France – Vienna (extract)
Algerian protesters clash with police as Egypt fervour spreads
Algerian riot police clash with protesters during an anti-government demonstration in Algiers. Photograph: Louafi Larbi/Reuters
Algerian police have beaten back around 2,000 demonstrators who tried to rally in central Algiers as aftershocks from the Egyptian revolution rumbled throughout the Middle East.
Demonstrations in Algiers quickly turned to running clashes with police who had been ordered by the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to enforce a protests ban. Police took up positions throughout the centre of the city hours after the tumultuous scenes in Cairo, which are likely to have significant ramifications across the region.
Even before Egypt's Hosni Mubarak had stepped down, the 12-year regime of Bouteflika had been considered to be under most threat from the popular uprisings now galvanising the Arab states. Wedged alongside Tunisia, where President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted 30 days ago, and near Egypt, which fell on Friday, the unstable nation has many of the characteristics of both – a disenfranchised youth and rising prices of basic goods, such as sugar and cooking oil.
It also shares a large, pervasive security presence, authoritarian rule and a general sense that citizens are not benefiting from its wealth and resources.
Late in the afternoon, protesters briefly broke a cordon and officials say that 400 were arrested by police – who vastly outnumbered them. Most were then released.
The demonstrations were organised, as they were in Yemen, nearly 3,000 miles away, where at least 5,000 people, mainly youths, rallied in the capital, Sana'a to call for Egypt-style reform.
In Sana'a, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who took office around the same time as Mubarak and has enjoyed largely unchecked power ever since, called an emergency meeting of his security chiefs and senior ministers hours after the 82-year-old Egyptian leader left Cairo.
Saleh has allowed demonstrations to take place for the past four weeks and has said he would not stand again as president when his current term expires in 2013. Protesters in Sana'a and the coastal city of Aden railed against food prices and poor services. But, as was the case elsewhere, lack of accountability in government was also a dominant theme.
Governments across the region have made a string of concessions as the events in Tunisia and Egypt unfolded, electrifying citizens who had become conditioned to the status quo of soaring prices, few job opportunities and almost no accountability among officials who enjoy far greater privileges than them.
In Jordan, King Abdullah is yet to form a new government after sacking the prime minister and his ministers in late January – a move widely believed to have been inspired by the risk that the revolts may soon be felt there. Weekly demonstrations against prices and services have taken place since early December – before the Tunisian uprising – and have focused on broadly similar themes of disenfranchisement and limited means to bring about change.
Jordanians have historically seen the monarchy as benevolent and have not subjected it to the same degree of scrutiny as elected officials. However, there is a growing inclination among the country's young to see the legitimacy of the kingdom as conditional, not absolute.
King Abdullah last week struck a deal with Jordan's opposition, in which he promised urgent political and economic reform, which would give the Muslim Brotherhood and a leftist bloc a greater say in state affairs.
"Any type of reform will help Jordan not reach the levels of Egypt," said the secretary general of the Islamic Action Front (Muslim Brotherhood), Zaki bin Irsheid. "But what happened in Tunis and then Egypt has surprised everyone. No one expected that.
"A lot of people are comparing the French revolution to the Tunisian revolution. It changed Europe and this will change the Middle East."
In Algeria and Jordan, youth comprise a large percentage of the population and feel more disadvantaged than the middle classes that stirred the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. More than 70% of Jordanians are aged under 30.
"There has been an awakening of political awareness among the young who have been waiting for solutions that have never come and are not really in the menu now," said one senior western official. "They are saying: 'Why should we carry on like this?'
"There is a cronyist, lethargic, complacent political oligarchy that is resistant to reform. Government ministers are hamstrung by a system underneath them that doesn't do what they say. The body politic is not responding."
Syria, too, has been moved to respond. The Ba'athist state took the surprise step of unblocking the social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube, all of which had been used during the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has offered around $400m (£250m) in heating fuel subsidies to the county's lower income earners.
The effects of the revolution have also been felt in Iraq, where the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has said he will not stand for a third term. Maliki has ordered three mega-generators to be installed in Baghdad to deal with the city's chronic electricity shortages.
"He is terrified about electricity," said one senior Iraqi official. "He is convinced that with the zeal alive in the region now, it will bring his government down if he doesn't fix it."
Martin Chulov @'The Guardian'
Iran's opposition planning protests
A Facebook page promoting the February 14 protests reads, 'Iran's freedom valentine - don't forget our date'
Amid reports of a low turnout for the annual march commemorating the anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution on Friday, there are calls among opposition leaders for nationwide marches against the government on Monday.Protesters, including university students, truck drivers and gold merchants are said to be organising marches across the country under the umbrella of the country's Green Movement, apparently inspired by recents demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia.
The movement, also known as the Green Wave, made international headlines after the disputed 2009 presidential elections which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win a second term in office.
Monday's protests have been called at the behest of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, which the movement backed as opposition presidential candidates in the election two years ago.
The governments of both Tunisia and Egypt were successfully toppled via massive and prolonged protests and rallies.
Permission to hold rallies in Egypt was sought prior to the demonstrators' actions but no such permit has not been granted in Iran, and the country's Revolutionary Guard has already promised to forcefully confront any protesters.
Some of the posters advertising Monday's rally on Facebook refer to February 14 day as a "valentine to Iran's freedom". The main Facebook page calling for demonstrations has over 43,000 followers.
While the government says that 50 million people turned up for the 32nd anniversary of the revolution, which, on the Iranian calender, takes place on the 22nd day of the month of Bahman, those numbers are disputed by some independent media.
On the back of the toppling of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, on Friday, some Iranian officials have suggested parallels between the February 11, 1979 departure of Iran's shah and Mubarak's ousting.
Crackdowns
While it remains to be seen if Monday's protests materialise, there are reports that at least 14 activists have been arrested in recent days and that Karroubi has been placed under house arrest.
Among those reportedly arrested are some of Mousavi's inner circle.
Kaleme.com has named them as Mohammad Hossein Sharifzadegan, who is Mousavi's brother in law and a former welfare minister, as well as Saleh Noghrehkar, who heads Mousavi's legal team.
According to Irangreenvoice.com, they also include Mostafa Mir-Ahamadizadeh, a law professor at Qom University, adviser to Karroubi and an ally of Mohammad Khatami, Iran's former president and a noted reformist.
Irangreenvoice.com says that Mir-Ahamadizadeh has been taken to "a prison run by the Intelligence Bureau of Qom".
The state has also engaged in jamming satellite signals and has blocked the word "Bahman" from search engines.
'Arab envy'
Kelly Niknejad, founder and editor in chief of news site Tehranbureau.com, told Al Jazeera that it is hard to tell what, if anything, may unfold on Iran's streets on Monday.
"The Iranian government did a very effective job of keeping the protest down," said Niknejad, referring to the absence of protests in Iran since 2009.
"They've made it such a high-stakes game to go out and protest."
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"Perhaps they know Iranians in away that those of us who live on the sidelines don't ... perhaps they know something that we don't," she said.
Niknejad, who has been in touch with people in Iran, said that while some have said they will go out and protest, many are "are scared to death".
She also says there may be a case of "Arab envy" among some anti-government Iranians.
With events in Egypt and Tunisia in mind, it seems that there has been a renewed interest in the opposition movement in Iran - at least in the expatriate community - but while interest outside the country might be a reflection of the mood within Iran's borders, it will not necessarily translate to action there.
"It's easy to raise your fist from behind the veil of the laptop," said Niknejad.
Vested interests
While deposed leaders such as Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president who fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14, have often fled abroad, Niknejad says she cannot see the same happening to Iran's leadership should any uprising be successful.
"I can't imagine Mr Khamenei (Iran's supreme leader) going to a Swiss cottage to live out the rest of his days," she said.
Niknejad said the establishment in Iran will "fight tooth and nail" to remain in power and that it seems unlikely that they would have safe havens outside the country.
The powerful Revolutionary Guard in Iran has a major financial stake in Iran, one far greater than even the Egyptian military.
It is heavily invested in Iran's economy, including petroleum development, construction, weapons manufacturing, communication system, and as a result it has been specifically targeted by international sanctions on Iran.
Niknejad also points out that compared to Iranian security forces, who "beat Iranians to a pulp" in the 2009 protests, the military in Egypt - where journalists were still able to enter and talk to people at the height of the unrest - was relatively benign.
"Egypt on a bad day is better than Iran is on a good day," she said.
D Parvaz @'Al Jazeera'
Palestinian negotiator Erakat quits due to leaks
The chief negotiator said he was assuming "responsibility for the theft of documents from his office" that he said had been "deliberately" tampered with.
Last month, Erakat accused Al-Jazeera of taking part in a campaign to overthrow the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the Doha-based television began to release more than 1,600 confidential files known as "The Palestine Papers."
The documents, shared by Al-Jazeera and Britain's Guardian daily, expose concessions to Israel in 10 years of secret peace talks, embarrassing and angering the Palestinian leadership.
Erakat at the time accused Al-Jazeera of trying to discredit the peace process and provoke his people into "a revolution against their leaders in order to bring down the Palestinian political system."
He pointed to a possible US-Israeli effort to topple the PA because of its refusal to take part in US-brokered direct peace talks unless the Jewish state halts West Bank settlement construction.
The files allege that Palestinian negotiators offered unprecedented concessions during peace negotiations, including on the ultra-sensitive subjects of Jerusalem and refugees, with nothing in return from Israel.
They also show PA members closely cooperating with Israel in its fight against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Fatah's bitter rival which rules the Gaza Strip.
Hamas on Saturday welcomed Erakat's offer to resign.
The step "shows that the leaked documents were authentic," spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP, urging the Palestine Liberation Organisation to halt all negotiations with Israel.
@'AFP'
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