2006 Weblog Award Finalists


Algeria, I adore you. 1970s Policy was NOT a failure and you're out to prove (Banning... Couscous exports)

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
March 19, 2010 12:21 PM

Okay to be fair they have the rather bad excuse of trying to control for usage of subsidised wheat inputs, but there's no rational way to do that. That's the problem with subsidies Ali Bey Naceri, expert en commerce extérieur: “le couscous et les pâtes vont être “exportés” par la...[More]

Ah, a warm and fuzzy feel. : Blogs as sources of info on Gulf Finance

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
March 19, 2010 11:39 AM

While in some ways sad that we (Aqoul) missed that boat - no matter I am far too busy to pretend to that any more, this warmed my heart: FT.com / Companies / Financial Services - Blogs air views on stifled Gulf financeGreat understatement though:Blogs air views on stifled Gulf...[More]

Citi, Citi: First the Algerians, now the Gulfies

The Lounsbury | Comments (0)
March 19, 2010 11:11 AM

Not perhaps deeply interesting, but someone in my business I was enterained:FT.com / Companies / Banks - Citi seeks to fix Gulf businessCitigroup has operated in the Arab world for almost 50 years and the Gulf came to the rescue of the embattled bank in the early stages of the...[More]

Guy Fakes Salafism in Yemen & Spills the Hummus on the Goings-On (Real and Imputed)

Matthew Hogan | Comments (3)
March 16, 2010 09:12 PM

Not exactly a Black Like Me story, but an American a-religious white guy writer sham-converts (or reverts, if one can do that shamically) to a salafi Islam in Yemen to study the natives and non-natives there, including Americans who go over there for Islamic or Arabic education. One was the...[More]

MENA M&A Cross Border Deals and State Structure

Iskandar Haddad | Comments (3)
March 14, 2010 09:22 PM

Toying around with financial data, a summary table about intra MENA deals since 1992 (it doesn't necessarily include the purely private deals). A very quick glance reveals an interesting trend: the states which have the least cross border acquirers are Algeria (2), Iraq (0), Libya (4), Syria (1), Sudan (0),...[More]

March New Month Open Thread

Matthew Hogan | Comments (3)
March 2, 2010 05:02 AM

We're still alive, if not necessarily kicking. Cast your pearls of wisdom below....[More]

A very special Valentine's New Month Thread

tomscud | Comments (4)
February 7, 2010 01:58 PM

Wherein we at Aqoul congratulate Ayaan Hirsi Ali on her catch. Ah, young love. (via Blood and Treasure)...[More]

Explaining the Day to Day Mechanism of Popular Anti-Coptic Bigotry in Egypt

Matthew Hogan - March 23, 2010 05:34 AM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: Islam General , MENA Region General , North Africa , Political Development , Religious Minorities , Society & Culture

Blogger Nadia Elawady relates the ordinary day to day practices of shunning and mythologizing that nurture anti-Coptic prejudice among Egypt's Muslims. " I remember befriending Mariam . . . Quickly my Muslim friends explained I could not befriend her. She’s Christian, I was told. So what, I asked. In Egypt, it’s not all right, was the answer. By the end of that same year I had heard my Muslim friends say it was yucky to drink out of a cup a Copt had drank from; they explained that the way to identify a Copt was by their odd smell and their oily hair. . . " One can infer from her post that such things are increasing and are pervasive among the more educated classes.

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New Mummy for Egyptian Museum, our secret correspondent learns

Top Secret Anonymous Guy - March 20, 2010 08:23 PM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: North Africa

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has announced a new mummy to placed in Cairo's Egyptian Museum shortly. Hawass insisted that only 20 cameras, youtube, and two geostationary satellites attend the announcement, per his own messages on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Larry King Live, Fox News, BBC, GoogleEgo, and CNN Universe, and his own website, famed for having the largest font of a personal name on the world wide web.

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Books & Media

Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad"

Matthew Hogan | Comments (0)

Coincidentally, I re-picked up this 1867 humorous classic travelogue of Mark Twain's for a (re-)glance not too long after Mr. Netanyahu had threatened to (re-)use it for sundry and sordid Middle East polemics. The Israeli Prime Minister had planned to...[More]

The Birth of Modern Yemen

dubaiwalla | Comments (7)

You know a country must have issues when its problems stick out in a region as troubled as the Middle East. Brian Whitaker's latest book examines the tumultuous course of events in Yemen during the early 1990s....[More]

Journals

Interesting if confirmed: Obama to visiting Morocco

The Lounsbury - March 22, 2010 01:40 PM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: Politics - Foreign Policy , Politics - Local , Politics - US FP , The Maghreb

Front page news in the Moroccan daily Le Soir, normally a decent paper. Apparently that was the word of the US Amb. Moroccan gov't must be doing back flips....[More]

Just so you know

eerie - September 9, 2009 11:03 PM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: Site News

I'm working on the new site whenever I have a moment. Slow going, apologies....[More]

Coolest political party names

Matthew Hogan - February 18, 2010 12:49 PM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: Egghead Stuff , Irony Watch , Random Personal , Words

Were these two rival parties the coolest political party names ever ? (Well we did have the Whigs, and the British had the Roundheads)....[More]