It is not better than Mubarak. And it hasn't improved. Stop living in your little leftist dream world. Nothing is better there.
You have no credibility. Assad is slaughtering his own people for protesting and you support this man.
Someone needs to report you to the BKA. The guy is committing genocide. It would be like supporting Hitler, Mao, or Stalin.
Everyone needs to chill out. Give all the world leaders a Coke and all is well. Spoiler <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ib-Qiyklq-Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Sorry. but it has and I'm talking about the real world. You seem to be the one who's taken refuge in some kind of dark fantasy. It is better. As I said when Morsi started his power grab, the Egyptian people went out to the streets to protest. They weren't going to stand for it. It was allowed. That wasn't allowed for decades under Mubarak. Those are real things that happened, and I'm sorry it makes your butt ache so badly that it's the truth. But the facts are what the facts are, and the fact that you don't like it, doesn't change the facts. As I said there are still horrible problems with the Egyptian government. But now (as opposed to Mubarak) it is a government chosen by Egyptians of their own free will. That's another improvement which you wish you could ignore, or just isn't important to you.
You are totally clueless about everything. I have been to Egypt many times, and it is most definitely not better for women nowadays - it has gotten much worse.
Women had it much better when they had no say in the governing of their nation. They had it much better when their family members could be imprisoned for having an opinion the dictator didn't like. How lucky they were under Mubarak. They weren't free.
You have never been to Egypt. You know nothing. http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...gainst-sexual-terrorism/Article1-1022752.aspx Egypt women wage war against 'sexual terrorism' Faced with a spike in sexual violence against female protesters, Egyptian women are overcoming stigma and recounting painful testimonies to force silent authorities and a reticent society to confront "sexual terrorism." The victims of the attacks have been talking openly about their ordeals, insisting they will not be intimidated by a campaign they believe is aimed at shunning them from public life. "We are not victims, we are revolutionaries. What happened to us has made us stronger and we will continue" to take to the streets, said activist Aida al-Kashef. Harassment of women is by no means new on Egypt's streets, where they were often the target of verbal abuse and sometimes groping. But since the revolution that toppled long-time president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the problem has snowballed, with women now being regularly attacked by mobs of men in and around Tahrir Square. The attackers have stripped women of their clothes with knives, sexually assaulted them and penetrated them with their fingers. Yasmine al-Baramawy, who was assaulted in November, highlighted the degree of violence when during a talk show she held up the ripped trousers she wore the day she was attacked. "They gathered around me and started ripping my clothes off with knives," Baramawy said. She was then dragged several hundred metres (yards), while being touched and groped, until residents of neighbouring area saved her from the crowd. "I didn't feel sad or feel that my pride had been damaged. I felt angry, and I want justice," Baramawy said. Outraged Egyptians came together to form groups such as Operation Anti Sexual Harassment and Tahrir Bodyguard that bring together volunteers to intervene to stop the attacks in Tahrir Square where police are largely absent. The groups also offer medical and psychological support to the victims. On January 25, as thousands of Egyptians marked the second anniversary of their uprising, at least 19 women were assaulted, according to Operation Anti Sexual Harassment. Some argue the attacks are politically motivated. "These attacks aim to exclude women from public life and punish them for participating in political activism and demonstrations. They are also an attempt to ruin the image of Tahrir Square and demonstrators in general," said the group. "This phenomenon requires urgent attention and treatment, and is linked to the broader social problem of endemic and daily sexual harassment and assault of women," it said. "We do not want to use the term 'harassment.' What is happening today is sexual terrorism," said Inas Mekkawy, a women's rights activist with the group Baheya.
I never have? LOL. Good job. Apparently you know nothing. I never said they have it good since Mubarak. Saying it was bad under Mubarak isn't the same as saying that it's good now. Sorry, you're wrong again.
You know nothing. And you are wrong - most of the time, including this time. I can see you are trying to weasel out from your previous wrong statements by arguing semantics. Don't waste everyone's time. Try to provide some facts, for a change. You never do. You just re-hash old tired ideologically motivated crap. Read this, learn, apologize, then be quiet. http://www.smh.com.au/world/impotent-mursi-losing-grip-20130307-2fnja.html Impotent Mursi losing grip Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi is making a habit of taking a tough stand and then retreating. Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi's declaration of a state of emergency in three restive provinces had all the earmarks of an autocrat's command, right down to the 9pm curfew. "When I see the security of the nation is in peril, then I act. And I now act," Mursi thundered in a late-night television broadcast on January 27. After protesters ignored him – some in the port of Ismailia played 9pm soccer games in front of the provincial government headquarters – the President backed down. Within 48 hours, he allowed officials to relax the late-night ban. His surrender wasn't unusual. Though assailed as "Egypt's new pharaoh" after an assertion of unchecked power in November, the Islamist President has often retreated when challenged, especially to avoid provoking unrest. He has stalled on policy changes demanded by the International Monetary Fund in return for a desperately needed $US4.8 billion loan. He has let stand the military's hold on the economy, which is sapping the nation's wealth. And he has shied from confronting a police force that has brutalised protesters, though he and his allies were frequently its victims before assuming power. And now a court has defied Mursi, suspending his decision to hold legislative elections starting next month. Presidential impotence has left Egypt drifting. Two years after public disgust with a widening gap between rich and poor toppled Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians are saddled with rising prices and 13 per cent unemployment. Stocks are worth less than half their peak value in 2008 and foreign reserves are down 60 per cent, while Mursi's popularity fell below 50 per cent last month for the first time since his election last June. Spring deferred "In the West, everybody thinks Mursi has all the authority," said Nabil Fahmy, dean of the school of public affairs at the American University in Cairo and Egypt's former ambassador to the US. "You come here and see that nobody has authority at all." To a people scarred by generations of absolute rulers, Mursi's announcement on November 22 that his decisions were beyond challenge suggested the Arab Spring's promise of a better life had curdled into renewed dictatorship. Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mursi, 61, is from the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was outlawed during Mubarak's 30-year reign and was late to join the 2011 uprising. Mursi won the presidency only after Egypt's electoral commission disqualified the Brotherhood's first choice, Khariat el-Shater, because of a criminal conviction related to his Brotherhood membership. Mursi won just 52 per cent in the run-off election. Even now, al-Shater and Mohammed Badie, the Brotherhood's supreme guide, are seen by many in the opposition as the real powers in Egypt. Traffic vow Ill-considered promises for his first 100 days in office, including a doomed vow to improve Cairo's notorious traffic, opened the new President to ridicule. Last month, the April 6 youth movement tweaked Mursi by entering him in a deodorant company's marketing contest. The "prize" was a free trip to the edge of space in a private spacecraft. For his part, Mursi emphasises his credentials as a democratically elected leader and labels as "thugs" many of those protesting. "We're in an era of freedom and social justice but we're still at the beginning of a long road to stability," he said in an interview with Al-Mehwar television on February 25. Mursi has deferred even on symbolic matters. Egyptian journalist Shahira Amin says she was surprised when Mursi, unlike many conservative Muslims, shook her hand before an interview in the presidential palace. Covered legs Yet moments later, a presidential aide asked Amin, whose lower legs were visible beneath a skirt, to change into an even more modest outfit before the cameras started rolling. When Amin said there wasn't enough time for her to go home and come back, the aide shrouded the reporter's legs with a dark scarf. Amin, a freelance journalist, says she was told the President was concerned about the potential reaction from his ultra-conservative Islamist allies. "They were worried the Salafis would complain," Amin said. To be sure, Mursi has taken authoritarian actions. His decree on November 22 stoked opposition concerns of a new dictatorship and prompted Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei to label him "Egypt's new pharaoh". Mursi said his manoeuvre was needed to prevent elements of the Mubarak regime derailing Egypt's transformation. The Islamist leader also rammed through parliament a new constitution, which offers women and non-Muslims weak protections, before cancelling the decree giving him unquestioned power. Comedian inquiry The Muslim Brotherhood spent 80 years as a secretive underground organisation, which has left it with an ingrained us-against-them view of politics. Under Mursi, the government has sought to control the independent labour movement and has cracked down on critical journalists. On March 4, the prosecutor-general ordered an investigation of comedian Bassem Youssef for insulting Mursi on his satirical TV program. "They're definitely authoritarian. I don't think they have democratic impulses at all," said Heba Morayef, a director for Human Rights Watch in Cairo. "There seem to be no limits on what they're willing to do to stay in power." Political volatility has taken a toll on investors. Egypt's benchmark EGX 30 stock index stands at less than half its peak in 2008 while the premium that investors' demand to hold Egyptian government debt over similar-maturity US securities has more than doubled since Mubarak was unseated. The yield on Egypt's dollar bond due in 2020 is 7.14 per cent Top spots Mursi has appointed his allies to the top spots in government ministries. But he has been unable to vanquish "the deep state," the layers of government officials who form the permanent governing apparatus and oppose Islamist rule. In August Mursi cashiered the defence minister and army chief of staff but left untouched the military's lucrative economic interests, including its ownership of petrol stations, port facilities, construction companies and real estate. He has also done little to rein in the interior ministry police, even as they have beaten protesters, much as they mistreated members of the Muslim Brotherhood under Mubarak. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights says that between June and November, 10 suspected torture victims died in police stations or prisons, including three whom the Cairo-based human rights group confirmed had been tortured. "He is weak," said Anwar Sadat, the leader of a small opposition party and the nephew of the Egyptian president assassinated by Islamic radicals in 1981. "He is not a dictator. I feel very sorry for him. He is not as everyone believes." Budget deficit Executive timidity has been especially costly in addressing financial woes, including a budget deficit of 10.8 per cent of gross domestic product. Wary of a public backlash, Mursi has yet to conclude negotiations on the International Monetary Fund loan, needed to plug the hole in the country's finances. Extra financial help from the World Bank, the European Union and the African Development Bank hinges on the IMF's approval. Mursi might have reason to worry about the potential public reaction to any IMF deal. Egyptians already are struggling with 6.3 per cent inflation, which is expected to reach 8.3 per cent this year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Samir Radwan, finance minister after the 2011 revolution, says he worries rising property crime shows that a "revolt of the hungry" may be in the offing. "People are taking the redistribution process into their own hands, kidnapping people, taking cars, stopping you in the street," he said. Tax reversal Though Egyptian officials signed a standby agreement with the IMF in November, they have baulked at implementing the subsidy cuts and tax increases that are part of the deal. Egypt spends about 6 per cent of its economy on fuel subsidies, with the richest households receiving more than twice the benefits of the poorest, according to a World Bank study in 2005. On December 9, Mursi announced plans to raise taxes on 25 items, including cigarettes, beer, soft drinks, electricity and water, as a first step towards accepting the IMF financing. Within hours, as the public howled, he revoked the tax rises. A new economic plan, released on February 25, trimmed the affected items to six. Three days later, the government officially invited IMF officials to return to Cairo to finalise the loan. Mursi promised the visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry on March 3 that he would soon complete the deal. Foreign reserves As the IMF talks drag on, Egypt's financial condition deteriorates. Its foreign reserves sank in February to a new low of $US13.5 billion, down from $US36 billion before the 2011 anti-Mubarak uprising. Even as he shrinks from unpopular choices, the President becomes increasingly unpopular. In a poll last month of 2275 adults, the percentage that approved of his performance fell to 49 per cent from 78 per cent four months earlier, according to the Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research in Cairo. His disapproval rating rose to 43 per cent from 15 per cent; the margin of error was less than 3 per cent. "We need a powerful government," says Amre Moussa, who was Mubarak's foreign minister for 10 years before losing to Mursi in the presidential balloting. Despite Mursi's missteps, the Brotherhood remains Egypt's best organised political force, especially in the populous rural areas. The ineffectual National Salvation Front, split among competing secular factions headed by Moussa, ElBaradei and Hamdeen Sabahi, plans to boycott parliamentary elections scheduled to begin on April 22. The alliance has gained little ground amid Mursi's stumbles: 35 per cent of Egyptians say they've never heard of it, according to the February poll. Among those who have, the NSF is opposed 53 per cent to 35 per cent. That means Mursi and the Brotherhood are unlikely to leave power any time soon. Says Sadat: "You have no one else."
I'm not trying to do anything. You either didn't read when I said that there are "horrible problems" with the current Egyptian govt., or you didn't understand that. Because you didn't read or didn't understand doesn't make me wrong. Once again you're trying to play your little game of personal one upsmanship that seems to give you so much pleasure. But I'm not playing that game. I'm only talking about what I actually said, and actual things that are going on.
You said that people are better off now. I have provided plenty of facts to the contrary. You have provided nothing.
I have provided actual examples of things that have happened now that couldn't have happened under Mubarak. I'm sorry your understanding or reading is not up to par. I've said people are better in Egypt since Mubarak left, and provided examples to support my position. It still holds.
You have provided your completely wrong opinion. You have not provided any facts. I can see you are frantically and quickly replying, obviously knowing I exposed you once again. You should rather take the time to read the two articles I posted.
