Articles
Revolutionary leader
Institutional Investor 2011-9
Naguib Sawiris used his telecom and media empire to help the anti-Mubarak uprising. Now he wants to shape a secular future for his country.
Egypt-Sawiris Sept 2011
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Fault Lines in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
The Nation 2011-8-26
Mohammed Habib lives in a suburb of Cairo just beyond the ring of tenement housing that is closing in on the city like a noose. His flat is small but well kept, with great towers of stacked books erected from the floor and tables.
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Dining with a Sheik
The Investigative Fund 2011-8-25
Sheik Mohammed Farahat was waiting patiently for me when we met for dinner recently in downtown Cairo. He is a prominent Salafi cleric, which means he and his followers interpret Islam with a rather antique set of reference points. Specifically, they live and worship as they believe the Prophet Mohammed and his followers did during the formative years of Islam. The consequences of this are mixed: while the Muslim world during the Middle Ages was com...
The Empire at Dusk
ForeignPolicy.com 2011-8-17
In its scramble to avoid another legislative gang war over the nation's debt ceiling, Washington is preparing to shake down the Defense Department in the name of deficit reduction. While budget cutters preoccupy themselves with line-item expenditures, they overlook the Pentagon's biggest cost center: empire. The burden of global hegemony, the commitment to project force across every strategic waterway, air corridor, and la...
The Pentagon’s new China war plan
Salon.com 2011-8-13
Despite budget woes, the military is preparing for a conflict with our biggest rival -- and we should be worried.
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How we became a nation of warriors
Salon.com 2011-08-01
(This article is a condensed excerpt from Stephen Glain's new book, "State vs. Defense: The Battle to Define America's Empire," available August 2 from Crown.)
News travels fast across the red desert bush of remote Djibouti. Even as U.S. military reservists hurry to erect a small field hospital around a cluster of tents and vacant block houses near a desolate watering hole, dozens of tribespeople are waiting for treat...
Showdown at the Oasis
OnEarth (Web exclusive) 2011-07-28
A mega-resort west of Cairo threatens a vast archeological treasure.
Each working day, a road crew lays another few hundred feet of two-lane highway around Lake Qarun, the gemstone of the Fayoum governorate in central Egypt. When finished, the 60-kilometer tarmac will serve a planned resort complex to be raised on the northeastern shore of the lake, a stunning oasis about an hour’s drive west of Cair...
Listening to Fado where it’s Sung
Web exclusive 2011-07-26
As the fat lady sings for the Euro zone, the Portuguese are doing what they've done for more than a century when things turn south: seeking refuge in the melancholic strains of fado, Iberia's signature species of torch music.
It’s midnight at Clube de Fado, a hothouse for Lisbon’s inimitable musical form, and the original crowd of a couple hundred or so has receded to a few dozen hardcore enthusiasts. Guitaris...
Journalism blooms in Egypt’s Arab Spring
Need to Know 2011-07-06
CAIRO – Hisham Kassem, publisher, activist and mulish newspaperman has struggled most of his life to get where he is right now: in the rubble-strewn fifth floor of a high-rise building in central Cairo.
The floor plan of his new headquarters leans against the wall, but by now the contours are hard-wired in his mind: the editors will be clustered over there, below a row of unfinished windows that were blasted through an...
The Pentagon goes to college
Progressive Magazine July 2011
Launched in April 2008, the Minerva Project funds academic research into everything from the political economy of terrorism to resource depletion. The project has its supporters as well as its vocal dissenters. Full Article - PDF
Iraqi Economy (NPR – Talk of the Nation)