Epstein Secrets

. Streets are being paved and buildings constructed. "Mubarak was crushing us before," said Mahmoud Mohammad, a subcontractor whose 10-man crew in Gaza City was unloading steel bars that were carried through the tunnels and were destined for a new restaurant. "Last year we were sitting at home. The cont

iddle East these dictators remain the exception to the rule, and this is why quasi monarchies of the iron-fisted Assad or the crazed and tyrannical Qaddafi are now under assault. THE PLACE where benevolent autocracy has struck deep and has systematic roots is Asia. Any discussion of whether and how de

required to hold the state together. To be sure, Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali neither ran police states on the terrifying scale of Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad nor stifled economic progress with such alacrity. But while Mubarak and Ben Ali left their countries in conditions suitable for t

Fatah, which could lead to elections, is on ice. That leaves Abu Khaled, an unemployed former shopkeeper, to seethe in his 11th-floor apartment in Gaza City. Khaled, 55, said he voted for Hamas because it promised change and justice, which he figured meant there would be jobs. But only those who "pray

There was the good King Hussein, the wily but indispensable Arafat, the enigmatic yet much-courted Assad, the cruel Saddam, the crazy (like a fox) Qaddafi, and the plodding but reliable Mubarak. The United States built its policies on these men and their regimes without much regard to broader politica

ve been disappointed by Hamas's lurch into police state paranoia following 2007. "They have informants everywhere," complains one social worker in Gaza City. "[They are] even paying kids a few shekels to report on people in their neighborhood." Inspired by popular uprisings in the region, parallel stree

by aggressive men. Libya, in its civil war, has women far more prominent as victims than as leaders. Iman al-Obeidi, who complained of gang rape by Qaddafi soldiers, was then forcibly abducted by agents of the government from a hotel lobby where she was meeting with journalists.[21] After release from

ed of repair. EFTA_R1_00441195 EFTA01964447 Article 5. NYT Pressure Rises on Hamas as Patrons' Support Fades Jodi Rudoren August 23, 2013 -- Gaza City — The tumult roiling the Arab world had already severed the lifeline between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and two of its most important pat

e ownership of that process in an inclusive manner and thereby make it self-sustaining. Ditto Libya, where President Obama removed Col. Muammar el- Qaddafi's top-down, iron-fisted regime, but he declined to put U.S. troops on the ground to midwife a new social contract. The result: Libya today is no mo