[npoc-voice] Egyptian Officials See End to NGO Standoff

[Alain Berranger <alain.berranger@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear NPOC Colleagues,

FYI from Reuters news. Absolutely fascinating how NGOs in Egypt are still
seen as a threath to the military there, whereby they can actually help the
new government... Under Mubarak, it was no different as NGOs were severely
controled... strange!

Egyptian officials have said the Egyptian government will stand down in a
dispute with Washington over funding for civil society groups in the
country out of concern that a continuation of the standoff could jeopardize
billions of dollars of U.S. aid,
Reuters<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-egypt-usa-idUSTRE8161F420120207>reports.

Nineteen Americans are among the forty foreign and domestic pro-democracy
activists who have been banned from leaving the country and accused by
Egyptian judicial authorities of managing unlicensed nongovernmental
organizations that receive foreign funds. While the transitional government
in Egypt has said it cannot interfere in judicial matters, two members of
the country's diplomatic apparatus told Reuters on condition of anonymity
that Egypt's ruling generals want to ease tensions created by the flap to
ensure that $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid continues to flow and
to get American help in securing favorable terms on a support package from
the International Monetary Fund.

The dispute has exposed tensions between members of Congress and Department
of Defense officials, who want the issue resolved in a way that doesn't
threaten the military relationship between the two countries. "It's our
sense that much of the NGO issue in Egypt has a lot to do with internal
politics," a U.S. official told Reuters. "The Egyptian military leadership
is watching that trend very closely, and thus may not want to act too
hastily to intervene."

*Awad, Marwa. “Egypt Officials See End to U.S.-NGO
Standoff.”<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-egypt-usa-idUSTRE8161F420120207>Reuters
2/07/12.
*

-- 
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
Member, Board of Directors, CECI,
http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca
NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org
interim Membership Committee Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger