jakke:

So here’s how things are looking for the Greek election. They’re at 82% reporting, but most of the remaining votes are around Athens, Piraeus, and Thessalonika - all strong SYRIZA territory. So we can probably expect a slight shift towards SYRIZA, but no more than a seat or two.

I was going to do a big long post on the possibilities for coalitions and so on, but with this seat distribution there are basically just two possibilities:

1. ND and PASOK continue on as a pro-austerity pro-bailout pro-eurozone coalition with the bare minimum number of seats until someone defects and the coalition collapses.
2. A fresh round of elections gets called for next month.

There really aren’t any other feasible governing prospects here. Honestly I’m expecting #2, because a “grand coalition” style government that received just under a third of the total vote (and around a quarter of the total vote in the capital) would be perceived as having very little legitimacy and almost certainly would not last.

reuters:

North Korea on Friday launched its controversial rocket carrying a weather satellite, South Korea’s Defense Ministry and U.S. officials said.

A spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Seoul told reporters at a briefing that the launch at taken place at 0739 local time (2239 GMT) and that South Korea and the United States were checking whether it had been a success.

North Korea launches rocket amid international condemnation

huffingtonpost:

“We are not here to celebrate. We are here to bring down military rule. They have failed the revolution and met none of its goals,” said Iman Fahmy, a 27-year- old pharmacist who wore a paper eye-patch in solidarity with protesters shot in the eye by security forces during recent protests.

Thousands Gather In Tahrir Square To Mark First Anniversary Of Uprising

tumblangeles:

Bradley Hope, a reporter covering Libya’s uprising, writes in Abu Dhabi newspaper The National that he recently made a curious discovery near An Nawfaliyah: Chris Jeon, a 21-year old University of California–Los Angeles math student..

Hope describes Jeon as someone “who took a wrong turn on their way to the beach or the Santa Monica Pier,” dressed in his L.A. jersey in a battlefield, asking dudes if they can teach him how to shoot an AK-47. Or trying to — he doesn’t speak Arabic. “I want to fight in Sirte!” he declares, referring to one of the final strongholds of Moammar Gadhafi loyalists.

I was convinced this was a joke, but as far as I can tell it’s 100% legit. Prove me wrong! (via @blakeley)

(via tumblangeles)

30 Mosques in 30 States is Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq’s Ramadan road trip across the United States.

Beginning Aug. 1 in Alaska, the two will spend each night of Ramadan at a different mosque in 30 states around the country. The two’s 13,000 mile route will essentially take them across the entire country before they end up at their homes in New York City. While the trip centers around Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq’s travels, the true stars of this project are the readers that have supported the initiative. In less than a month, readers gave more than $12,000 in online donations to this project to make this half-baked idea to go across the country a reality.

nationalpost:

They’re ‘our’ SOBs: U.S. has history of backing despots — when they’re useful

No one knows for sure if President Franklin D. Roosevelt really said, of the U.S.’s support for the corrupt Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”

Most likely he didn’t. It hardly matters. The fact the quote has, for 72 years, taken on a life of its own — it has been held up as the defining, cold-hearted mentality behind U.S. foreign policy — does.

More:

• Peter Foster: Egypt, Harper, Obama and oil
• Lawrence Solomon: Egypt’s reformer

Check out our full visual archive.

Who is Mohamed ElBaradei?

via TimesPeople

Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian-born lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, headed the International Atomic Energy Agency for 12 years. He gained attention when he became the West’s main way of negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program. His star rose as European diplomacy stalled and as American credibility on atomic intelligence declined.

Since his return to Egypt in February 2010, he has been seen by disillusioned Egyptians as a symbol of change and by many more as the most serious challenger to President Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year hold on power.

Despite only sporadic engagement with the country’s political scene, Dr. ElBaradei’s pronouncements have carried considerable weight.

As one of Egypt’s most prominent opposition leaders, Mr. ElBaradei in September 2010 issued the strongest call to date for a widespread boycott of parliamentary elections in the falll.

More…

Zuckerberg makes appearance on Tunisian protest banner.