The Egyptian Constitutional Assembly has finally completed a draft constitution for post-revolutionary Egypt, issuing it to the Egyptian public for their consideration almost a month ago.  (An English translation of the draft may be found here.)  As is the case with everything in post-revolutionary Egypt, the draft has proven to be extremely controversial, and has elicited widespread criticism, particularly from human rights organizations for its failure to meet international norms with respects to rights of women, children and freedom of religion.  Ellis Goldberg, meanwhile, has published a lengthy and very thoughtful analysis of the draft text in two parts on his blog, Nisr al-Nasr (Part I and Part II).

Christina Lagarde, head of the IMF, was in Egypt today to negotiate with the Egyptian government the terms of a new $4.8 billion loan.  Predictably, many Egyptians are suspicious.  An Egyptian economist, Wael Gamal, who has solid revolutionary credentials and is economically progressive, writes on Egypt’s economic affairs for al-Shuruq, a leading independent Egyptian newspaper.  He has come out strongly against the proposed loan, first, in a piece in the Shuruq, and again on his blog.

Things continue to move quickly in Charlottesville.  Carl Zeithaml, Dean of the McIntire School of Commerce, who had been named interim President of U. Va. following the abrupt dismissal of Teresa Sullivan, has now announced that he has suspended negotiations with the Board of Visitors and will not serve as Interim President.

The text of his statement is set out below.

I received an e-mail today from Helen Dragas in which she explains why the Board of Visitors acted to remove President Teresa Sullivan.  I have reproduced the message below.  Upon my reading of it, it seems that the Board of Visitors is essentially saying that U.Va. cannot continue to finance itself if the liberal arts remain its principal focus.  It is amazing to me that UVa is so politically inept that it has consistently failed to get its fair share of appropriations from the General Assembly.

Despite all the turmoil in Egypt, elites in Egypt can apparently unite in mocking the appearance of Muhammad Mursi’s wife, who wears what is know in Egypt as a khimar. 

Morsi’s win came to me as a pleasant surprise, as I had been quite pessimistic going into  the runoff that he could muster enough support outside the base of the Muslim Brotherhood to prevail.  At the end of the day, however, all his victory means is that the people of Egypt did not decide to sign its own death warrant; however, it is still unclear whether Egyptians can achieve a stable political equilibrium grounded in some kind of pluralistic, democratic state.  To do so will require a coalition, first, between moderate Islamists and non-Islamists, both of which were active participants in the Jan. 25 Tahrir Coalition, but parted thereafter, the fact that encouraged the forces of the old regime to attempt a comeback.