Jaeah Lee

Associate Interactive Producer

When Jaeah isn't making mockups, researching, or blogging for Mother Jones, she's usually reading about foreign policy, climate change, or new dinner recipes. A lover of mass transit, she can pretty much navigate the New York City subway blindfolded.

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Prior to joining Mother Jones, Jaeah worked as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, focusing on China. Her writings have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Global Post, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, and Movements.org.

Meet Egypt's Power Brokers

—By Jaeah Lee

| Thu Feb. 3, 2011 5:00 AM PST

Protesters rage on in Egypt, but who's negotiating its political future behind the scenes? On Sunday, Egypt's political opposition groups formed a 10-person Negotiation Steering Committee that is strategizing to pressure President Hosni Mubarak's regime to step down. Since the protests broke out a week ago, opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has stated he has the political backing necessary to form a "unity government" and that the committee is capable of "running a smooth transitional period." But there is disagreement over ElBaradei’s leadership among the committee, which represents a wide range of political interests and ideologies. Here's a run-down of the committee members:

1. Mohamed ElBaradei: ElBaradei, the most internationally prominent figure in the Egyptian opposition movement, heads the National Association for Change (NAC), a broad opposition coalition (which includes the Muslim Brotherhood) that emphasizes democratic constitutional reforms. When he was heading the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei won the Nobel Peace Prize (2005) for his efforts to curb nuclear proliferation. In the 2011 protests ElBaradei, a secular liberal, has emerged as the widely supported choice for Egypt's next president. But his support isn't unanimous: his time abroad has earned him criticisms that he lacks an understanding of Egypt's daily political life.

2. Ayman Nour: As chair of the Ghad ("Tomorrow") Party, Nour leads the liberal-secular faction in Egypt. Nour, a politician and lawyer, has used his platform to call for constitutional reform, limiting presidential powers, and opening up the presidential elections to multiple candidates. He garnered international attention in 2005 when the Mubarak regime sentenced him to prison on charges that he forged documents when setting up the party. His absence left a power vacuum and a subsequent series of internal struggles plagued the party. Nour, released from prison in January 2009 on health grounds, was re-elected as chair last August.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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Egypt's Mobile Service Outage Appears to Target Activists

—By Jaeah Lee

| Tue Feb. 1, 2011 5:00 AM PST

On January 25, Egyptian human rights activist Hossam Bahgat stood in protest with some 15,000 others in Cairo's Tahrir Square (get MoJo's up-to-date coverage on this here). Mobile phone reception was intermittent until around midnight, when the lines were largely restored. That is, except for Bahgat's phone. "Since then my SIM card has been basically dead, not even getting any signal," he says. Reports as early as Wednesday mentioned that the government may have shut down access to Twitter and Facebook, and disabled mobile phone towers. Around 4 a.m. on Friday, Egypt underwent a nationwide internet and telecommunications blackout. An interview with Bahgat, however, reveals that Vodafone, and potentially Egypt's other mobile network operators , may have selectively severed phone access for human rights defenders, lawyers, and political activists starting on Tuesday and continuing into the present. "That's certainly a reason for concern," he says.

According to Bahgat, the founder and director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, what happened to his phone service also happened to at least four other human rights activists and lawyers. "People trying to reach us have been getting the message that this number is incorrect," he told me. There seemed to be only one quick way around the blockage: Shortly after noticing their mobile service was cut off, Bahgat and his colleagues purchased new phone lines.

Bahgat notes that Egyptian law gives government agencies the right to interfere with the work of private providers for the purposes of national security. "But as for the decision to suspend the phone lines selectively and the phone lines of human rights defenders, this is morally unjustifiable," he says. Vodafone, which serves Bahgat along with 43% of Egypt's mobile phone users, announced Saturday that they "had to comply with the demands of authorities." But Bahgat plans to file a lawsuit against the company for breaching consumer protections, overriding activists' right to communicate, and arbitrary interference with activists' right to privacy.

Of course, in order to file the suit, Bahgat will have to wait until the local political situation stabilizes: With the on-going leadership overhaul and curfew intact since Friday, the courts "have shut down indefinitely." "We're not sure when the courts will reopen and what type of situation we will find ourselves in," says Bahgat. If and when the courts do reopen, he is prepared for action. "This is something that I plan to pursue as soon as possible," he says. "We don't want this to become a precedent where some individuals are targeted and have their phone lines suspended because of their activism."

Haiti Searches for a Solar Future

Solar energy could do wonders for Haiti. But will foreign aid get in the way?

—By Jaeah Lee

| Fri Jan. 28, 2011 5:00 AM PST

Before the earthquake struck on the evening of January 12, 2010, Alex Georges and his partner had been running a successful solar panel design and manufacturing company in Haiti, the only locally owned and operated one in the country. Business was faring well. Sales were growing steadily, as were the number of company employees. But today, Georges worries that foreign aid has distorted Haiti's small but growing renewable energy market. He believes that the presence of foreign solar companies, which has swelled in the wake of the earthquake, undermines Haiti's ability to compete globally—and ultimately, its hopes for economic stability.

Moments before the earthquake, Georges and his team were in the middle of a business meeting in Port-au-Prince. Then came the tremors. "It took about five seconds to realize it was a big one and that we were in danger inside the house," he says. Georges ran outside and saw that everything around him had collapsed to rubble. "It was a shock," he recalls. "Luckily, we didn't have any loss of life."

[Read the full article]

Zaire Paige and Others Who Roughed Their Way to Hollywood

—By Jaeah Lee

| Thu Jan. 27, 2011 1:00 AM PST

In Hollywood, it takes a gangster to play a gangster. Zaire Paige, the 21-year-old who recently scored a role alongside Richard Gere and Don Cheadle in the new-release Brooklyn's Finest, hung out with Crips members during his adolescent days in Brownsville—New York City's "most murderous" neighborhood. Paige auditioned for the role in 2008 at the urging of a friend who was hired to consult on the film's "street authenticity," as the Village Voice reports. Director Antoine Fuqua was sold immediately. "He is a kid who obviously comes from a violent world...He just fit the bill," Fuqua later said of Paige. "He had no fear in his eyes."

[Read more in the Riff blog]

RJD2 is Not Guilty

—By Jaeah Lee and Zoë Slutzky

| Mon Jan. 24, 2011 4:30 AM PST

On stage, Ramble John Krohn (a.k.a. RJD2) has an ability to entrance his audience into a sea of synchronized hand-waves and head-bopping. The vinyl-scratching, mass-Tweeting, Ohio-raised DJ started spinning in 1993, when he decided to buy a pair of turntables from a friend. He's since produced 20 albums, 28 singles, and dozens of other collaborations, mix tapes, and remixed tracks.

We recently caught up with Krohn, who abides by the music-making philosophy of not giving "a s*** as long as it sounds hot." He fuses explosive elements from hip-hop, brass-band, and metal rock with soul-funk and electronica, churning bad-ass beats that make you want to jump into a 1970s high-speed car chase. He's even sampled sounds from KFC-commercials. His loyal following of hip-hopping/skateboarding/hoop-shooting/plaid-wearing crowds love him anyway, as do commercial heavyweights like the NBA, Levi's, Adidas, and the TV series CSI-NY, all of which have featured his songs. A preview of his latest EP, "The Glow" remixes, is available here.

Mother Jones: What’s your favorite recent release in your genre?

Ramble John Krohn: This is a bit slippery, as I'm not sure what genre I belong in, but I guess I'd say Big Boi's album [Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty] at the moment. It's somewhere between a weirdo funk record, a hip-hop record, and an electro record. I absolutely love it.

[Read more in the Riff blog]