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  • Uprisings: Online Resouces

    With protests continuing, here is a partial list of online resources: For Libya: #Feb17; CNN’s Ben Wedeman; @EnoughGaddafi; For Bahrain: #Feb14, @OnlineBahrain; For Yemen: #Feb3; @JNovak_Yemen; Palestinian: #Mar15 Gulf: @dr_davidson, @tobycraigjones For Saudi Arabia: on Twitter: #Mar11; Webpages and blogs: rasid.com, ysoof.com/blog/?p=242, saudiwoman.wordpress.com, alasmari.wordpress.com, saudijeans.org To translate: translate.google.com Based in the U.S., but with extensive contacts…

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  • “A New Bipartisan Consensus Against Low Income People”

    The president’s budget is a prosaic austerity plan that inflicts disproportionate pain on low income Americans. Fundamental questions about the costs of war and the fairness of tax cuts for the rich have been avoided by the decision to narrowly target non-security “discretionary” spending to bear the weight of deficit reduction. It used to be…

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  • Challenges for Change in Algeria

    Tunisia and Egypt are relatively centralized states, Algeria not so, neither politically, nor culturally, nor geographically. Historically, the interior has been difficult to control, and there is no guarantee that the rest of the country would rally to the protests taking place in the capital as in the case of Egypt. The Algerian regime is…

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  • “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t”

    CAIRO — Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killing. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including…

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  • Time to forge new, democratic system

    CAIRO — Last night, February 11, Cairo was the scene of what may well have been the largest street party in world history.  It was incredibly powerful and moving.  Of course, the night’s festivities marked both an end and a beginning. Now is the time for Egypt’s judges, other legal professionals, diplomats, other negotiators, intellectuals,…

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  • Our Man in Cairo

    With Mubarak’s departure, the focus now falls on his chosen successor, Omar Suleiman. According to a classified American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Suleiman was Israel’s pick to succeed Mubarak. But there’s little doubt that he was also the choice of the United States, or at least of one particular American agency with which he…

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  • Online Resources on Egypt and Beyond

    With protests against the Egyptian regime continuing, here is a partial list of resources: A critical Facebook page is “We are all Khaled Said” — also see the associated webpage elshaheeed.co.uk. (For background on Khaled Said, see IPA news release.) See: egyprotest-defense.blogspot.com; live updates at guardian.co.uk; Al-Jazeera English live blog and video, or via YouTube:…

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  • Hungry Gazans Feed Egyptian Troops

    RAFAH, Feb 9, 2011 (IPS) – Mustapha Suleiman, 27, from J Block east of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, crosses through gaps in the iron fence on the border carrying bread, water, meat cans and a handful of vegetables for Egyptian soldiers stationed on the other side. [See at Inter Press Service]

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  • Egypt’s military-industrial complex

    With US-made tear gas canisters fired on protesters in Cairo, Washington’s role in arming Egypt is under the spotlight In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings…

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  • Uprising Pays Off -– Sort of

    Today I went to a town only 23 kilometers south of Tahrir Square. The plan was to see if the 11-day uprising in Egypt has produced any benefits so far – just by way of finding something different from the insecurity and chaos in Cairo. Kirdasa, a small town known for its flower nurseries and…

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  • Martin Luther King’s Call for a “Radical Revolution of Values”

    “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar,” Martin Luther King Jr. said in a speech given in New York one year before his assassination. “It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty…

  • Organizations Call for Elimination of “Launch on Warning” Land-Based Nuclear Missiles

    The statement, titled “A Call to Eliminate ICBMs,” warns that “intercontinental ballistic missiles are uniquely dangerous, greatly increasing the chances that a false alarm or miscalculation will result in nuclear war.” The organizations urged the U.S. government to “shut down the 400 ICBMs now in underground silos that are scattered across five states,

  • Guantánamo Prison: 20 Years, Biden “Must Uphold His Commitment” to Close it

    Amnesty International recently released a statement: “This is an anniversary that should never have been reached. Since the Bush administration, there has been agreement among national security experts and across the political spectrum that the Guantánamo prison — a notorious site of torture and unjustifiable indefinite detention — should be closed.

  • Santa Cruz Threatens to Evict Food Not Bombs

    In the latest of a series of restrictions on people giving out free meals, the city government of Santa Cruz is targeting the group Food Not Bombs for eviction on Tuesday

  • Assange: Exposed War Crimes, Imprisoned for 1000 Days; Blair: Committed War Crimes, was Just Knighted

    Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is slated to be extradited to the U.S. for exposing documentation of U.S. government killings. Among the exposes that Assange is being prosecuted for is exposing video of the “Collateral Murder” killings by U.S. soldiers from a helicopter gunship mowing down Reuters staffers in Iraq

  • Food Not Bombs Wins Against City Gov Trying to Stop Free Meals; Other Battles Continue

    The city government of Fort Lauderdale has settled with the local chapter of Food Not Bombs after trying to hinder them from distributing free meals. This followed a series of legal victories by the group, see Courthouse News Service piece from August 31, 2021 “11th Circuit finds Fort Lauderdale limits on food sharing in parks…

  • Facing Starvation and Sanctions, How Does Afghanistan Move Forward?

    “The 20-year occupation was run with massive corruption and cronyism” leading to a hollowed state which “allowed the president and his gang to betray the nation.” Former president Ashraf Ghani recently denied widespread reports that he fled the country with over $100 million.

  • Hawkish Outcries for Russia Sanctions “Exceedingly Dangerous”

    “While there is no question that Russia has contributed to tensions, the West should have understood that an attempt to bring Ukraine into NATO would spark deep, historical divisions within Ukraine and escalate Russian concerns. What is essentially a civil war has become a proxy war, a site of dangerous geopolitical focus.”

  • Drone War Exposé Affirms Need for Congressional Investigation

    Following the recent New York Times’ “Civilian Casualties Files” report, a coalition of antiwar groups opposed to U.S. drone attacks is urging House Democrats to investigate the U.S. military’s systematic cover-up of civilian casualties caused by its drone-dependent air wars. They are urging them to conduct an investigation into the numbers and identities of all people…

  • Desmond Tutu’s Last Piece: Biden Should End the Farce on Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a major figure in the fight against apartheid in South Africa and other causes, has died at 90.>A year ago, on Dec 31, 2020, The Guardian published what appears to be his last article: “Joe Biden should end the U.S. pretence over Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear weapons.”

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