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  • Mubarak, Army, U.S., Israel vs Egyptian People

    [As government forces have attacked peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square, Emad Mekay from Cairo reports] Mubarak is clearly backed by the Americans. He took some moves after speaking with Obama and a visit by a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner. Mubarak, the army, the Americans and the Israelis are clearly on one side.…

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  • Unrest Spreads to Sinai

    A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. “I will leave when Mubarak leaves,” he says. [Full piece from Inter Press Service]

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  • Chomsky: Strategic and Economic Objectives, Not Anti-Islamization, Drives U.S. Policy

    [While many are claiming that a central goal of U.S. policy is to minimize influence of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Noam Chomsky contributed this to our blog] It is well-established, including the major scholarly literature, that the U.S. supports democracy if and only if that accords with strategic and economic objectives.  Following…

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  • An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

    ————————————————————————————————————————— [To sign; for recent news releases on Egypt from the Institute for Public Accuracy] Dear President Obama: As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping…

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  • Report from Cairo

    From Alex Ortiz in Cairo: “The army is beginning to come into Cairo … tens of thousands converged in midan al-gala’ coming from three different protest marches. Total communication blackout. Reports of senior police officers ordering their men to stand down and not beat or fire tear gas at protesters in Midan al-gala an hour…

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  • Report on Latest from Cairo

    CAIRO, Egypt [11 p.m. local time] — 1-Some government media figures appear to be joining ranks with the protesters. Mahmoud Saad, a talk show host in the Egyptian state-run TV, has announced that he will no longer appear on TV starting tonight after he came under pressure from top government officials to report “untruths” about…

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  • Police in Cairo Beating up Jounalists

    [From 9:28 a.m. ET]: Police started beating up journalists protesting outside the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo. They beat up women journalists too who were screaming and crying for help. “Do not club women. Do not club women,” some of the men rushed to the police asking them not to target women. “You’ll make things…

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  • From Alex Ortiz in Cairo

    [The Egyptian government has apparently block Twitter, Facebook (as of Wed. morn U.S. ET) and other internet tools, though apparently some people are able to get around such restrictions. Email from 8:45 a.m. ET:] Downtown Cairo today remains in a state of high alert. There are many security forces and plainsclothed policemen visible on every…

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  • Video from Cairo

    Phone lines are intermittent and Twitter has reportedly been blocked in Egypt. Here is a live video feed: ustream.tv/channel/cairodowntown [update: ustream has been blocked, streaming now intermittently at livestream.com/cairowitness — further update, now at: www.justin.tv/cairowitness] Here is a YouTube video from earlier today:

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  • Ukraine’s Assault on a Free Press

    In Ukraine, where media diversity is often defined by which powerful oligarch controls which TV station, one network, TVi — known for its independent investigative style — is under intense legal pressure, with its owner not part of Ukraine’s power circles. TVi faces a court hearing on Tuesday over a legal claim that the station’s…

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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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