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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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  • As Afghans Face Starvation, U.S. and UN Sanctions Tighten the Screws

    InterAction, a group of NGOs whose members include the Red Cross, has just released a statement pleading for sanctions relief for Afghanistan: “Afghanistan stands at a precipice. Nearly 23 million people face acute food insecurity, with 8.7 million just one step away from famine, including 1 million children on the brink of starvation.

  • Some of What Biden Could do Without Manchin

    While many are focusing on what Sen. Joe Machin is or is not allowing to pass the Senate, the American Prospect continues to update what President Biden can do on his own. See the Executive Action Tracker, which finds that: Out of 77 actions Biden could take without Congressional mandate identified by Prospect, there are…

  • Why is the U.S. Government Making Nuclear War More Likely?

    Lindorff wrote the piece “The U.S. is Set to Make Nuclear War More Likely,” which states: “The U.S. is about to move towards a far more likely first use of nuclear weapons, with word that the Air Force has ‘completed flight testing’ of the cost-and-performance-plagued F35A Lightning fighter, all units of which are being ‘upgraded’…

  • Did Sirhan Really Kill Robert Kennedy?

  • Report Dubs Some in Progressive Caucus “Progressive In Name Only”

    Naming six “especially problematic” members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus “who are not living up to their progressive pretenses,” a national activist organization today issued a report documenting their records and suggesting that some “seem ripe for a serious progressive primary challenge.”

  • The Media’s War Against Biden Over Inflation

    “But none of these other problems have gotten anywhere near the same amount of attention from the media in recent months as inflation. These pieces have often been quite openly dishonest. The nonstop hype of “inflation, inflation, inflation” unsurprisingly leads many people to believe inflation is a really big problem, even if their own finances…

  • Pentagon “Cover-up” in Kabul Drone Killing of Family Continues

    “No U.S. Troops Will Be Punished for Deadly Kabul Strike, Pentagon Chief Decides,” the New York Times reports this afternoon. “The military initially defended the August strike, which killed 10 civilians including seven children, in the days afterward, but ultimately called it a tragic mistake.”

  • Maxwell Trial: Jeffrey Epstein’s Exploitation of Girls, Anti-Democratic Functioning, Blackmail

    “Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former Secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard Larry Summers, Stephen Pinker, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, billionaire Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, the, J.P Morgan banker Jes Staley, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barack, real estate mogul…

  • Assange Prosecution “Killing Freedom of the Press” as Biden “Lectures on Democracy”

    “How dare Biden lecture at the State Department Summit for Democracy” while refusing to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, “thereby killing freedom of the press for ‘national security.'” Ellsberg has called the prosecution of Assange a “nuclear option” against the First Amendment. Assange is being prosecuted for publishing material that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq, including…

  • As Biden and Putin Spar: Has the Nobel Prize Committee Helped Perpetuate War?

    “The world simply cannot afford to continue war business as usual. The costs of arms races prevent us from addressing numerous very real threats — climate break-down, nuclear arms, poverty, a lasting pandemic, an increasingly fragile food supply. We have to realize that military power games only guarantee eternal insecurity and threat of annihilation. …”

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