Blog

  • 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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  • Two Rounds of Stimulus Were Supposed to Protect Jobs — Instead We Have Record Unemployment

    “We all know that the U.S. response to COVID-19 has lagged far behind other countries. But now a real trap is closing. The public premise of the government stimulus programs was that they would be needed only for a short period and channeling aid to businesses would enable them to retain workers on their payrolls.…

  • Contrary to Claims “Cuomo’s Order Actually Ends the Eviction Moratorium”

    “On Friday, May 7, New York Governor Cuomo issued an executive order, which he claimed extended the existing eviction moratorium. However, Cuomo’s executive order actually ended rather than extended our current eviction moratorium, putting thousands at risk of displacement. While Governor Cuomo’s public remarks gave the impression that he extended the moratorium until August 20, his…

  • The Post Office Was Designed to be a Pillar of the Republic, Not a Business

    “The Founders intended the Postal Service to be a pillar of the republic, binding together millions of Americans, urban and rural, for the common good. It therefore always had congressional oversight limiting what management can do to make a profit. Rather than being mismanaged, the Postal Service is — and has long been — one…

  • Ravitch Denounces Cuomo Tapping Billionaires to “Reimagine” Education

    “The Gates Foundation has sponsored a series of disastrous interventions into education, such as the Common Core standards and test-based evaluation of teachers. Furthermore, Governor Cuomo is bypassing the state Board of Regents, which is legally responsible for education policy in the state of New York.”

  • During Pandemic, U.S. Trying to Overthrow Venezuela Government

    “On Sunday, May 3, the Venezuelan government foiled what appears to have been a joint U.S./Colombia attempt to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro.”

  • Postal Bankruptcy Would Hit Rural America Hardest

    “Across the country, an estimated 20 percent of all Americans over 40 who are prescribed medication for a chronic condition get their prescriptions exclusively through the Postal Service. An even greater share of the rural population relies on mail order prescriptions since so many pharmacies in rural communities have shut down. Veterans, nearly one-quarter of…

  • #CancelRent

    “Across the state, May Day will be a major day of escalation for New Yorkers who can’t pay rent, and have joined a growing movement to pressure Cuomo to #CancelRent and demand federal action that will address the financial crisis facing tenants who have lost income and jobs during the current COVID-19 pandemic.”

  • On May Day: Where is the Power of Labor?

    “Some employers will doubtless take advantage of 20 percent unemployment rates to make it clear to workers that they can easily be replaced if they try to unionize, or even if they organize just to block a dangerously premature back-to-work order from their boss. With an inadequate social safety net, many workers may feel compelled…

  • Cuomo Cancelling Elections: “One Man Rule in NY” Challenged by Grassroots Activists

    The group New York Progressive Action Network held an emergency meeting Monday night and Wednesday issued the following statement, saying their activists “plan to reverse the unprecedented decision by two unelected Democratic Board of Election officials, appointed by Cuomo and convicted former Speaker [Sheldon] Silver, to knock off the ballot Senator Sanders and his 184…

  • Origins of Pandemic * Dangers of Labs * Bioweapons Arms Race

    Executive director of the Bioscience Resource Project, Latham said today: “Everyone wants to know how a bat coronavirus got into humans. That is to say, how did this virus make the leap from not infecting humans at all to being a virulent pathogen. There almost has to have been some kind of intermediate host and…

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