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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  • Rep. Findley, Key Author of War Powers Resolution, and Congressional Critic of Israel, Dies

    “Similarly, we’ve seen an escalation of exactly what Findley tried to stop with the War Powers Resolution: President after president attacking other countries illegally, in violation of the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution and international law. The issues he tried to tackle were central to trying to preserve the rule of law and ensuring that…

  • Sanders, Bezos and the Washington Post

    “Bernie Sanders set off the latest round of outraged denial from elite media this week when he talked to a crowd in New Hampshire about the tax avoidance of Amazon (which did not pay any federal income tax last year). Sanders went on to say: ‘I wonder why the Washington Post — which is owned…

  • * Honduras * Hong Kong * Kashmir

    “Ahmad says India’s revocation of Kashmir’s autonomous status not only increases tensions between India and Pakistan, but is designed to lead into a situation where India encourages colonial settlement in the region and eventual annexation, along the lines of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.”

  • Epstein: Blackmail?

    “Other investigations have made it increasingly clear that Epstein was running a blackmail operation, as he had bugged the venues — whether at his New York mansion or Caribbean island getaway — with microphones and cameras to record the salacious interactions that transpired between his guests and the underage girls that Epstein exploited. Epstein appeared to have…

  • More FBI Powers: Won’t Be White Supremacists Bearing Brunt

    “A new domestic terrorism statute would allow the agency to investigate and prosecute far-right violence. But this approach is misguided — and dangerous.”

  • No First Use: “It Makes the World Safer”

    “Most Americans don’t want our nation to start a nuclear war; in fact, most Americans think we already have an official policy that we will never start a nuclear war. It’s time to make No First Use a reality.”

  • Emmy-Winning Actor Takes Pro-BDS Stand in Hollywood

    “Two of the creative executive producers of the new series, Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, are also the creator-producers of the Israeli Netflix series ‘Fauda,’ an action-adventure drama set in Israel and the Occupied Territories. I was aware that the show had been criticized for its portrayal of Palestinians and for its tendency to justify Israel’s human rights abuses.”

  • “If Guns Made People Safer U.S. Would be Safest Country”

    “The evidence is clear. If guns made a country safer, the U.S. would be the safest country in the industrialized world. But the opposite is true. Per capita, you are six times more likely to be murdered in the U.S. than in Australia, and 25 times more likely to be murdered with a gun.”

  • Anti-Nuclear Activists Facing 25 Years in Prison Urge Dismissal of Charges

    “A number of the activists’ supporters are planning to fast from August 6 through 9, the 74th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.”

  • Petition Urges CNN to Add Progressive to Democratic Debate Panel

    “By refusing to broaden its Democratic debate panels to include progressive journalists whose views better reflect the Democratic Party’s base, CNN is reminding everyone of this history of favoring unapologetic rightists over unapologetic leftists.”

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