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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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  • “The Muslim World: A Requiem”

    “Let us be honest: most Muslim-majority governments today are client states, marionettes in a puppet theatre directed by Western powers, primarily the United States. Iran is the notable exception, though even it often walks the tightrope between pragmatism and defiance. The rest?“

  • Israel Still Occupies Most of Gaza; Still Holds Thousands without Charge

    Nesrine Malik writes in the Guardian: “Devastation’s perpetrators disqualified themselves long ago from any mandate over the people they have aided in killing and shattering. … The crimes that have been committed cannot be redressed, or even prevented from recurring, if the conditions that enabled their perpetrators continue.”

  • Trump at Knesset Credits Big Funder Adelson for Shifting Policy

    “I actually asked [Miriam Adelson], I’m going to get her in trouble with this, but I actually asked her once. I said, ‘So Miriam, I know you love Israel, what do you love more, the United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means, that might mean Israel.”

  • Public Health Association Bars Leader After Peaceful Protest for Gaza Ceasefire

    The American Public Health Association (APHA) has barred public health leader Amy Hagopian from APHA meetings and removed her from her elected position after she engaged in a silent, peaceful protest against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in 2024. The protest occurred at APHA’s annual meeting, after the organization’s governing council declined to consider a…

  • Using “Counterterrorism” Policy Against the Left

    Chip Gibbons writes that in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Trump administration has seized the opportunity to attack the left through reinvigorated “counterterrorism” policy. 

  • Nobel Committee Pushes to Target Venezuela

    Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday morning.  DAVID SWANSON, [email protected], @davidcnswanson    Swanson is executive director of World Beyond War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.     He just wrote the piece “Nobel Committee Tried Its Best to Give Trump a Peace Prize,” which states: Trump is not the right type of warmonger. Nobody could do it with…

  • Israeli-Palestinian Agreement

    “While it is likely to save numerous lives, at least for the time being, and should be welcomed for that reason alone, it is hardly a peace agreement nor one that lays the basis for attaining Palestinian rights.”

  • Palestinian Prisoners, Propaganda Stressed by Gaza Flotilla Members

    * It’s up to the people of the world “to shut down this war machine.” He cited the general strikes in Italy and moves to use Uniting for Peace: “We have to use every tool that we have.” 

  • Taxpayers File Legal Charges Over Gaza Genocide Against U.S. Government

    “The groups assert that the United States government — through the actions of both the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as Congress — has been “complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and has violated its binding obligations under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. This is the only…

  • Working-Class Voters on “Key Issues”

    A new study from the Center for Working-Class Politics and Jacobin analyzed three comprehensive surveys in U.S. political science, revealing where “working-class voters stand on key issues.” The study found that “the message is clear: economic populism must be the core of progressive appeals to workers.” The data spans from 1960 to 2022, tracking long-term…

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