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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  • After U.S. INF Withdrawal, Plowshares Activists, Facing Years in Prison, Warn of Nuclear Peril

    “This is not the first failure by the U.S. to either endorse or abide by treaties which would reduce the threat posed by the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction. The crucial Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996, and has been ratified by 166 countries, but the U.S.…

  • Venezuela Analysis

    “Venezuela’s Guaido refuses to rule out accepting U.S. military support amid escalating political crisis.”

  • Sanders and Khanna Move on War Powers Against Saudi Bombing of Yemen

    “Congress is poised to face off with President Trump for a second time over his administration’s policy toward Saudi Arabia, as lawmaker groups in both chambers reintroduce resolutions to end U.S. involvement in the Yemen civil war.”

  • “Bolsonaro Wants to Plunder the Amazon. Don’t Let Him”

    “The rise of President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has put the environment and human rights in peril. His promises to open the Amazon for business could result in huge deforestation and the release of vast greenhouse-gas emissions. His threats to slash fundamental environmental and indigenous rights standards that help keep the Amazon standing are a…

  • Kamala Harris: “More AIPAC Than J Street”

    “is being embraced by many progressive Democrats, and she’s branding herself as a progressive. Yet in the course of her little more than two years in the U.S. Senate, she’s taken some foreign policy positions that should give pause to supporters of human rights and international law.”

  • Will Elliott Abrams, “Abettor of Genocide,” do to Venezuela What he did to Guatemala?

    “Elliott Abrams does indeed represent longstanding U.S. policy. The problem is that that policy is to be willing to abet genocide, as the U.S. did in Guatemala (under Abrams), as a Guatemalan court ruled last September after hearing evidence in a genocide trial in which I testified. … Last September 26 a Guatemalan court ruled…

  • Venezuela Intervention: Pretexts and Solutions

    “The U.S. government refusing to withdraw its officials from Venezuela may well set up a pretext for further intervention or blockade.”

  • Jerry Brown: Democrats’ Posture on Putin is “Stupid”

    “I think it is stupid for Democrats to be attacking Putin on all issues and not holding open the channel of nuclear dialogue. Yes, deal with the issues in Syria, and killing diplomats, and Ukraine, and Crimea and all the rest of that, but that doesn’t warrant a nuclear blunder that kills billions of people,…

  • “Attempted Coup” in Venezuela

    “We are coming up on the 15 year anniversary of the US-perpetrated coup in Haiti that took place on February 29 of 2004. U.S. troops kidnapped the democratically elected president Aristide. Canada and France helped out to provide cover for the widely loathed ‘W’ Bush in 2004.”

  • On Venezuela, Trump “Clear Violation” of International Law

    “It is preposterous to suggest that the president of the U.S., Brazil or Colombia should dictate who should hold power in Venezuela. That is a decision to be determined solely by the people of Venezuela.”

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