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  • 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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  • On Syria, U.S. and Russia in “Game of Chicken”?

    “On Saturday, Obama called Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s not known what they discussed about a possible invasion of Syria. However, if Obama threatened to intervene if Russia doesn’t end its military support for the Syrian military offensive, we could be in the middle of the most serious game of chicken since the Cuban missile…

  • Trump: Right on 9/11 and Iraq War

    “Trump is right to point out how senior officials of the Bush administration enabled and let the worst terrorist attacks occur even though there was so much information flowing into intelligence agencies during the Spring and Summer of 2001 that the Director of Central Intelligence and other counterterrorism officials like Richard Clarke were said to…

  • Clinton and Sanders on Health Care: Do the Numbers Add up for Single-Payer?

    “The numbers on single-payer do, in fact, add up. It’s indisputable that single-payer systems in other countries cover everyone for virtually everything, and at much lower cost than our health care system. For instance, Canadians have a system that covers everyone, without co-payments or deductibles, and they live two years longer than Americans.”

  • Sanders Biographer: He’s a Pragmatic Populist

    “He talks about democratic socialism, but in concrete terms is really re-asserting the New Deal. He know how to close a deal with the voters and make a deal with opponents. Even though his message is highly aspirational, as a populist, he’s a pragmatist. ”

  • Flint-Type Crises “Will Continue Until EPA is Accountable”

    “The EPA has 200 fully authorized federal law enforcement agents who can carry firearms, 70 forensic scientists and technicians, and 45 attorneys who specialize in environmental crimes enforcement. Yet the EPA, mandated as the public’s last, best line of defense, failed the people — yet again — when it came to the Flint water crisis.”

  • Economist: With Sanders, Income and Jobs Would Soar

    “Sanders would finance expanded infrastructure, universal free pre-K education, free public higher education, universal health insurance, and other programs with progressive taxation and through the elimination of tax deductions for rich individuals and large corporations.”

  • TPP, Pharma Bro

    “If ratified, the TPP would lock in monopolies for certain new medicines, biological medicines that help people like me stay alive. Monopolies allow drug companies to increase prices dramatically, and high prices decrease access. This means that some people with cancer will die because they can’t get the medicine they need. …”

  • Clinton, “Endless War” Candidate

    “Clinton’s vote in favor of President George W. Bush’s illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq cost her the 2008 election. It also cost more than 4,500 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives… Yet Clinton cynically told corporate executives at a 2011 State Department roundtable on investment opportunities in Iraq, ‘It’s time for the…

  • Clinton: A “Progressive” Who Gets What Done?

    “Secretary Clinton repeatedly praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – as it was being negotiated by the U.S. Trade Representative and her State Department – and she recruited countries into the deal. In October, with Bernie Sanders climbing in the polls, Clinton said she no longer supported the pact, and prevaricated about her earlier boosterism.”

  • UN Panel: Assange Detention Should End

    “Free speech organizations worldwide have condemned the U.S. attempts to prosecute Julian Assange; this includes a statement just yesterday by the ACLU’s executive director Anthony Romero calling a U.S. case against Mr. Assange ‘unprecedented and unconstitutional.'”

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