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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  • Hawaii Aims for 100 Percent Energy Renewables: “Can the Nation Follow?”

    “If Hawaii can make renewables work on isolated island electrical grids, the rest of the nation — with the flexibility to transmit excess power between states in the event of strong winds in Iowa or excess solar generation in Arizona — can certainly accomplish even more. … Fortunately, other states can also benefit as renewable…

  • WikiLeaks Publishes Secret TPP Docs; “Fast Track” Paving Way for “Global Corporate Governance”

    “This leak reveals that the Obama administration, acting at the behest of pharmaceutical companies, has subjected Medicare to a series of procedural rules, negotiated in secret, that would limit Congress’ ability to enact policy reforms that would reduce prescription drug costs for Americans — and might even open to challenge aspects of our health care…

  • TPP: Not “Free Trade” — But “Designed to Make Medicine Expensive”

    “What we see in this agreement is that it’s not really about trade; it’s about creating a backdoor for corporations to get some of the changes that they want. So deregulation of the financial industry, longer patent protections for the pharmaceutical industries, Internet privacy restrictions, these are the things that these corporations have wanted to…

  • Is the “War on ISIS” Actually Iran-Iraq War Redux?

    “President Obama continues to hear criticism for his failure to swiftly defeat ISIS. But while crushing ISIS may be the official stated goal, the actual agenda may be a long, drawn-out war to weaken regional powers. We have seen this policy before — with many of the same players — in the Iran-Iraq War of…

  • FIFA and the “New Corruption”

    “If FIFA executives are indeed guilty, this is no doubt serious corruption, with many poor countries submitting to extravagant FIFA demands for souped-up stadiums, draining resources and creating risky working conditions in which vulnerable workers have died. But this is also a conventional corruption story, accusations of clearly illegal activity. The corruption I investigate is…

  • Whistleblowers: NSA Bulk Collection Not Ending

    “While this is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t go nearly far enough in ending bulk acquisition of data. It doesn’t stop activity under [executive order] 12333, that does acquisition right off the fibers — it’s an automatic flow to the NSA. It’s both content and meta data. … With passage of USA…

  • Jenner: “A Teachable Moment”

    “There is much to celebrate and much to critique in this particular ‘transition’ — from the standpoint of race and class privilege, because most transgender people are not celebrated nor can afford costly surgeries to look as glamorous at Caitlyn. Jenner’s transition gives us a platform to examine all of these issues. Many transgender people,…

  • “Patriot Act,” “Freedom Act” — or a “Government Shell Game”

    “The whole matter would be moot if the government would adopt an intelligence production process from collection through analysis that was in line with the Constitution — that the technology exists to do just that, even addressing judicial review (not FISA, but regular Article III court) within seconds, thus mooting the Haydens out there who…

  • Fallacies of “PATRIOT Act” “Compromises”

    “The tragedy surrounding the current discussion of the USA Freedom Act lies in the fact that the government — including the legislative and executive branches of government, aided and abetted by an unchallenged FISA Court, is working in collusion to mislead the American public about the ability of the legislation to truly do what most…

  • Sanders’ Candidacy 

    On Tuesday, Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) officially launched his campaign for the 2016 Democratic Party nomination.

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