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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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  • “The Super Bowl Windfall Myth”

    “With Super Bowl Sunday approaching, expect plenty of media reports on the projected economic windfall for host city Glendale, Arizona. Last year, when the NFL announced that its big game would provide a $600 million boost to the New York/New Jersey economy, that figure promptly became a fixture in news coverage of the event (CNN,…

  • Trade Deal Hits Protests at Congressional Hearing

    “Protesters wore shirts reading ‘No Fast Track’ and held signs stating ‘Froman lies,’ a response to the ambassador’s recent claims that Fast Track is the ‘best tool to ensure that Congress and the public have ample time to give our trade agreements the public scrutiny and debate they deserve.’ Past versions of Fast Track legislation,…

  • BREAKING — CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Convicted on All Nine Counts

    “The government engaged in a great deal of security theater during the Jeffrey Sterling trial, most notably by having some CIA witnesses — including ones whose identities weren’t, technically, secret — testify behind a big office divider so the general public couldn’t see the witness. But along the way, the government revealed a great number…

  • U.S.-India Nuclear Deal * Subsidizes Industry * Leaves Victims Vulnerable * Violates NPT

    “Selling nuclear technology to India violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s prohibition on providing ‘peaceful’ nuclear technology to non-NPT parties. India, together with Pakistan and Israel, never signed the Non-Proliferation treaty so the U.S. is violating its treaty obligations by promoting nuclear power sales in India. And the U.S. has also received a commitment from India to…

  • CIA Leak Trial in Jury’s Hands

    “Many of the two-dozen witnesses from the Central Intelligence Agency conveyed smoldering resentment that a whistleblower or journalist might depict the institution as a bungling outfit unworthy of its middle name. Some witnesses seemed to put Sterling and journalist James Risen roughly in the same nefarious category — Sterling for allegedly leaking classified information that…

  • Anti-Austerity Left Wins in Greece: Saves Capitalism?

    “The ironic story of the Greek election is the fact that it is the European ‘radical’ left that is standing up for reality-based capitalism — one that doesn’t try to live off unsustainable debt — one that doesn’t simply benefit BMW and Volkswagen and Deutsche Bank and BNP [France’s largest bank] — one that doesn’t…

  • Saudi Monarch’s Death: A Chance for Democracy?

    “Internally, the reign of Abdullah saw the violent oppression of the already marginalized Shia minority in the oil rich eastern region of Saudi Arabia. This is in addition to thousands of political prisoners that are held throughout the Kingdom. Then there’s the ludicrous terrorism charges against women drivers, the fact that up to a quarter…

  • SOTU: How Trade Deal Undermines Obama’s Stated Agenda

    “It’s more than ironic that the President acknowledges the injustice of U.S. immigration policy, and has taken measures to spare at least some people from deportation. Yet he continues to push exactly the same trade policies, in this case the Trans Pacific Partnership, that have displaced millions of people in Mexico and Central America, forcing…

  • End of “Yemen Model” — and Yemen?

    “You don’t have to be an expert on Yemen, the Middle East, Islam or foreign policy in general to realize that what is occurring in Yemen is similar to what is occurring throughout the Greater Middle East. Decades of American interventionist policy, that can be at best be described as inept meddling, with roots going…

  • SOTU: * Perpetuating War * Progressive Posturing

    “The cartoonized versions of foreign policy handed to U.S. people, designating heroes and villains, create a dangerously under-educated public unable to engage in democratic decision-making… Suddenly, with the assurance that they don’t have to worry about being taken seriously, the ‘party of the people’ has come forward with a proposal to levy a 0.1 percent…

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