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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  • Israel: Ally? * Iran * USS Liberty

    Common Dreams reports: “The Israeli military bombed Iran on Monday shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to respond to an Iranian missile barrage, which came in retaliation for Israel’s earlier bombing of Beirut.” On Monday afternoon, Rep. Thomas Massie made remarks about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty…

  • Rubio Refuses to Address Threat of Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

    The Washington Post recently noted: “‘There is a low boil of unease about Israel’s nuclear program and what could compel them to use nuclear weapons short of facing a WMD attack,’ said an administration official.”

  • SNAP Cutbacks and $1.5 Trillion for War: Food Not Bombs a Solution?

    McHenry said today: “I have spent my entire adult life sharing food with the hungry but this policy of forcing people already struggling to spend hours of their week just to get assistance that is not enough to provide food for the month is one of the cruelest hunger policies I have witnessed. For many…

  • Pope’s Call for Peace and Resistance and the Pentagon Protests

    They assembled on the right-hand side of the Pentagon entrance to protest, they said, the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran — a war His Holiness Pope Leo XIV declared unjust, immoral, in violation of international law, and against the Gospel. Standing or kneeling, they began to sing and pray for peace. All 27 were…

  • Israel Escalates Attack on Lebanon, Threatens Beirut

    “Trump claimed in two posts on Truth Social after his call with Netanyahu that some sort of ceasefire had been agreed to, though Israeli attacks continue in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah continues to fire at Israeli forces.“

  • Colombia Elections to Proceed to Runoff Between Left-Wing and Far-Right Candidates

    “Colombia held presidential elections yesterday. Among a field of several candidates, far-right criminal defense attorney Abelardo de la Espriella leads with nearly 44 percent of the vote while left-wing Senator Iván Cepeda of the governing Pacto Histórico party came in second with nearly 41 percent. Since no candidate reached the 50 percent threshold needed to…

  • Congress “Moves to Integrate U.S. and Israeli Militaries”

    “Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released [last week], is section 224, entitled ‘United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.’ The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received…

  • Beyond AIPAC: Protesting the American Jewish Committee

    While many focus solely on AIPAC as “the pro-Israel lobby,” a group of activists note the power of other groups like the American Jewish Committee. This weekend, these activists are protesting outside the AJC’s annual “Global Forum” in Washington, D.C.

  • Bolivia Government Demonizing Protesters

    “The chaotic Paz administration continues to give mixed messages on dialogue as it politically persecutes protest leaders and moves closer to the Bolivian equivalent of martial law. The right, the government and privileged Bolivians continue to stigmatize social movements as bloodthirsty, vandals linked to drug trafficking, although they are on the streets to guarantee subsistence…

  • Netanyahu: “Deepening” Operation in Lebanon, 31 Killed on Tuesday

    “Israel carried out more than 180 strikes across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Tuesday, according to local media, despite the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States.”

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