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  • Mubarak, Army, U.S., Israel vs Egyptian People

    [As government forces have attacked peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square, Emad Mekay from Cairo reports] Mubarak is clearly backed by the Americans. He took some moves after speaking with Obama and a visit by a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner. Mubarak, the army, the Americans and the Israelis are clearly on one side.…

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  • Unrest Spreads to Sinai

    A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. “I will leave when Mubarak leaves,” he says. [Full piece from Inter Press Service]

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  • Chomsky: Strategic and Economic Objectives, Not Anti-Islamization, Drives U.S. Policy

    [While many are claiming that a central goal of U.S. policy is to minimize influence of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Noam Chomsky contributed this to our blog] It is well-established, including the major scholarly literature, that the U.S. supports democracy if and only if that accords with strategic and economic objectives.  Following…

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  • An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

    ————————————————————————————————————————— [To sign; for recent news releases on Egypt from the Institute for Public Accuracy] Dear President Obama: As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping…

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  • Report from Cairo

    From Alex Ortiz in Cairo: “The army is beginning to come into Cairo … tens of thousands converged in midan al-gala’ coming from three different protest marches. Total communication blackout. Reports of senior police officers ordering their men to stand down and not beat or fire tear gas at protesters in Midan al-gala an hour…

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  • Report on Latest from Cairo

    CAIRO, Egypt [11 p.m. local time] — 1-Some government media figures appear to be joining ranks with the protesters. Mahmoud Saad, a talk show host in the Egyptian state-run TV, has announced that he will no longer appear on TV starting tonight after he came under pressure from top government officials to report “untruths” about…

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  • Police in Cairo Beating up Jounalists

    [From 9:28 a.m. ET]: Police started beating up journalists protesting outside the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo. They beat up women journalists too who were screaming and crying for help. “Do not club women. Do not club women,” some of the men rushed to the police asking them not to target women. “You’ll make things…

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  • From Alex Ortiz in Cairo

    [The Egyptian government has apparently block Twitter, Facebook (as of Wed. morn U.S. ET) and other internet tools, though apparently some people are able to get around such restrictions. Email from 8:45 a.m. ET:] Downtown Cairo today remains in a state of high alert. There are many security forces and plainsclothed policemen visible on every…

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  • Video from Cairo

    Phone lines are intermittent and Twitter has reportedly been blocked in Egypt. Here is a live video feed: ustream.tv/channel/cairodowntown [update: ustream has been blocked, streaming now intermittently at livestream.com/cairowitness — further update, now at: www.justin.tv/cairowitness] Here is a YouTube video from earlier today:

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  • Ukraine’s Assault on a Free Press

    In Ukraine, where media diversity is often defined by which powerful oligarch controls which TV station, one network, TVi — known for its independent investigative style — is under intense legal pressure, with its owner not part of Ukraine’s power circles. TVi faces a court hearing on Tuesday over a legal claim that the station’s…

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  • Disastrous Iraq Policies From a State Department Hostile to Truth-Telling

    “American military involvement will serve as an accelerant to and a prolonger of this Iraqi civil war. American bombs, bullets and dollars will further strengthen the bond between Sunnis and extremist groups like ISIS, increasing Sunni desperation by intensifying their backs-to-the-wall dilemma and justifying the propaganda and rhetoric of ISIS: a narrative of a Western…

  • Egypt: Broad Repression with U.S. Backing

    “What has to be understood is that the enormity of the issue is not just about the foreign Al Jazeera journalists, or even journalists in general, but that the scope and scale of politically motivated imprisonment in Egypt right now is astonishing. Also, while the criminalization and targeting of journalists is a heinous act in…

  • Drone Memo: Justifying Murder

    “Separate from problems with the substance of this memo, the administration needs to release all of its legal memos; this is only one among as many as a dozen we still haven’t seen. It also needs to release data about how many killed, who, where, why. Everything we know comes from non-government sources.”

  • Iraq: Is Yemen the Model?

    “Yemen as a model for Iraq; wouldn’t that just be lovely! Quietly remove an intractable puppet and replace him with one that is compliant; support a public discourse on progressive issues for those who will enjoy it; and use drones to bomb any emergent resistance around the critical issues of power sharing and basic distribution…

  • Key Author of War Powers Resolution: “Attack on Iraq Would Violate Constitution”

    “Just as with threats to attack Syria last year, an attack on Iraq would violate the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. As with any president, he [President Obama] commits an impeachable offense if he does not follow the Constitution.”

  • Iraq * Beyond ISIS: GMCIR * Iraq Vets Speak Out

    “When the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the formerly secular country was destabilized. The United States and the Department of Defense intentionally created and agitated sectarian divisions that would not have otherwise existed. The result of this is what we see today, and Iraqi civilians are paying for it.”

  • FIFA’s Impact on Brazil; Israel

    “The Brazilian people are happy about having the World Cup, but hate FIFA. The way it works is detrimental to the host country in a number of ways. It compels the country to change laws about who has access to the stadiums, with corporate sponsors controlling much of the process. It’s often not regular fans…

  • Iraq Sectarianism Spawned by U.S. War and Maliki’s Crushing of Peaceful Protests

    “When the ISIS took over Mosul, right away, the Kurdish peshmerga, the Kurdish power in northern Iraq, took over Kirkuk, the richest city in the northern part of Iraq. … Since 2003, the inner fight has been based on dividing Iraqis into sects and ethnic groups, like Sunni, Shia, Arab, Kurd, religiously Christian and Muslim.…

  • Could FIFA Suspend Israel?

    “FIFA has not fulfilled its mandate. This is the first comprehensive report which has documented scores of examples of obstacles enacted by the Israelis in the area of movement of Palestinian players and in many other areas outside FIFA’s current efforts.”

  • Is Cantor’s Loss Part of a Transpartisan Movement?

    “Brat campaigned explicitly on jailing bankers and on Cantor’s backing of the STOCK Act. His election was a rejection of political corruption.” Jilani cited campaign speeches by Brat, like this video, where he discusses the STOCK Act [at 18:00] — Brat states the STOCK Act would have stopped “insider trading by congressional members and their…

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