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…

    Read more »


  • “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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • “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…

    Read more »


  • 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,…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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:…

    Read more »


  • 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]

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • Is U.S. Iran Policy “Viable”?

    “For the U.S. Senate to veto Iran’s choice of UN ambassador is an exercise in hubris and a violation of the spirit of the UN Charter. … Obama should use his executive prerogative and order the State Department to issue the visa anyway. … Which outcome does the United States want — negotiations with Iran…

  • Wall Street’s “Predatory Equity” Rental Scheme

    “Around 2005, private equity firms began amassing real estate mini-empires across [New York City], chasing outlandish projections of future profit. And when these deals started to fall apart, it was tenants, public pension funds, or the city that took the hit, while the private equity owners sometimes succeeded in walking away from the financial wreckage…

  • Is the Gender Gap Keeping Millions of Women in Poverty?

    “Twelve of the 20 most common occupations for women, compared with eight of the 20 most common occupations for men, have median weekly earnings that will leave a household of four at or near poverty. (The annual poverty threshold for a household of four in 2013 translated into weekly income of $453.) Forty percent of…

  • Is the Cuba Twitter Story Part of Broader Pattern?

    “As my research on developments in Venezuela have shown, the U.S. government has been found acting against governments with which it disagrees. Where it previously supported dictators in the countries U.S. leaders wished to control — Mobuto in Zaire, Somoza in Nicaragua, and Marcos in the Philippines, for example — since the mid-1980s, they have…

  • Can Mangroves Protect Against Global Warming Vulnerability to Disaster?

    “Mangroves typify the important role that coastal wetlands play in protecting coastlines from erosion and natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, one of the main reasons the hurricane turned so deadly and destructive was the earlier loss of natural coastal wetlands because of reduced sedimentation resulting from the…

  • Testimony from Fort Hood

    “During our time organizing at Fort Hood we discovered they had a base policy that mandated against commanders overriding doctors orders to deploy troops with PTSD, TBI [traumatic brain injury], etc. but that commanders were in fact doing so regularly. “Some of the issues our report highlights include the legacy of multiple deployments where troops…

  • Supreme Court Establishing “Plutocrat Rights”

    “This decision, expanding the Supreme Court’s ‘money equals free speech’ doctrine has made the democratic republic, promised to us by our Constitution, impossible. Citizens’ votes are stripped of power when the wealthiest few have pre-determined which candidates and parties are acceptable for the rest of us to choose among. “The Court majority also does immense…

  • Is NSA “Reform” a “Trojan Horse”?

    “Rep. Justin Amash, one of the NSA’s leading critics in the House, said of the Intelligence Committee bill: ‘It doesn’t end bulk collection but actually puts more Americans in danger of having their constitutionally protected rights violated.’ While the Obama plan is undoubtedly more promising, with court requests and much more, Jameel Jaffer of the…

  • ACA “Conscientious Objector”

    “Focusing solely on the number of people who are insured is what the private health insurance industry wants the public to believe is most important. The industry spent tremendous amounts of money and time to get a law that would force people to buy insurance in order to protect and enhance their assets. They want…

  • Leaked YouTube Tape: Turkey Plotting Pretext for War With Syria?

    Last week “an 8-minute video began circulating on YouTube wherein senior Turkish defense officials, including Defense Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Intelligence Chief Hakan Fidan, discuss at length their intentions to have extremist groups in Syria carry out an attack on the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, the grandfather of the Ottoman Empire’s founder. This attack would…

Mastodon