accuracy.org

Blog

  • 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.…

    Read more »

  • 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]

    Read more »

  • 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…

    Read more »

  • 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…

    Read more »

  • 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…

    Read more »

  • 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…

    Read more »

  • 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…

    Read more »

  • 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…

    Read more »

  • 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:

    Read more »

  • 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…

    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