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.…

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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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  • Trump Ignoring Peace Deal on Yemen, “Planning Libya-Style” War

    In “Top Houthi Official Tells Drop Site Yemen Will Cease Attacks on U.S. Ships if Trump Halts Bombing” Drop Site News reports: “A senior leader of Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, told Drop Site News that if the U.S. ends its campaign of air strikes against Yemen, Houthi forces will commit to halting…

  • DOGE Kills Medical Expenditure Panel Survey

    The Department of Government Efficiency is eliminating the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which has been in operation since 1996. One expert says MEPS is “probably the central source of data on healthcare use and spending in the U.S.” 

  • Lawsuits Against NIH for “Beyond Unprecedented” Grant Terminations

    Two new lawsuits were filed against the National Institutes of Health, the NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Department of Health and Human Services, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the cancellation of NIH research grants in the past month. More than 900 grants have been terminated so far. The newest lawsuit is…

  • Netanyahu Meets with Trump as Israel Slaughters Children

    AFP reports: “A Palestinian official told AFP that Israeli forces shot dead a teenager holding US citizenship in the occupied West Bank Sunday, while the Israeli military said it had killed a ‘terrorist’ who threw rocks at cars.”

  • As Trump Brags About Bombing Yemen: “The Implications of This Can’t be Underestimated”

        Jumaan highlighted an Arabic-language thread on X about the tribal gathering with over one million views which stressed the communal nature of such gatherings, which could be a wedding or community or religious gathering. 

  • Israel Shooting Children in the Head, Protests Being Held

    Protests are planned in the coming days focusing on Gaza around the U.S., including a March on Washington, on Saturday, April 5 at 1 p.m. ET on Pennsylvania Ave. (Other anti-Trump protests are also scheduled for this weekend.) 

  • Netanyahu: “Final Stage” of Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Implementation of “Trump’s Plan”

    The Guardian reports: “Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one” and buried in a mass grave eight days ago in southern Gaza, the UN has said.”

  • Trump and Yemen: War is Peace?

    x “The World Food Program says ‘a child in Yemen dies once every ten minutes from preventable causes, including extreme hunger.’ …

  • “How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left”

    A new book, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, examines how new wealth has drawn into its orbit some formerly progressive journalists. Owned looks at the cases of Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald––once idealistic-sounding, left-leaning voices who have shifted right. 

  • Trump Revises Some Plans for Social Security

    This week, officials from the Social Security Administration partially walked back plans from the Trump administration that would have required beneficiaries to prove their identity in-person. Officials said Wednesday that they plan to exempt people who apply for Medicare and disability benefits from in-person verification.

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