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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  • Disinformation on California GMO-labeling Initiative

    Michele Simon is a public health lawyer, president of Eat Drink Politics and author of Appetite for Profit: How the food industry undermines our health and how to fight back. She has been writing about California’s Proposition 37, which would require labeling of foods with GMOs. She recently wrote: “University of California at Davis agriculture…

  • Forgotten Haiti: Two Years After Cholera Outbreak

    BBC is reporting: “A top U.S. cholera specialist, Dr. Daniele Lantagne, said after studying new scientific data that it is now ‘most likely’ the source of the outbreak was a camp for recently-arrived UN soldiers from Nepal — a country where cholera is widespread.”

  • Larry King Moderating 3rd Party Debate; VotePact: An Escape from Voting for “the Lesser of Two Evils”

    Larry King will moderate a debate tonight featuring third-party candidates. King told the Associated Press: “They have a story to tell. It’s a valid story. It’s a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law.” The participants will be former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party), Green Party candidate Jill Stein, former Congressman…

  • * Romney’s War Cabinet * Israel’s Record in Gaza and Nukes * How the World Sees the Debates

    Elik Elhanan, Yonatan Shapira and Reut Mor, co-founders of Combatants for Peace, were among the passengers on a boat to Gaza that was intercepted by the Israeli military on Friday. A former paratrooper in the Israeli military, Elhanan was just released from prison and is currently under house arrest in Israel. He said today: “We…

  • Where’s the Foreign Policy Debate? * Kuwait * Drones * Libya

    A scholar in Middle East politics at Durham University, Christopher Davidson is author of the new book After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies. He said today: “The pro-loyalist groups are not serious about reform. While riot police were attacking peaceful protesters, the Emir was meeting with other members of the ruling…

  • * Syria * Pakistani Malala Yousafzai’s Shooting

    Sonali Kolhatkar is co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence and is co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission. She said today: “The U.S. has been waging an undeclared drone war in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, including in the Swat valley where Malala Yousufzai was attacked. What is not…

  • How Romney and Vulture Funds Milked the Auto Bailout

    Investigative reporter Greg Palast wrote the just-published piece “Mitt Romney’s Bailout Bonanza: How Mitt and Ann made millions — and Mitt’s hedge fund donors made billions — from the auto-industry rescue that he condemned.” The piece states: “Mitt Romney’s opposition to the auto bailout has haunted him on the campaign trail, especially in Rust Belt…

  • Why the Silence on Global Warming?

    Daphne Wysham is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and is the co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network. She said today: “The Arctic is melting to record lows, extreme weather is increasing, grain reserves are at record lows threatening millions with hunger should there be another bad grain harvest next year,…

  • Empowering Voter Choice: * Killing the Congressional Gerrymander * Instant Runoff Voting

    Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote, which has just released a pair of reports on “the roots of lack of competition in congressional races and a roadmap for reform.”

  • * Wal-Mart Strikes * Nobel in Economics

    Nelson Lichtenstein recently wrote the piece “A New Era for Wal-Mart Workers?” which states: “During this week and the last, perhaps a couple of hundred of Wal-Mart workers have walked out of their stores in at least a dozen cities across America. They have formed picket lines, spoken to the press, and demonstrated that it…

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