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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  • Chevron’s Latest Disaster in California

    AP reports: “Investigators were looking at how a small, seemingly insignificant leak at one of the country’s biggest oil refineries quickly unraveled into an intense fire that sent acrid black smoke into the sky and hundreds of people to hospitals with health complaints. “This latest disruption at Chevron’s refinery in this city about 10 miles…

  • For-Profit Hospital Chain Pushed Unnecessary Heart Operations

    Today’s New York Times features a front-page piece titled Hospital Chain Inquiry Cited Unnecessary Cardiac Work. HOWARD WAITZKIN, M.D., waitzkin at unm.edu Waitzkin is distinguished professor emeritus of clinical medicine at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He said today: “Such unnecessary, dangerous, and costly procedures reflect an inherent tendency in for-profit medical systems…

  • The Coming Food Crisis and Global Unrest

    MICHAEL KLARE,

  • Sikh Temple Shooting: “Christian Terror”

    The Southern Poverty Law Center reports: Alleged Sikh temple shooter former member of Skinhead band. MARK JUERGENSMEYER, juergens at global.ucsb.edu, www.global.ucsb.edu/faculty/ juergensmeyer.html, www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-juergensmeyer Juergensmeyer is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include “Terror…

  • One Reason Behind India’s Blackout: World Bank Policies

    DAPHNE WYSHAM, via Lacy MacAuley, lacy at ips-dc.org, [email protected], www.ips-dc.org Wysham is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and is the founder and co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network. She grew up in India and was last there in December. She just wrote the piece One Reason Behind India’s Blackout: World…

  • Campaign Targets New NBC “War-o-tainment” Show

    RootsAction.org and Just Foreign Policy have launched a campaign targeting NBC’s new program, “Stars Earn Stripes,” a reality show co-hosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark and co-starring Todd Palin, which the network is advertising during the Olympics. DAVID SWANSON, david at davidswanson.org StarsEarnStripes.org David Swanson is a campaigner for RootsAction.org. He said today: “NBC…

  • Medicare Anniversary

    This weeks marks the 47th anniversary of Medicare. STEFFIE WOODHANDLER, swoolhandler at challiance.org also, via Mark Almberg, mark at pnhp.org, http://pnhp.org Woolhandler is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “We celebrate Medicare which, along with Social Security, has lifted millions of…

  • Romney Lauds Israeli Economy During Wave of Attempted Self-Immolations

    LIA TRACHANSKY, lia at therealnews.com, skype: lia-tarachansky, http://www.liatarachansky.com, http://www.therealnews.com Israel/Palestine correspondent for The Real News Network, Trachansky said today: “In his address to major donors such as Woody Johnson and Sheldon Adelson (one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s largest supporters), U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney misrepresented Israel’s economy and enraged Palestinian leaders by claiming that the fact…

  • Western Fires: “Perfect Storm” or New Norm?

    WILLIAM DEBUYS, wdebuys at earthlink.net Author of A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, deBuys recently wrote a piece titled “The Oxygen Planet Struts Its Stuff: Not a ‘Perfect Storm’ But the New Norm in the American West,” which states: “Dire fire conditions, like the inferno of heat, turbulence, and…

  • $21 Trillion the Wealthy are Hiding: The Shocking Facts — and the Great Opportunity

    ABC News is reporting: “The super-rich are hiding at least $21 trillion in accounts outside their home countries, according to a report by an activist group called the Tax Justice Network. The wealth hidden in these tax shelters is the equivalent of the United States and Japanese economies combined, according to the report, ‘The Price…

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