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  • 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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  • Penn State: “The Larger Scandal”

    HENRY GIROUX, henry.giroux at gmail.com Giroux’s books include Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? and The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex. He said today: “The Freeh Report makes clear that there was a concerted attempt to cover up the acts of a serial predator while wilfully disregarding the welfare of the…

  • Obama and Romney Both Backing Secret Job-Killing Deal?

    As the campaigns of President Obama and Mitt Romney trade attacks while claiming each is a friend to workers, a secretive trade deal of the type backed by both campaigns is emerging in international talks. Romney claims he is representing “job creators” whose dealings will benefit society as a whole while Obama claims that his…

  • Climate: Record Heat, Policy Adrift

    ANNE PETERMANN, anne at globaljusticeecology.org Petermann is executive director of the Global Justice Ecology Project and coordinator of the STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign. She said today: “The first six months of 2012 were the hottest ever recorded. Thousands of weather records were broken — with nearly 4,000 in June alone. “These impacts have long…

  • LIBOR Scandal: The Conundrum of Bank Regulators

    STEPHANY GRIFFITH JONES, sgj2108 at columbia.edu, Stephany Griffith Jones is Financial Markets Program Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. With José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph E. Stiglitz she co-edited Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 World Financial Crisis. She was recently featured on the IPA news release “Barclays…

  • “Is Union Busting to Blame for Power Outages?”

    MIKE ELK, mike at inthesetimes.com, @mikeelk A reporter for In These Times magazine, Elk recently wrote the piece, “Is Union Busting to Blame for Power Outages in D.C.?,” which states: “International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1900 members claim the failure to restore power outages is due to chronic understaffing and Pepco’s shift from…

  • How to Get Better Jobs Numbers

    NOEL ORTEGA, noel at ips-dc.org Coordinator of the New Economy Working Group, Ortega is a contributor to the report “JOBS: A Main Street Fix for Wall Street’s Failure,” which states: “The current U.S. jobs debate is largely limited to arguing the relative merits of stimulating the economy by increasing government spending or by granting more…

  • Dirty Tricks Cloud Mexico’s Elections

    While some media outlets are claiming that Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto has been confirmed the winner of the Mexican election, experts on the ground note that this betrays a lack of appreciation for the rules in Mexican elections. For example, a Reuters headline reads “Final Mexican Results Confirming Pena Nieto Win” and…

  • Fukushima Disaster “Man-Made” — Has the Nuclear Industry Captured the Regulators?

    Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting: “The Fukushima nuclear disaster was the result of ‘man-made’ failures before and after last year’s earthquake, according to a report from an independent parliamentary investigation.” ARNIE GUNDERSEN, arnie at fairewinds.org Gundersen is a former nuclear industry insider and now an independent consultant, chief engineer with Fairewinds Consulting. He said today: “I…

  • Extreme Weather and Global Warming: “Media Miss the Forest for the Burning Trees”

    NEIL deMAUSE, neil at demause.net, @neildemause Neil deMause is a Brooklyn-based journalist who has written extensively about climate change coverage for FAIR’s magazine Extra! — including the article “The Fires This Time: In coverage of extreme weather, media downplay climate change.” He said today: “Despite overwhelming evidence that climate change is causing dramatic changes in…

  • Barclays Scandal Highlights Need to “Clean the Cesspit”

    STEPHANY GRIFFITH JONES, sgj2108 at columbia.edu Stephany Griffith Jones is Financial Markets Program Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. With José Antonio Ocampo, and Joseph E. Stiglitz she co-edited Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 World Financial Crisis. Available for a limited number of interviews, she said today:…

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