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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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  • Assange’s Asylum

    Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (top-secret government documents that showed a pattern of governmental deceit about the Vietnam War) today signed a petition calling on Ecuador to grant political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Ellsberg stated: “Political asylum was made for cases like this. Freedom for Julian in Ecuador would serve the…

  • Rise of the Egyptian Junta

    PHILIP RIZK, rizkphilip at googlemail.com, @tabulagaza Rizk is an independent blogger and filmmaker based in Cairo. He has been warning of the actions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces since the uprising last year. See Institute for Public Accuracy news release: “From Cairo: Egypt’s Military Leading the Counter-Revolution?” Also, see: “Egypt One Year…

  • Pakistani Court Dismisses Prime Minister

    Al Jazeera reports: “The decision comes two months after Gilani, the nation’s longest-running prime minister, was convicted of contempt for refusing to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. … The allegations against Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his late wife, former president Benazir Bhutto, are…

  • Protests at G20 Summit

    LACY MacAULEY, lacymacauley at gmail.com, @lacymacauley MacAuley is an Occupy D.C. activist currently at the People’s Summit in La Paz, Mexico. She said today: “La Paz is the closest that activists can get to the G20 Summit. The town of Cabo San Lucas is under heavy security. No one can travel to or from Cabo…

  • French and Greek Elections

    RICHARD WOLFF, rdwolff at att.net Wolff is author of the new book Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism. He is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and currently a visiting professor in the Graduate Program for International Affairs at the New School University in New York City. He said today: “Recent elections…

  • Egypt: Behind the Chaos

    The Guardian headlines their Mideast blog “Egypt’s Transition Plunged into Chaos.” The Wall Street Journal reports: “Egypt’s highest court ruled on Thursday to allow a former regime loyalist to run in presidential elections starting Saturday and to dissolve both houses of Egypt’s parliament, in verdicts that could add another pressure point to Egypt’s already fraught…

  • Will JPMorgan’s Dimon Get Serious Questions Today From Senate Banking Committee?

    Los Angeles Times reports: “The ‘King of Wall Street’ returns to Capitol Hill today, this time to explain how JPMorgan Chase & Co. sustained a $2-billion hole in its ‘fortress balance sheet.'” THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute,…

  • * Syria * Supreme Court and “Gutted Habeas Corpus”

    ELAINE HAGOPIAN, echagop at verizon.net Hagopian is a Syrian-American sociologist, a professor emeritus of sociology at Simmons College in Boston and political interviewer for Arabic Hour TV. She said today: “The situation in Syria has intensified. The regime is determined to defeat the militarized opposition and the fractured and incoherent militarized opposition, which is trying…

  • Middle Class Wealth Plummets

    The New York Times reports: “The recent financial crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than they had in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said Monday. The median family, richer than half of the nation’s families and poorer than the other half,…

  • U.S. Supporting Rwanda as it Destabilizes the Congo — Again

    BBC is reporting “The UN says it has evidence that a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being fueled by recruits and support from neighboring Rwanda.” Human Rights Watch reports that “Rwandan army officials have provided weapons, ammunition, and an estimated 200 to 300 recruits to support Ntaganda’s mutiny in Rutshuru territory, eastern…

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