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  • 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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  • U.S.-Mexican Border: A New Front of the War on Terror?

    TODD MILLER, toddmiller70 at hotmail.com Todd Miller has researched and written about U.S.-Mexican border issues for more than 10 years. He just wrote the article, “Bringing the Battlefield to the Border, The Wild World of Border Security and Boundary Building in Arizona,” which states: “William ‘Drew’ Dodds, the salesperson for StrongWatch, a Tucson-based company, is…

  • * Escalating Drone Strikes in Pakistan * State of Libya

    JUNAID AHMAD, junaid.ahmad at lums.edu.pk Ahmad is assistant professor of law at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan and is currently visiting the U.S. He said today: “The United States launched new drone strikes on Pakistan over the weekend, causing at least a dozen deaths in the tribal area of South Waziristan. “The attack…

  • Journalist Questioning Honeywell CEO Stifled, Police Investigating Incident

    A reporter for In These Times magazine, Mike Elk said today: “On Friday President Obama appeared with Honeywell CEO David Cote at Honeywell’s Minneapolis facility for an event on the economy. While Cote claims Honeywell’s profitability is due to innovation, much of it actually rests on union busting that risks the safety of the public.…

  • Roots of the Rise of Fundamentalist Islam: The 1967 War

    Naseer Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the books Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine and Obstruction of Peace. He also contributed to the anthology The June 1967 War, which took place 45 years ago. He said today: “The 1967…

  • * Syria * Ireland Referendum * Charles Taylor Conviction

    CHARLES GLASS, [in London, 5 hours ahead of U.S. ET] charlesmglassmail2003 at yahoo.com A noted journalist, Glass was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent and just wrote the piece “Syria: The Citadel & the War” for the New York Review of Books. Yesterday, he was featured on Democracy Now. IARA LEE, iaralee at culturesofresistance.org A…

  • Assange and the “War on Whistleblowers”

    COLEEN ROWLEY, rowleyclan at earthlink.net Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. She was featured on an IPA news release yesterday titled “Obama’s Priestly Assassinations” about the administration’s “secret kill…

  • Radioactive Tuna in U.S. from Fukushima * “Meltdown at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”

    ROBERT ALVAREZ, kitbob at starpower.net AP is reporting: “Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.”

  • President Obama’s Priestly Assassinations

    A New York Times investigative piece “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will” reports today: “Beside the president at every step is his counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, who is variously compared by colleagues to a dogged police detective, tracking terrorists from his cavelike office in the White House basement, or…

  • “Bain Actually Loves Dems”

    DOUG HENWOOD, dhenwood at panix.com Editor of Left Business Observer and author of the book Wall Street, Henwood just wrote the brief piece “Bain Actually Loves Dems,” which states: “All good Democrats are busily hating on Bain Capital right now. What they’re forgetting is how many Bain-affiliated political contributions have gone to Democrats.

  • * U.S. “Hard Line” on Iran * Egyptian Election

    GARETH PORTER, porter.gareth50 at gmail.com Porter is an investigative journalist and historian specializing in U.S. national security policy. He has been writing extensively about the Iranian nuclear talks, including the new piece “U.S. Hard Line in Failed Iran Talks Driven by Israel,” which states: “Negotiations between Iran and the United States and other members of…

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