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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  • South Carolina, MLK, Black America’s Invisibility

    KEVIN GRAY, kevinagray57 at gmail.com Based in South Carolina, Gray is an activist and author of “The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama.” Gray said today: “There has been an incredible silence about the state of black people in America, just as there had been an incredible silence on economic disparities.…

  • “Show Trial”: Military Refers All Charges Against Bradley Manning to Court Martial

    AP reports: “An Army officer recommended a general court-martial Thursday for a low-ranking intelligence analyst charged with causing the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Lt. Col. Paul Almanza’s recommendation to try Pfc. Bradley Manning on all 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, now goes up the chain of command for a final…

  • Target Iran: Will Assassinations Lead to Overt War?

    “The latest assassination is part of the covert war that the U.S. and Israel have been waging on Iran for quite some time. The covert war may eventually lead to an overt war, because state-sponsored assassinations of Iranian scientists may provoke Iran to retaliate, which will spark a war that, if started, may engulf the…

  • Ten Years of Guantanamo, Threat of More Indefinite Detentions

    A host of human rights and other groups today are forming a human chain from the White House to the Capitol Building marking ten years of detentions at Guantanamo. ANDY WORTHINGTON, currently in D.C.: andy at andyworthington.co.uk Available for a limited number of interviews, Worthington is one of the founders of the just-launched webpage http://www.closeguantanamo.org…

  • Two Years after Haiti Earthquake: UN Cholera Epidemic Rages as Situation in Camps Deteriorates

    “Decisions made in the earliest days of the recovery haunt Haiti’s internally displaced to this day. Fundamental and internationally accepted minimum standards for disaster victims were never adhered to, and now two years after the quake the humanitarian community has spent billions of dollars without meeting some of the most critical goals they set. Despite…

  • Hot Spots: Strait of Hormuz, South China Sea and Caspian Basin

    MICHAEL KLARE, mklare at hampshire.edu Klare is author of the forthcoming book The Race for What’s Left and just wrote the piece “Danger Waters: The Three Top Hot Spots of Potential Conflict in the Geo-Energy Era,” which states: “Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy ‘chokepoint’ could set a region…

  • Crude Tragedy: Nigeria Repression and Austerity Lead to General Strike

    BBC reports: “A general strike in Nigeria over the elimination of a fuel subsidy has brought the country to a standstill. Shops, offices, schools and petrol stations around the country closed on the first day of an indefinite strike. “In Lagos and other cities, thousands marched against the removal of the subsidy, which has doubled…

  • Money in Politics: Citizens United Setback in Montana; Gingrich Hoisted on Own Petard

    Truth-out reports: “In a rebuke to the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Montana has held that Citizens United does not apply to Montana campaign finance law. “Last Friday, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a 1912 voter initiative – the Corrupt Practices Act – that prohibits corporations from making contributions…

  • Is the Military Budget Really Being Cut?

    CATHERINE LUTZ, Catherine_Lutz at brown.edu Editor of the book “The Bases of Empire: The Struggle Against U.S. Military Posts,” Lutz said today: “Despite alarms sent up by politicians looking only at Pentagon press releases or their military industry backers’ interests, the new proposal for Department of Defense base budget reductions over the next five years…

  • Romney, Santorum and Separation of Church and State

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