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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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  • Yemen: “Crafted Chaos”

    The Christian Science Monitor is reporting: “Yemen slipped closer to a full-blown civil war today as opposition tribesmen attacked the compound of President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the first time. While the president appears to have narrowly escaped serious injury, the escalating fighting represents an unprecedented challenge to his 32-year rule.” ABDUL GHANI AL-ERYANI, agiryani…

  • Left-Right Alliance Against Libya War

    The Wall Street Journal reports: “House Republican leaders on Wednesday abruptly canceled a vote on a resolution forcing U.S. withdrawal from Libya amid signs an … alliance of liberals and conservatives could approve the measure, indicating Congress’s growing dissatisfaction with the extent of U.S. military operations overseas. “The House had been scheduled to vote on…

  • OAS Voting on Honduras, But There’s “Neither Reconciliation nor Democracy”

    ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net Senior associate for international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “Following the June 2009 coup d’etat that forcibly removed President Zelaya from power, Honduras’ participation in the OAS was suspended by unanimous decision of the 33 member states. Today, nearly two years later, there appears to…

  • Germans Abandoning Nuclear Energy

    AP reports: “Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany, announced plans Monday to abandon nuclear energy over the next 11 years, outlining an ambitious strategy in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources.”

  • Egyptian Military Courts and IMF

    Today, online Egyptian media are reporting the noted blogger Hossam El-Hamalawy and TV presenter Reem Maged were scheduled to be questioned by the military prosecution for criticizing Egypt’s ruling military on air; but following an outcry, the military only asked them “to provide evidence of alleged military police violations,” AhramOnline reports. El-Hamalawy has tweeted that…

  • Ousted Honduran President to Return Tomorrow

    “President Zelaya’s return offers a brief glimmer of hope, but the ongoing repression by current President Porfirio Lobo’s military regime — now even worse than immediately after the coup — remains undiminished, as state security forces now routinely use tear gas canisters as lethal weapons, and teachers, trade unionists and campesinos in the opposition are…

  • Tornadoes, Global Warming and Causes of “Generation Hot”

    MARK HERTSGAARD, mark at markhertsgaard.com “I’m glad the New York Times has started covering what cutting-edge local leaders are doing to adapt to climate disruption,” says Hertsgaard, who has reported on climate change for two decades for outlets including Vanity Fair, The Nation and NPR and recently published the first popular book on climate adaptation, HOT:…

  • G8, European Austerity and Protests

    MARK WEISBROT, via Dan Beeton, beeton at cepr.net, Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot said today: “While it’s clear that the G8 is able to unite quickly to keep a European as head of the IMF, they have been slow to come up with any feasible solution to the crisis in…

  • Netanyahu’s Speech Disrupted, Activist Hospitalized

    Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American activist of Israeli descent with the peace group CodePink, disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s congressional address yesterday, Democracy Now! reports. … According to Democracy Now!, as Abileah rose up, members of the audience tackled her to the ground and people in the hall cheered, drowning her out. She was escorted…

  • Obama “Will Not Relent” on Libya; Where’s Congress?

    Fox News is reporting: “President Obama warned Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi that the NATO military campaign against his regime ‘will not relent,’ as both he and British Prime Minister David Cameron reaffirmed their commitment to the mission and called on Qaddafi to leave power.” Politico reports: “Obama administration belatedly threatens veto of detainee, war legislation.”

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