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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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  • Social Security: Beyond the Doom-and-Gloom

    MAX RICHTMAN, PAMELA TAINTER CAUSEY, causeyp at ncpssm.org Richtman is executive vice president/acting CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security; Causey is communications director for the group. He said today: “It’s important that Americans understand the [just-released] 2011 Trustees Report confirms that Social Security and Medicare continue to fulfill their mission, providing retirement…

  • Dangers of — and Subsidies to — U.S. Nuclear Industry

    The Boston Globe reports today: “Nuclear plant emergency generators like those that failed in Japan following the March earthquake and tsunami also failed during tests at the Seabrook Station in New Hampshire and 32 other U.S. plants in the past eight years, according to a report by U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey’s office.” HARVEY WASSERMAN,…

  • Beyond bin Laden Killing: Drone Strikes the “New Norm”

    Reuters is reporting this morning: “A U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles at militants in Pakistan on Thursday, killing eight of them, Pakistani officials said, the third such attack since U.S. forces found and killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout.” KATHY KELLY, kathy  at vcnv.org Kelly is with Voices for Creative Nonviolence and was…

  • Immigration: “U.S. Drug Demand Destabilizes Mexico”

    JOHN GIBLER, john.gibler at gmail.com Author of the forthcoming book To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War as well as Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, Gibler said today: “Immigration from Mexico to the U.S. is largely the result of failed policies by the U.S. and Mexican governments. These include trade…

  • “Major Corporations Are Threatening Us”

    RICHARD WOLFF, [in NYC] rdwolff at att.net, rdwolff.com Wolff just wrote the piece “The Threats of Business and the Business of Threats,” which states: “More and more we hear that nothing can be done to tax major corporations because of the threat of how they would respond. Likewise, we cannot stop their price gouging or…

  • Repression in Honduras “Worse than After Coup”

    Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras reports a dramatic increase in the ongoing violent repression of human rights in Honduras. This includes government attacks against protests at a “Honduras is Open for Business” conference this weekend, which attracted Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico, among others. DANA FRANK, dlfrank at…

  • U.S. Drone Strikes Kill in Pakistan and Yemen

    Voice of America is reporting: “Pakistani intelligence officials say a U.S. missile attack close to the Afghan border has killed at least 15 people.” Other media are reporting that a U.S. drone strike has killed individuals in Yemen. David Dayen writes: “Trifling about legality of raids on bin Laden when the U.S. routinely carries out…

  • Bahrain-Saudi Crackdown Targets Doctors; Demonizing Iran

    RICHARD SOLLOM, via Megan Prock, mprock at phrusa.org, bahrain.phrblog.org Sollom is deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights and was recently in Bahrain, which was invaded by Saudi Arabia on March 14 to help the monarchy put down protesters. Sollom is co-author of the new report, “Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End…

  • Release bin Laden Photo? “Instead Release Afghanistan and Iraq”

    The Washington Post is reporting: “The Obama administration is seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. officials involved in war policy.” SONALI KOLHATKAR, sonali at afghanwomensmission.org Kolhatkar is co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords,…

  • Views of Pakistanis

    Politico reports: “The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces. “Officials also retreated from claims that…

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