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…

    Read more »


  • “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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • “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…

    Read more »


  • 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,…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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:…

    Read more »


  • 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]

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • Social Security “Facts”

    Last week in an address to the Hoover Institution Rep. Eric Cantor said, “We’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that these programs (Social Security and Medicare) cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.” NANCY ALTMAN Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security…

  • Jobs Numbers, Cheered in Washington, “Reveal Weak Roots of Recovery”

    MARK BRENNER Brenner, labor economist and director of Labor Notes, said today: “Today’s better-than-expected jobs numbers are being trumpeted by the Obama administration and other beltway insiders, anxious for signs that the Great Recession is over and recovery underway. But examining the 230,000 new private sector jobs created last month offers less reason to cheer…

  • “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal”

    PEPE ESCOBAR, [in Brazil] Skype: pepeasia Escobar just wrote the piece “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal,” which states: “You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations…

  • As Japan Disaster Spreads, Threatening U.S., Obama Embraces Nuclear Power

    ARJUN MAKHIJANI Available for a limited number of interviews, Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which has released a series of papers on the Japan nuclear disaster. The most recent is titled “Radioactive Iodine Releases from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Reactors May Exceed Those of Three Mile Island by Over 100,000…

  • Libya: * Who Are the Rebels? * WikiLeaks

    VIJAY PRASHAD Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Prashad said today: “We should be very careful when we think of the rebels. We should not confuse all the rebellions across the Arab world and consider them all to be the same. There are some important differences. Also, the United…

  • Libya: “Hidden Agendas” and “Vital Interests”

    JAN OBERG, Skype: janoberg Secretary of State Clinton is in London today at a conference with other governments participating in the bombing of Libya, including those of Britain, France and Qatar. Based in Sweden, Oberg, who is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, recently wrote the piece “Libya: Contradictions, Foolish Assumptions…

  • Bahrain Repression: Saudi Troops, U.S. Arms, Al-Jazeera Silence

    A source in Bahrain who wishes to remain anonymous for their personal safety told the Institute of Public Accuracy this afternoon: “The regime has just arrested Lin Noueihed of Reuters and some other reporters. [Noueihed’s last piece] “Other countries are getting rid of their emergency laws, while Bahrain is imposing a new martial law. Things…

  • AFRICOM as Libya Bombing Motive

    HORACE CAMPBELL Campbell is professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University and is currently working on a book on AFRICOM (United States Africa Command). He said today: “U.S. involvement in the Libyan bombing is being turned into a public relations ploy for AFRICOM. AFRICOM is fundamentally a front for U.S. military…

  • Chernobyl Experts: Fukushima Could be Worse

    Several experts on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (which took place 25 years ago on April 26) are in the U.S. and currently available for a limited number of interviews. ALEXEY V. YABLOKOV, JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD Yablokov is senior co-author and Sherman is consulting editor of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the…

  • Japan Parliamentarians: Expand Evacuation Zone

    In the first of a three-day sign-on, ten members of the Japanese Diet signed a petition seeking that the Japanese government: 1. “Evacuate pregnant mothers and pre-school age children from within the 30 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 2. “Drastically increase the general public evacuation zone beyond the 20 km radius.”…

Mastodon