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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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  • Gaza Siege Challenged by Sea

    Reuters reports today: “International activists departed from Cyprus by boat on Friday in an attempt to run an Israeli sea blockade on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza. The 44 activists sailed from the port of Larnaca in two wooden boats … Hailing from 14 countries, they said they expected to reach the shores of Gaza,…

  • Is Obama Clinton 2.0?

    KEVIN GRAY Gray is author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics and the forthcoming The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama. Gray said today: “Obama is slipping in the polls and I think it’s because he’s seen as going with the flow. He’s not taking on…

  • Assessing China and the Olympics

    JACQUES LESLIE Available for a very limited number of interviews, Leslie wrote the in-depth piece for Mother Jones, “The Last Empire: Can the World Survive China’s Rush to Emulate the American Way of Life?” Leslie’s latest book, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress…

  • The Marketing of Cervical Cancer Drug

    The New York Times reports today in an extensive article titled “Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Fast Rise” that “the lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection in the United States and Europe represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education and their critics call marketing. The vaccines, which offer…

  • Why Not Rate Candidates Like in the Olympics?

    WILLIAM POUNDSTONE A best-selling author, Poundstone has written the new book Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It). He said today: “In the Olympics, we recognize that it’s possible for two competitors to both be ‘perfect 10s.’ A judge who feels that way can give both athletes the…

  • Paraguay: * Liberation Theology * End of an Era in Latin America?

    Fernando Lugo, a former bishop, was recently inaugurated as the president of Paraguay. The British Guardian today published a piece headlined: “Paraguay: Former slave gets cabinet position.” BLASE BONPANE Director of the Office of the Americas, Bonpane served as a Maryknoll priest in Guatemala and has written five books including Guerrillas of Peace: Liberation Theology…

  • Presidential Policies and Morality

    KATHY KELLY DAN PEARSON Kelly and Pearson are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which is organizing the Witness Against War 2008, a 450-mile walk from Chicago to St. Paul “to challenge and nonviolently resist our country’s continuing war in and occupation of Iraq.” Kelly said today: “Our journey began in the City of Chicago,…

  • * Pakistan * Caucasus

    The Washington Post is reporting: “Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, once a top U.S. ally, is expected to resign in the next few days, according to Pakistani officials.” ALI AHSAN Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in Pakistan, was the first person jailed when Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3,…

  • * “The Long War” * Russia and Expanding NATO

    ANDREW BACEVICH Professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Bacevich is author of the just-released The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. He also just wrote the piece “Is Perpetual War Our Future? Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Bush Era” and will be the guest for a full hour on…

  • Bush Policy on Russia and Georgia

    The New York Times reports today: “The United States took a series of steps that emboldened Georgia: sending advisers to build up the Georgian military, including an exercise last month with more than 1,000 American troops; pressing hard to bring Georgia into the NATO orbit…” Neither President Bush this morning nor Secretary of State Rice…

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