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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  • Fannie Mae Bailout

    ROBERT POLLIN Pollin is the Political Economy Research Institute’s founding co-director and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Pollin recently wrote the piece “The Housing Bubble and Financial Deregulation: Isn’t Enough Enough?” which states: “The collapse at the end of 2007 of the U.S. housing bubble and the speculative market for…

  • Native American March on D.C.

    AP is reporting: “Some 500 American Indians are gathering near the White House to mark the end of a 8,300-mile walk across the nation. The trek from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., aims to bring attention to the impact of global warming on the environment. “Organizer Ricardo Tapia says the Longest Walk 2 also was…

  • Iran: Crucial Facts and Ignored Options

    WILLIAM BEEMAN Author of The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other Beeman said today: “You have the U.S. funding groups that are attacking Iran, most recently reported on by Sy Hersh, though we’ve known about it for a while; you have Israel conducting exercises that the…

  • War Powers

    Former Secretaries of State James Baker III and Warren Christopher have formed a commission on war powers and have published a piece in today’s New York Times. They are advocating replacing the 1973 War Powers Resolution. FRANCIS BOYLE Professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Boyle said today: “The President is already required…

  • Colombia: “July Surprise”?

    LARRY BIRNS ERINA UOZUMI Birns is director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Uozumi is a research associate at COHA and a Colombian national specializing in U.S.-Colombian relations. Birns said today: “While it was perfectly appropriate for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to act to free the hostages, we should not lose sight of the fact…

  • Was the Iraq Invasion for Oil After All?

    The New York Times reported Monday: “A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.” Columnist Bob Herbert writes today: “President Bush…

  • U.S.-Funded Attacks on Iran

    Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker reports: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in…

  • Washingtonians on Supreme Court Gun Law Decision

    ANISE JENKINS BILL MOSLEY Jenkins is president of the Stand Up! for Democracy in D.C. Coalition (Free D.C.); Mosley is a member of the group. Jenkins said today: “The Supreme Court has succeeded where members of Congress have failed. There have been several attempts by members of Congress to overturn D.C.’s gun law. That’s because…

  • Obama Bypassing Public Finance * Overview * Obama’s Finance Chair

    MASSIE RITSCH Ritsch is communication director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which operates the OpenSecrets.org web page featuring in-depth information on money in politics. He said today: “When Obama said over a year ago that he would aggressively pursue an agreement to take public financing, he probably didn’t think that he could raise nearly…

  • Big Oil Getting Iraq Oil Deals

    The lead story in the New York Times today is headlined “Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back.” It reports: “Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam…

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