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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  • Focus on Whistleblowers

    MARSHA COLEMAN-ADEBAYO Coleman-Adebayo is president of the No Fear Institute, which is organizing Whistleblower Week in Washington next week. A conference there will seek “to protect individuals’ civil rights and justice as well as the rights of truth tellers who report hazardous, illegal and unsafe conditions, and waste, fraud and abuses of authority in government…

  • “The Truth About Veteran Suicides”

    The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday at 10 a.m., “The Truth About Veteran Suicides.” It will be webcast on their website. Among those testifying is Steve Rathbun from the University of Georgia, who has been cited in a CBS News investigation on veteran suicides: “In 2005 … in just those 45…

  • Gas Prices

    JOAN CLAYBROOK TYSON SLOCUM Claybrook is president of Public Citizen. Slocum is director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. Claybrook said today: “Oil executives and speculators are getting rich on the backs of American consumers. Indeed, on average, it costs a company such as Exxon Mobil about $20 to extract a barrel of oil, which in…

  • McCain Health Plan

    The following physicians — members of Physicians for a National Health Program — are each available for a limited number of interviews. AARON CARROLL, MD Carroll is assistant professor of pediatrics and director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research and the Indiana University School of Medicine. ROCKY WHITE, MD White, who comes…

  • Escalation of U.S. Air War

    In a front-page piece headlined “U.S. Role Deepens in Sadr City,” the Washington Post reports today: “In the Sadr City clash, the U.S. soldiers responded by firing rockets armed with high-explosive, 200-pound warheads, killing 28 fighters, [Lt. Col. Steve] Stover said. In a separate incident in Sadr City, a fixed-wing aircraft dropped a bomb at…

  • Aftermath of Supreme Court Voter ID Decision

    JUSTIN LEVITT WENDY WEISER Levitt is counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice and author of the paper “The Truth About Voter Fraud.” Weiser is deputy director of the Center’s Democracy Program. Following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision Monday on the Indiana voter ID law, the Center issued a statement: “Under Indiana’s law, voters must…

  • Rev. Wright: Dialogue Beyond the Sound Bites

    Rev. JOHN DECKENBACK Rev. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER Deckenback is conference minister for The United Church of Christ (the same denomination as Rev. Jeremiah Wright). Hagler is national president of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice of The United Church of Christ and senior minister of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington,…

  • Police Brutality and Racism

    AP reports: “Three detectives were acquitted of all charges Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put the NYPD at the center of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.” DE LACY DAVIS The founder and president of Black Cops Against Police Brutality and a retired…

  • Food Crisis and Biofuels

    The Washington Post reports on its front page today: “More than 100 million people are being driven deeper into poverty by a ‘silent tsunami’ of sharply rising food prices, which have sparked riots around the world and threaten U.N.-backed feeding programs for 20 million children, the top U.N. food official said Tuesday.” MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA…

  • Fallout from New York Times “Pentagon Pundits” Story

    The recent New York Times front-page article “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” discloses Pentagon records which “reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated. “Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts [on TV] as ‘message force multipliers’ or ‘surrogates’ who could be counted on…

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